The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.
North Hollywood, in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California, is an eclectic neighborhood with modest residential blocks and the NoHo Arts District. Arts in NoHo include the El Portal Theatre as well as many new playhouses, art galleries, sound studios, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. North Hollywood is one of the few subway-accessible neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
The Key System was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over 66 miles (106 km) of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System's territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service.
The B Line is a 16.4 mi (26.4 km) rapid transit route operating in Los Angeles, running between Downtown Los Angeles and North Hollywood. It is one of six lines on the Metro Rail system, operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The historic Pacific Electric Building, opened in 1905 in the core of Los Angeles as the main train station for the Pacific Electric Railway, as well as the company's headquarters; Main Street Station served passengers boarding trains for the south and east of Southern California. The building was designed by architect Thornton Fitzhugh. Though not the tallest in Los Angeles, its ten floors enclosed the greatest number of square feet in any building west of Chicago for many decades. Above the train station, covering the lower floors, were five floors of offices; and in the top three was the Jonathan Club, one of the city's leading businessmen's clubs introduced by magnates from the Northeast. After the “Great Merger” of Pacific Electric into Southern Pacific Railroad in 1911, the PE Building became the home of Southern Pacific in Los Angeles. In 1925, a second electric rail hub, the Subway Terminal, was opened near Pershing Square to serve the north and west.
The Los Angeles Railway was a system of streetcars that operated in Central Los Angeles and surrounding neighborhoods between 1895 and 1963. The system provided frequent local services which complemented the Pacific Electric "Red Car" system's largely commuter-based interurban routes. The company carried many more passengers than the Red Cars, which served a larger and sparser area of Los Angeles.
Westlake/MacArthur Park station is an underground rapid transit station on the B Line and D Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. The station is located near the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westlake, after which the station is named, along with MacArthur Park, which is located across the street. Unlike most of Metro's other underground stations, which are built directly under a street, the Westlake/MacArthur Park platform is actually located south of Wilshire Boulevard and between 7th Street. This design allowed a train storage area to be built under MacArthur Park, but necessitated draining the lake for several years to excavate build the tracks.
The historic Subway Terminal, now Metro 417, opened in 1925 at 417 South Hill Street near Pershing Square, in the core of Los Angeles as the second, main train station of the Pacific Electric Railway; it served passengers boarding trains for the west and north of Southern California through a mile-long shortcut under Bunker Hill popularly called the "Hollywood Subway," but officially known as the Belmont Tunnel. The station served alongside the Pacific Electric Building at 6th & Main, which opened in 1905 to serve lines to the south and east. The Subway Terminal was designed by Schultze and Weaver in an Italian Renaissance Revival style, and the station itself lay underground below offices of the upper floors, since repurposed into the Metro 417 luxury apartments. When the underground Red Line was built, the new Pershing Square station was cut north under Hill Street alongside the Terminal building, divided from the Subway’s east end by just a retaining wall. At its peak in the 20th century, the Subway Terminal served upwards of 20 million passengers a year.
Glendale–Burbank is a defunct Pacific Electric railway line that was operational from 1902 to 1955 in Southern California, running from Downtown Los Angeles to Burbank via Glendale. Short lines terminated Downtown and in North Glendale, including the popular Edendale Local.
The Santa Monica Air Line was an interurban railroad operated by the Pacific Electric between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles. It operated between 1909 and 1953. Most of the route is now used by the Metro E Line.
The South Hollywood–Sherman Line was a suburban route of the Pacific Electric Railway. The line ran between Downtown Los Angeles and the suburb of Sherman. The line was named after Moses Sherman, who built the line and the Sherman street car yard on the line in West LA. The large 5.56-acre (2.25 ha) rail facility was on Santa Monica Boulevard just west of La Cienega Boulevard. The yard had a steam power house, a car barn and a shop building.
The Hollywood Line was a local streetcar line of the Pacific Electric Railway. It primarily operated between Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood, with some trips as far away as Beverly Hills and West Los Angeles. It was the company's busiest route prior to the opening of the Hollywood Subway. Designated as route 32, the line operated from 1909 until 1953.
The Northbrae Tunnel, also referred to as the Solano Avenue Tunnel, was built as a commuter electric railroad tunnel in the northern part of Berkeley, California, and was later converted to street use.
The Venice Short Line was a Pacific Electric interurban railway line in Los Angeles which traveled from downtown Los Angeles to Venice, Ocean Park, and Santa Monica via Venice Boulevard.
The Los Angeles Pacific Railroad (1896−1911) (LAP) was an electric public transit and freight railway system in Los Angeles County, California. At its peak it had 230 miles (370 km) of track extending from Downtown Los Angeles to the Westside, Santa Monica, and the South Bay towns along Santa Monica Bay.
Central Station was the Southern Pacific Railroad's main passenger terminal in Los Angeles, California. It was formerly on Central Avenue at Fifth Street, in eastern Downtown Los Angeles. The primary hub for Southern Pacific's passenger operations in Southern California, it was served by the Sunset Limited, Coast Daylight, Golden State, and other named trains. The station replaced the company's previous Los Angeles terminal: Arcade Depot, and was often referred to by the name of the older facility.
Eli P. Clark (1847–1931) was a pioneer railway builder of Southern California and a leader in the civic, philanthropic and social activities of Los Angeles.
