Torrance is a coastal city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay region of the metropolitan area. A small section of the city, 1.5 miles (2.4 km), abuts the Pacific Ocean. Torrance has a moderate year-round climate with average rainfall of 12 inches (300 mm) per year. Torrance was incorporated in 1921, and at the 2020 census had a population of 147,067 residents. Torrance has a beachfront and has 30 parks located around the city. It is also the birthplace of the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO).
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.
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 Mount Lowe Railway was the third in a series of scenic mountain railroads in the United States created as a tourist attraction on Echo Mountain and Mount Lowe, north of Los Angeles, California. The railway, originally incorporated by Thaddeus S. C. Lowe as the Pasadena and Mt. Wilson Railroad Co., existed from 1893 until its official abandonment in 1938, and was the only scenic mountain, electric traction railroad ever built in the United States. Lowe's partner and engineer was David J. Macpherson, a civil engineer graduate of Cornell University. The Mount Lowe Railway was a fulfillment of 19th century Pasadenans' desire to have a scenic mountain railroad to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains.
The Niles Canyon Railway (NCRy) is a heritage railway running on the first transcontinental railroad alignment through Niles Canyon, between Sunol and the Niles district of Fremont in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States. The railway is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Niles Canyon Transcontinental Railroad Historic District. The railroad is operated and maintained by the Pacific Locomotive Association which preserves, restores and operates historic railroad equipment. The NCRy features public excursions with both steam and diesel locomotives along a well-preserved portion of the first transcontinental railroad.
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 East Bay Electric Lines were a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad that operated electric interurban-type trains in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Beginning in 1862, the SP and its predecessors operated local steam-drawn ferry-train passenger service in the East Bay on an expanding system of lines, but in 1902 the Key System started a competing system of electric lines and ferries. The SP then drew up plans to expand and electrify its system of lines and this new service began in 1911. The trains served the cities of Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville, Oakland, Alameda, and San Leandro transporting commuters to and from the large Oakland Pier and SP Alameda Pier. A fleet of ferry boats ran between these piers and the docks of the Ferry Building on the San Francisco Embarcadero.
The Sacramento Northern Railway was a 183-mile (295 km) electric interurban railway that connected Chico in northern California with Oakland via the state capital, Sacramento. In its operation it ran directly on the streets of Oakland, Sacramento, Yuba City, Chico, and Woodland. This involved multiple car trains making sharp turns at street corners and obeying traffic signals. Once in open country, SN's passenger trains ran at fairly fast speeds. With its shorter route and lower fares, the SN provided strong competition to the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific Railroad for passenger business and freight business between those two cities. North of Sacramento, both passenger and freight business was less due to the small town agricultural nature of the region and due to competition from the paralleling Southern Pacific Railroad.
Santa Fe Depot is a union station in San Diego, California, built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to replace the small Victorian-style structure erected in 1887 for the California Southern Railroad Company. The Spanish Colonial Revival style station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a San Diego Historic Landmark. Its architecture, particularly the signature twin domes, is often echoed in the design of modern buildings in downtown San Diego.
The California Southern Railroad was a subsidiary railroad of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in Southern California. It was organized July 10, 1880, and chartered on October 23, 1880, to build a rail connection between what has become the city of Barstow and San Diego, California.
The Fullerton Transportation Center is a transit center located in Fullerton, California, United States. It is served by Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner and Southwest Chief trains, as well as Metrolink's 91/Perris Valley Line and Orange County Line trains. It is also a major bus depot for the OC Bus system, and is one of the major transportation hubs of Orange County.
Martinez station is an Amtrak passenger train station in Martinez, California, United States. Located at the west end of downtown Martinez, the station has one side platform and one island platform, which serve three of the four tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad Martinez Subdivision. It is served by the daily California Zephyr and Coast Starlight long-distance trains, five daily round trips of the San Joaquin corridor service, and fifteen daily round trips of the Capitol Corridor service. Martinez is also served by Amtrak Thruway buses plus County Connection, Tri-Delta Transit, and WestCAT local buses.
The San Bernardino Santa Fe Depot is a Mission Revival Style passenger rail terminal in San Bernardino, California, United States. It has been the primary station for the city, serving Amtrak today, and the Santa Fe and Union Pacific Railroads in the past. Until the mid-20th century, the Southern Pacific Railroad had a station 3/4 of a mile away. It currently serves one Amtrak and two Metrolink lines. The depot is a historical landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Passenger and Freight Depot.
The Santa Monica Air Line was an interurban railroad operated by the Pacific Electric between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles. Electric passenger service operated over the line between 1908 and 1953. After abandonment as a freight railroad, most of the route was converted to light rail for use by the Metro E Line.
The Simpson Investment Company is a privately held holding company based in Seattle, Washington in the US Pacific Northwest that specializes in manufacture of forest products. Founded as a logging company in 1890 by Sol Simpson, the company is now owned by the Reed family.
The West Santa Ana Branch is a rail right of way formerly used by the Pacific Electric's (PE) Santa Ana route in Los Angeles County and Orange County in Southern California. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) owns the segment of the right-of-way in Los Angeles County, and the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) owns the segment in Orange County.
San Pedro via Gardena was an interurban line of the Pacific Electric Railway. This was the railway's original route to San Pedro. The line was essential in the establishment of light industry in Torrance. The route closely paralleled the present-day Harbor Transitway.
The Long Beach Line was a major interurban railway operated by the Pacific Electric Railway between Los Angeles and Long Beach, California via Florence, Watts, and Compton. Service began in 1902 and lasted until 1961, the last line of the system to be replaced by buses.
The Sierra Vista Line was a streetcar route mostly operated by the Pacific Electric Railway. It ran from 1895 to 1951 as the short turn making local stops along the Pasadena Short Line on the outside tracks of the Northern Division quadruple-track system.
The Long Wharf in Santa Monica, also known as Port Los Angeles or the Mile Long Pier, was an extensive pier wharf constructed by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company in Santa Monica Bay from 1892 to 1894. When it opened in 1894, it was the longest wharf in the world, measuring approximately 4,700 feet (1,400 m). It served as a cargo and passenger port until 1913, and in 1919 removal of the wharf started. The wharf, the 1,000 foot (300 m) tip of the pier, was removed by 1915. The remaining 3,600 feet (1,100 m) of pier was used as a run down fishing pier until 1933, when the remainder of the pier was removed. One of the major imports to the wharf was lumber from Northern ports, to help in the construction boom in Southern California. Southern Pacific Railroad and the street cars of the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad served the wharf. Los Angeles Pacific Railroad ran passenger trams to the wharf and from midnight to sunrise ran cargo cars.
