All posts tagged: Pacific Electric

Submission – Fantasy Map: Pacific Electric, Modern Day by Julian

November 9, 2018
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Submitted by Julian, who says: Although Los Angeles’ Pacific Electric interurban system fell victim to the postwar wave of urban railway closures, systems in other cities were preserved on account of their grade-separated infrastructure. In San Francisco in particular, the only streetcar lines that were preserved were the 5 that were segregated from traffic for part of their length. Since certain segments of the Pacific Electric system were not only segregated from traffic but 4-tracked […]

Historical Map: Pacific Electric Railway System in Southern California, c. 1926 by Jake Berman

September 5, 2018
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I’m really enjoying this modern take on a map of the Pacific Electric’s sprawling electric streetcar network by Jake Berman. Obviously based on the period map shown (or an extremely similar one!), it retains a lot of the visual energy of the original – mainly because of the multiple angles used for both the route lines and labels. Normally, this might be something I’d find fault with, but I think it’s totally appropriate here when […]

Interactive Map: Archaeology of the Pacific Electric, Los Angeles by The Militant Angeleno

November 10, 2015
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Here’s an absolutely superb piece of interactive mapping that overlays the routes of the Pacific Electric streetcar system (the “Red Cars”) onto a modern Google aerial map of the greater Los Angeles area. That’s interesting enough by itself, but this map goes further, and pinpoints the still-extant remnants of this once-great network – stations, uncovered sections of old track, power substations, railway bridges and more – and has photographs from many of these locations. It’s wonderfully […]

Historical Map: Comprehensive Rapid Transit Plan for the City and County of Los Angeles, 1925

April 18, 2014
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This is one of the earliest plans commissioned by the City and County of Los Angeles. The consultants – Kelker, De Leuw and Co. of Chicago – were asked to create a plan to accommodate a future city population of three million. Metro’s own history archive has this to say about the project: The plan shows a number of proposed immediate and future subways: one across Hollywood to La Brea Boulevard, another from downtown to […]

Photo – Historical Map: Pacific Electric Strip Map

July 22, 2013
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Submitted by Sam Huddy, who says: This is a strip map of the Santa Monica Air Line that appears on several station platforms along the Expo Line in Los Angeles. As far as I know, this idea is original to the Metro era. As a work of art, the stops are unlabeled, and typical of the PE, it’s unclear what makes some stops “major” or “minor.” Transit Maps says: This is actually a lovely little […]

Historical Map: The City of Los Angeles Showing Railway Systems, 1906

May 13, 2013
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Here’s a great old map of Los Angeles showing the already-booming rail transit network that was found in Los Angeles in the early days of the 20th Century. Electric trolleys first ran in LA in 1877, but  the “Red Cars” of the Pacific Electric and the “Yellow Cars” of the narrow-gauge Los Angeles Railway had only appeared a mere five years before this map was produced. Their lines are represented on the map in appropriate […]

Submission – Unofficial Historical Map: Los Angeles Pacific Electric Railway Diagram, 1917 by Sam Huddy

March 18, 2013
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Drawn and submitted by Sam, who says: Pacific Electric: Challenge Accepted! Cameron, When I read your disappointment on the uselessness of that beautiful map of the Pacific Electric at its peak in 1917 (not 1920), I wondered if it was possible to create a simplified London Underground-style map. With over a hundred routes it seemed impossible, but after several attempts, this was my end result. Any further information is on the map itself. Transit Maps […]

Historical Map: Los Angeles Pacific Electric Network, 1925

February 1, 2013
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A beautifully rendered (just look at those lovingly drawn mountain ranges!) old-school map of the famous “Red Car” network at its absolute zenith. It was pretty much all downhill after this: real estate sales from land that had been opened up by the network (the real money that allowed the rail service to continue to run despite operating losses) began to decline and many rural services were converted to cheaper buses around this date. In the […]

Historical Map: Los Angeles Pacific Electric Relief Map, 1920

October 31, 2011
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A fascinating snapshot in time of the full extent of the great Pacific Electric Railway Company’s operations in Los Angeles and southern California. The famous “Red Cars”, a combination of streetcars and interurban light rail spanned vast distances at a time before the car had truly entered the American way of life. Within 30 years, most of this system – the “largest electric railway system in the world” – had been replaced by motorcoach services […]