Los Angeles Railway
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.
Cars operated on narrow gauge tracks, and shared dual gauge trackage with the Pacific Electric system on Main Street in downtown Los Angeles, on Hill St, on 7th St, on 4th Street, and along Hawthorne Boulevard south of Downtown Los Angeles toward the cities of Hawthorne, Gardena and Torrance.
History
Non-electric predecessors
The earliest streetcars in Los Angeles were horse-propelled. The earliest horsecar railway, the Spring and Sixth Street Railroad was built in 1874 by Robert M. Widney, and ran from the Plaza area to Sixth and Pearl Street; Not much later, this line would be extended northeast to East Los Angeles. A more ambitious horse-driven line was the Main Street and Agricultural Park Railroad, which ran from the Plaza area, south on Main Street, to Washington Gardens and then to Agricultural Park.Transportation technology progressed, and Los Angeles acquired significant investments in cable technology. The first cable car system to open in Los Angeles was the Second Street Cable Railway. Opened in 1885, it ran west from Second and Spring Streets out First Street to Texas Street.
Each of these early railroads were built to further the sale of real estate that was considered too far away from the downtown area.
The Los Angeles Cable Railway owned many exclusive franchises and by 1889 had constructed four major cable lines crisscrossing the growing downtown area, from Jefferson and Grand to East Los Angeles, and from Westlake Park to Boyle Heights.
Though considered the latest word in cable railway technology, construction was expensive, legal and operating problems plagued the system, and a rising new electric railway technology threatened to make the system obsolete.
Predecessor: Electric Railways
The first electric railway in Los Angeles was built in 1887 to facilitate the sales of a real estate tract on Pico Street. The Los Angeles Electric Railway used the early Daft overhead system with a crude electric car and trailers. Though the real estate venture was successful, after an explosion in the power station, the Pico Street electric line closed, seemingly for good.Development of an effective electric transportation system based on the new Sprague-based technology began in earnest with the arrival in Los Angeles of Moses Sherman, his brother-in-law Eli P. Clark and San Francisco investors late in 1890. Sherman, originally a teacher from Vermont, had moved to the Arizona territory in 1874 where he was involved in business and civic affairs, real estate, and street railways. Clark, too, came from the Arizona territory, and was similarly involved in business and civic affairs.
Sherman became interested in opportunities in Los Angeles after vacationing there in early 1890. He joined the efforts of a group attempting to resurrect the Second Street Cable Railway, but persuaded them to electrify the line instead. He acquired the line in October, 1890 and renamed it The Belt Line Railroad Company.
Sherman created an Arizona corporation called The Los Angeles Consolidated Electric Railway Company on November 12, 1890 with Sherman as President and Clark as General Manager. Future mayor Frederick Eaton was chosen as Chief Engineer. The firm was incorporated in Arizona because Arizona incorporation held certain advantages over incorporating in California.
In the autumn of 1890, the legislature passed the so-called 5-block law, which enabled a street railway company to use another company's rails for up to five city blocks. This would help Sherman immensely with his plans for LACE, but later would be used against him.
Sherman and Clark began work immediately. In 1891 alone, they accomplished the following:
- After using the Pico Street facilities for a short time, they constructed a new power house, car house and shops at the intersection of Central Avenue and Wilde Street, east of the business district.
- Purchased the Depot Line on May 8, which ran from Second and Spring Streets to the Santa Fe Depot and to the Southern Pacific depot.
- Opened a line from Second and Spring Streets, past Crown Hill, to Westlake Park on July 1, replacing the Second Street Cable line.
- Acquired the Los Angeles and Vernon Street Railway, whose horsecar line ran down Central Avenue to Slauson, then connected to the Santa Fe Ballona branch. They opened it as an electric line on September 16.
- Built a new line to serve the University of Southern California and Agricultural Park; the new University line opened November 12.
- Opened the Maple Avenue Line in November and the newly rebuilt and re-electrified Pico Street line on December 31.
Pacific Railway’s problems were such that the company was thrown into receivership in 1891, with James F. Crank was appointed as receiver.
In 1892, Sherman and Clark electrified the Depot Line, and opened it on August 1. They extended the Crown Hill line east to the Santa Fe La Grande station, and also connected to the Southern Pacific Arcade station on Central. They also started a line to East Los Angeles in 1892, laying track on North Spring and North Broadway Streets. They were forced to build a bridge over the Los Angeles River and Santa Fe rails, which postponed the opening of the line until September 26, 1893.
The growth of the electric lines put severe pressure on the Pacific Cable Railway. The two rail companies began negotiations to possibly combine in August, 1892, but foreclosure and sale was their only option. On October 4, 1893, the sale of the Pacific Cable Railway was completed, and LACE acquired all of the assets, including their cable and horsecar lines.
LACE was now the largest street railway operator in Los Angeles, owning about 90% of all lines. By the end of 1893, they had 14 lines, with a total of 38.325 route-miles of electric lines including Crown Hill, Central Avenue, University, Maple Avenue, Pico Street, Depot, and East Los Angeles: 20.5 miles of cable lines, including Boyle Heights/Westlake Park, and East Los Angeles/Grand Avenue, and 9.09 miles of horsecar lines, including West Ninth Street, Washington Boulevard, and North Main Street. With a total of 68 miles of track, they owned 80% of the trackage in Los Angeles.
Then things began to get more “complicated”. Sherman and Clark faced difficulties and distractions. A national depression, begun in 1893, affected Los Angeles as well. As patronage declined, Sherman and Clark cut service on the system.
In 1894, a direct competitor to LACE arrived. William S. Hook, a banker and railroad executive from Illinois, incorporated a new electric street railway company, the Los Angeles Traction Company, and secured a franchise for a line headquartered at Georgia Street and 12th Street, which was destined to provide stiff competition to LACE. Hook’s first line opened in February, 1896.
In 1894, Sherman and Clark began an inter-urban line between LA and Pasadena, The Los Angeles and Pasadena Railway, and acquired all the street railways in Pasadena.
Creation of Los Angeles Railway (1895)
In April, 1894 LACE missed a scheduled bond payment. The bondholders, unhappy with Sherman and Clark's management and their attention to their new interurban railway, secured control of the railway. Sherman managed to retain 49% of the outstanding stock, but he and Clark no longer had any management responsibilities. The bondholders created a new corporation called the Los Angeles Railway and March 23, 1895 LARy acquired all of LACE’s assets, except for the Los Angeles and Pacific Railway and the Pasadena street railways. The new management purchased new cars and began converting all the existing horsecar and cable lines to electricity, a task completed by June, 1896.Purchase by Huntington (1898)
The system was purchased by a syndicate led by railroad and real estate tycoon Henry E. Huntington in 1898. At its height, the system contained over 20 streetcar lines and 1,250 streetcars, most running through the core of Los Angeles and serving such neighborhoods as Crenshaw, West Adams, Leimert Park, Exposition Park, Echo Park, Westlake, Hancock Park, Vernon, Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights.Growth under Huntington
The LARy continued to expand throughout the early 1900s purchasing its erstwhile competitor the Los Angeles Traction Company in 1903. In 1910 "The Great Merger" saw Huntington separate himself from Pacific Electric's operations. City operations went to LARy and Pacific Electric took over the interurban routes. This took LARy to its historical maximum size, operating on nearly 173 miles of double track. After the merger, Henry Huntington retired and passed control to his son, Howard E. Huntington. Center-entrance, low-floor cars were introduced in 1912 and were joined by a fleet of 75 new cars from the St. Louis Car Company in anticipation of increased traffic from the Panama-Pacific Exposition. In May 1912, the company operated a total of 836 cars.The jitney craze
From 1898 to 1913, the railway was a money-making success, but, beginning in 1914, streetcar systems across the United States began experiencing difficulties, including fewer riders, inflation brought on by World War I, and increased labor and operating expenses. In addition, automobile use increased, and in July, 1914, competition from jitneys, motorists who picked up prospective passengers along streetcar routes, impacted the electric railways tremendously.Jitneys faced neither taxes nor street assessments. By November, 1914, there were over 800 operating in the Los Angeles area. Huntington Attorney William Dunn said the railway was losing $600 per day or $219,000 per year. By October construction on the Vermont Avenue crosstown line was postponed because the company couldn’t sell the bonds to pay for it.
By 1915 the situation had gotten worse. Early in that year the state legislature held hearings and estimated statewide that the jitneys pulled in over $7,000,000 in revenue, and that the state lost $200,000 in tax revenue. In addition, the new competition forced the new LA-to-Santa Monica Pacific Motor Coach Company out of business. Dunn said that at time LARy was losing $8400 a day, had laid off 100 motormen and conductors, and stopped the construction of 250 center-entrance cars. No extensions were built through all of 1915 and 1916.
In 1916, LARy estimated that the losses due to jitney competition during 1915 totaled $500,000. Meanwhile, auto ownership in Los Angeles grew from 17,000 registrations in 1914, to 47,000 by 1917. LARy operating revenue fell from $7 million in 1913 to $5.9 million in 1916. The number of passengers dropped from 140 million in 1914, to 117 million in 1917.
In March, 1915, the city council passed an ordinance regulating jitneys which lessened their numbers but didn’t eliminate them altogether. In May, 1917, employees joined management in seeking more regulation. Employees and their wives circulated a petition to enact more stringent regulations. The new ordinance passed in a June 1917 election. Effective on July 1, it banned Jitneys from the business district, required Jitneys to maintain fixed routes, and carry a $10,000 liability bond. Though this drastically reduced the number of Jitneys, in the summer of 1918 the Board of Public Utilities invalidated the licenses of all remaining jitneys, ending the jitney craze.
After the jitneys were eliminated, ridership increased during 1918 to 123 million passengers and operating revenue increased to $6.6 mm in 1918.
Shortages First World War further restricted expansion efforts and brought about the introduction of skip-stop service throughout the system. Even without competition from the jitneys, LARy was forced to cut lines and switch to smaller, more efficient Birney streetcars to maintain profitability.