Streetcars in Los Angeles

Streetcars in Los Angeles over history have included horse-drawn streetcars and cable cars, and later extensive electric streetcar networks of the Los Angeles Railway and Pacific Electric Railway and their predecessors. Also included are modern light rail lines.

Horse-drawn streetcars (1874-1897)

Lithograph showing the Baker Block and horse-drawn streetcar, around 1890

Horse-drawn streetcars started with the Spring and Sixth Street Railroad in 1874. The last horsecars were converted to electric in 1897.[1][2]

Cable cars (1885-1902)

Cable car street railways first began operating up Bunker Hill in 1885, with a total of three companies operating in the period through 1902.

Angel's Flight is not a streetcar but a funicular railway operating from Broadway up Bunker Hill.

Electric streetcar systems (1887–1963)

"Red car" of the Pacific Electric

L.A. Railway "Yellow Cars" rusted in a Long Beach scrapyard in 1957

Electrically-powered streetcar systems were numerous starting with the Los Angeles Electric Railway in 1887, but were consolidated into two large networks:

• In 1901, Henry Huntington bought various electric streetcar companies operating mostly within the City of Los Angeles (and not in the San Fernando Valley, Harbor area or Westside) and combined them into the Los Angeles Railway with its "yellow cars".
• In 1902, Huntington and banker Isaias W. Hellman established the Pacific Electric Railway, which would acquire other railways, providing interurban service to surrounding towns in what is now Greater Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties) and new suburban developments,.

LA Metro light rail (1990-present)

Today's Metro Gold Line light rail

• The A Line light rail opened in 1990 as the Blue Line, operating both on city streets in Downtown Los Angeles and Downtown Long Beach, as well as on a dedicated surface and underground rights of way.
• The C Line light rail opened as the Green Line in 1995. It operated mostly in the median of Interstate 110 between Redondo Beach, the LAX area and Norwalk.
• The L Line light rail opened as the Gold Line in 2003 and now operates between Downtown L.A. and Azusa in the northeast and East Los Angeles in the southeast.
• The E Line light rail between Downtown L.A. and Santa Monica opened its first section in 2012 as the Expo Line.

Historic Downtown LA Streetcar (proposed)

The Historic Downtown Los Angeles Streetcar is a planned local streetcar in Downtown Los Angeles.

References

1. Excerpts from Los Angeles City Council in "The Street Railway History of Los Angeles", Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California
2. "L.A.'s first streetcars were horse-powered", KCET