Down The Tracks Of Time El Sereno & the Pacific Electric RW

Tour of the Sierra Vista Local Line and the Pasadena Short Line

Pacific Electric lines and services that  not so long ago were the primary mode of transportation for the City of  LA.  Amazingly, it was senselessly put to an end; today, the City is spending billions of dollars to create a subway/metro link system throughout Los Angeles City and County, similar to that of the Pacific Electric Railway.  Imagine if the City had kept the Pacific Electric's Railway system?  The whole freeway, finding parking, and outrageous gas prices would be but a problem for residents of some other metropolitan City.

Thank you and enjoy.

Pasadena Short Line  

Much of Henry Huntington's real estate development activity in the first decade of the 20th century was concentrated in the western San Gabriel Valley.  An extensive network of electric railway lines was constructed by Huntington's Pacific Electric to serve these areas. Another major investor in the PE was John Slauson, whose Asuza ranch was also slated to become another major site of subdivisions along the Pacific Electric line to Monrovia and Glendora.

The  Pacific Electric lines serving the San Gabriel Valley were called the  "Northern District."  Most of the lines of the Northern District funneled into a four-track trunk line which ran in the median of Huntington Drive from Oak Knoll Avenue (El Molino) to a location called  "Indian Village" (Multnomah and Soto Streets).  Construction of this mainline had begun in 1902 and four-tracking was in place by 1910.  Four-tracking was important because it allowed commuter trains to operate nonstop for long distances on the center tracks, passing freight  trains or local trains on the outer tracks. El Sereno's 4-track line was known as the "Dream Track" because its 4 tracks served both local and express lines. El Sereno had 1 of only 2 four-track systems in all of the Pacific Electric Railway.
 

In this tour we will look at the two most important passenger lines operating on this mainline in the late '40s -- the Sierra Vista Local line and the Pasadena Short Line. 

The Sierra Vista Local line operated on the outer tracks of the four-track trunk line, making stops at half mile to quarter mile intervals.  Until 1950 the route was inter-lined with the Watts local line, and the two halves were connected by the street trackage along Main Street in downtown Los Angeles.  The outer terminal of the line was at "Sierra  Vista" -- a junction near the Los Angeles city limits (North Main and  Huntington Dr.). Sierra Vista was 7.45 miles from the PE station at 6th and Main in downtown Los Angeles. More than three-fourths of the route was on private right of way.

The main area served by the Sierra Vista line was El Sereno.  El Sereno is a  low density blue-collar suburb that consists mostly of single-family  detached houses.  In the late '40s the Sierra Vista line was providing  about 11,000 rides daily. We begin our tour at the PE's Main Street station, located on the ground-floor of the 9-story PE headquarters building at 6th Street.  In the image below (from the 1944 edition of the PE booklet "This is  Pacific Electric") we see two Watts-Sierra Vista local cars passing in front of the PE station at 6th.

During World War II, because of the huge volume of traffic, Pasadena trains did not use the PE elevated terminal in back of the PE headquarters building, but looped via San Pedro, 6th and Main Streets. Inadequate terminal capacity on the elevated structure was the problem.  In 1946 the California Railroad Commission recommended that PE build two extra tracks on the elevated structure to accommodate Pasadena trains, but this was never done. Eventually declining traffic enabled the Pasadena trains to use the elevated terminal by 1950.
 

Sierra Vista and Pasadena trains ran north on Main Street to First Street, where they turned right for one block to Los Angeles Street, and then north again.  The trains turned east again at Aliso Street, passing the Union Station.  Aliso street was slated by the '40s to become the Santa Ana Freeway soon.  Between 1939 and 1943 the state constructed a new bridge for Aliso Street over the Los Angeles River, eliminating dangerous grade crossings with the Union Pacific and Santa Fe tracks on the banks of the river.  This bridge was designed to freeway standards as it was intended to be incorporated into the freeway system.  
 

Of course it was realized that the PE track on Aliso Street would have to be relocated from the pavement.  The state highway department determined that it would require payment of $125,000 for PE's share of the costs of relocation to a parallel right of way (such as the right of way now used by the El Monte Busway).  PE used this as part of its rationale in its 1949 petition for abandonment of all Northern District rail  passenger service.  However, the main rationale was the heavy operating losses on Northern District rail operations.
 

After crossing over the Los Angeles River on the new Aliso Street  bridge, PE trains reached a private right of way on the east bank of the  river and ran through the new San Bernardino-Santa Ana Freeway  interchange (completed in 1943).  

Note the four-track mainline here.  This was a short half-mile long set of passing tracks. It was generally not very useful for express commuter trains to pass local streetcars because the local tracks (on the left in the photo) were usually blocked by standing freights. The four-track segment ended at Echandia Junction, shown above. The Echandia Junction local stop was accessible from Echandia Avenue in Boyle Heights by a pedestrian bridge (just visible on the left) over the freeway. (The pedestrian bridge no longer exists). 

About  a half mile further along the mainline the trains encountered Valley Junction, where the Northern District mainline swung sharply to the left and the El Monte-Baldwin Park-San Bernardino line (now the El Monte Busway right of way) continued eastward.  The junction is shown below.  The building at the left is the Valley Junction PE substation. The shelters for the El Monte line Soto Street stop are in the distance.  The bridge over the tracks is Marengo Street. 

About  a mile north of Valley Junction the four-track mainline begins, at a spot called "Indian Village" (Multnomah & Soto Streets).  The following photo shows how undeveloped the area around Indian Village was in the late '40s. Only two of the four tracks are visible in this photo because the railway grade is lower than the street in the foreground, which is Soto Street. From this point to Echandia Junction the PE mainline was only double track.  The existence of this double-track section led to delays due to freight train movements blocking commuter trains.  At various times from the '20s through the '40s it was proposed to extend the four-tracking from Indian Village to either Valley Junction (a distance of about a mile) or Echandia  Junction. Just south of Indian Village the PE crossed Valley Boulevard and the SP mainline on a viaduct.  The expense of building a four-track viaduct was one reason PE had not extended the four-tracking closer to downtown.
 

The next stop a short distance from Monterey Rd is at Collis Avenue.  The next shot shows an inbound Sierra Vista local about to pick up two passengers at the Collis Avenue stop. The photo was taken looking west from the Minto Court bridge, which no longer exists.  An inbound express train has just passed the local train.