Step back to a railfan's paradise - Los Angeles in the 1940's, where the world's largest interurban was scheduling 1,100 passenger trains a day. From thousands of feet of vintage film, producer-archivist Don Olsen has assembled an extraordinary record of this interurban empire.
Volume 1, first in a trilogy of Pacific Electric videos, features the Southern District, with the Long Beach/San Pedro, Newport Beach, Santa Ana, and El Segundo/Torrance Lines. The evolution of ten and tweleve hundred class cars and the "blimps" which supplanted them is well documented.
Seperate sections are devoted to carload freight and maintenance-of-way activities, including rail and overhead replacement and wrecks. As the system's premier freight hauler, electric, steam, and diesel powered freights, plus box motors and RPOs kept the rails well polished with wartime activity, and these amazing scenes recall it all with vivid clarity.
70 Minutes VHS NTSC Black & White and color, full sound track, with narration.