TIMEPOINTS VOL 17 NO 12 December, 1959
THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
TRACTION REVIEW
END OF AN
ERA
By Kenneth Harrison
At midnight on December 31,
1959, what I like to think of as a very happy era must come to an end. The era, which is thus important, is the end
of three very happy years serving you as president. Rather than bore you with sesquipedalia verba and detailed
statistics, I just which to take the next few moments of your time to recall
some of the activities that have transpired in the last three years.
Perhaps the most notable of
actions taken by the Board of Directors was the final decision to absolve us of
any connection with the Electric Railroaders’ Association, which had been the
original basis for the founding of this organization. Those of us who were involved with this action feel that the
essentially regional atmosphere of our membership dictated it. We believe this was the proper course for
the club’s own good.
Other notable achievements
include the establishment of unusually fine relations with the officials of the
local transit properties. In the course
of the past few years, relations along these lines have steadily improved and
these officials have come to recognize the importance of our existence, even to
the degree of enlisting our aid in certain projects vital to their existence.
In the last few years, the
Association has continued to strengthen its support of the Orange Empire
Trolley Museum, and owing to its existence has stepped out of the museum field
to let specialists take over.
While the opportunity to
create the unusual in the way of excursions would appear to be dwindling, we
built up one of the largest treasuries known in the traction club circle. We set precedents for our future participation
in transit changes (I won’t call them improvements) and have even been given
recognition on television and in the newspapers. Our annual efforts in the California Hobby Show have placed the
club before the public not as a group of paranoid fanatics, but rather as a
group of people seriously interested in the study of the electric railway.
Now, after three pleasurable
years, I have moved from Southern California and must therefore confine my
association to the co-editorship of TIMEPOINTS and to occasional visits to
Southern California to see the friends I’ve made over the years.
It is my earnest hope to see
the membership continue to support the club and the new officers that will
serve us. My activities are now tending
towards the publication of an all-time McGraw Electric Railway List and other
activities referred to by some as “contemplative rail fanning.” It is my hope that with the help of Larry
Veysey, a TIMEPOINTS will be provided of which the members can well be proud.
Again, I thank you for your
cooperation and hope that our association will not stop here.
TRANSIT NEWS (LOCAL)
PE-SP
MAY KILL LONG
BEACH LINE
LAMTA has all but officially
indicated its own desire to retain and improve electric rail service on its
last remaining interurban route, between Los Angeles and Long Beach.
On November 10, Fred Dean of
the Authority’s executive staff told the Long Beach City Bureau of Franchises
that the Authority has no intention of abandoning the rail line.
On November 17, the LAMTA
Board of Directors officially voted another ninety-day extension of the rental
agreement with Pacific Electric, the Southern Pacific subsidiary that still
owns the tracks between Hooper Ave. and Willow St.
This extension was voted on
by the recommendation of Ernest Gerlach, representative of Cloverdale &
Colpitts, consulting engineers to LAMTA.
Gerlach, who also represents the powerful interests of the bondholders,
recommended that rail service be continued, that a longer lease with PE be
negotiated, and that new equipment be acquired immediately to end the necessity
of having replacement parts custom-made for the “Blimps” at South Park Shops of
former Los Angeles Railway. Gerlach
also publicly suggested that it might well be feasible to convert the postwar
PCC cars now in service on narrow-gauge line ‘P’ to standard-gauge operation on
the Long Beach tracks.
Lease of the Long Beach
rails from Pacific Electric now terminates January 31, 1960. Despite the now obvious desire of LAMTA to
maintain and improve service, the fate of the line still depends on the
willingness of PE-SP to allow continued long-term rail passenger service over
their facilities. PE-SP has been
notoriously hostile toward such operations in the past and may confidently be
expected to insist upon a grossly inflated price for the privilege, at the very
least.
If LAMTA is unable to come
to terms with PE-SP on a reasonable basis, it is the Authority’s intention to
substitute bus service within six months.
MTA’S
GROWING PAINS
Received in the mail this week from LAMTA was a copy
of the financial report for October 1959.
This report shows what appears to be a glowing picture of MTA
finances. October showed an excess of
revenues over expenses of $499,703.
What is interesting, however, and what makes this picture a little
darker is the fact that after payment of bond debt service of $241,215, there
was a deficit of $23,676 necessary to meet the requirements of the Depreciation
Reserve Fund. This deficiency has to be
met from the previous month’s revenues.
Now, those of us who have
kept up with the activities of the MTA are aware of the progress in economy
that the management has made. But costs
do continue to rise, and if and when the operators are offered a wage
settlement that they will accept, costs are going to rise totally out of proportion
to the revenues. In October, for
instance, wages alone were a whopping $2,001,584, or almost 57% of the total
revenue. The total expense for the
month was $3,027,342, or almost 86% of income. These are expenses that just
cannot be lowered short of the cancellation of insurance or the firing of
numbers of employees.
For the first ten months of
1959, MTA revenues were $34,072,770, or $632,270 more than the budget. Ere this appear a rosy picture, operating
expenses were $28,828,469, or $923,969 more than the budgets. Again, just in the past experience of the
federal government itself, budgets are little more than gauges of loss.
In mid-morning of November 2, the nine remaining 1800s which had just
concluded duties on the Watts local line were taken in three three-car trains
to Morgan Yard, Long Beach, where they sit in temporary storage. (1812, however, is now at Fairbanks
Yard.) No disposition was to be made at
least until January.
FARES
Angel’s Flight Railway increased its commuter fare rates slightly on
December 14. But LAMTA will not
announce any increased fares until next year, when new wage rates are
definitely determined.
END OF C&C
On December 31, LAMTA’s engineering arrangements with Cloverdale &
Colpitts, a New York firm engaged to undertake preliminary rapid transit
surveys, will be terminated. These
surveys are completed and LAMTA has been listening to a steady stream of sundry
ideas for the design of rapid transit equipment, involving every variant from
conventional streetcars on elevated tracks to monorail. The engineering firm engaged by LAMTA for
these design studies has promised to bend an ear to every proposal, no matter
how odd. As a result, it has been
deluged, and such standby names as the Devino Duoplane (promoted by Devino
since 1911) have again been in the news.
WATTS
LINE IS ABANDONED
At 1:29 am on Monday,
November 2, 1959 the last local streetcar (1802) left 6th and Main Sts. Station
for Watts. Thereafter the line was
replaced by an extension of Sierra Vista bus 92 via Main St.
Cars 1802-1807 toured the
Long Beach line on an excursion, November 1st.
Thus November 1st was the
last full day of operation for the famous Four Track system of the Pacific
Electric Railway between Los Angeles and Watts.
AFTERMATHS
OF THE WATTS ABANDONMENT
Los Angeles County
Supervisors who attempted to sue the Transit Authority for adding to smog
problems by substituting busses for Watts rail cars were advised, recently, by
their attorney that the Authority, as a state agency, is not subject to such a
suit.
Atkinson Transportation Company, a private bus line,
sued LAMTA for loss of business due to competition from the new route of the
Watts busses. By curious coincidence,
the amount of the suit was exactly the same as the price for which Atkinson is
willing to sell out to MTA!
When Atkinson maintained
that the new bus line encroached upon its own operations, LAMTA replied that,
instead of luring passengers from Atkinson, its Watts line has lost business
since the discontinuance of electric rail service.
The court rejected
Atkinson’s plea for an injunction on November 10. This will be appealed, however, and the 1800s are being retained
in the remote event that a legal emergency might force temporary revival of
local rail cars to Watts.
TIMEPOINTS
EDITORIALS:
MUSEUM
WORTHY OF ARDENT
SUPPORT
The third largest electric
railway museum in the world now exists close at hand, south of Perris,
California.
More than 25 historic
streetcars and interurban cars now sit on eight acres of land, firmly in the
possession of Orange Empire Trolley Museum.
The museum is now on the
verge of commencing active electric operation.
It needs the ardent support of every electric railway enthusiast in the
state, indeed in the nation.
But particularly ought those
of us who are located within conveniently close access to the Perris property
to take a sustained and serious interest in its progress and development.
Weekend work parties offer
good fellowship as well as a refreshing change from urban routines.
A few people have been
donating enormous amounts of time and money into this project. Although response to appeals for labor and
for money have been gratifying in the past, and indeed have been much more
general throughout the region than have similar appeals by other equipment
groups elsewhere, all that has been done and is being done is not enough.
Tremendous amounts of labor
are required during the next several years for basic expansion, construction of
facilities, and maintenance of vehicles.
If you have not yet joined
Orange Empire at the full dollar-per-month rate, we strongly encourage you to
do so now.
At the present moment, a
particularly worthy additional campaign is under way.
This is the well-known
effort to secure, at the cost of approximately $800 (delivered) a
representative of the finest suburban cars ever constructed in the United
States: the Pacific Electric 600 class.
Every railfan in Southern
California ought seriously to consider giving from one to five dollars (or
more) toward this exceptionally necessary cause. Failure to obtain such a car, with its long local associations,
would be unthinkable!
What is necessary is mass
participation in small amounts.
So--join Orange Empire if you haven’t joined; contribute to the saving
of the PE 600-5050-1800, if you haven’t yet contributed.
* * * * *
THE
SHAPE OF THINGS
TO COME By L.R. Veysey
The ending of a decade makes
it appropriate to stop for a moment in the attempt to take a longer view.
What have the 1950s been
like for the railfan? What will the
1960s bring?
The 1950s were probably the
final decade during which railfan activity would center about a continual
succession of “last runs.” Here and
there a few systems linger on the brink of abandonment. But much of what remains is “safe” until
late in the decade to come.
Of course, very little is
left.
But, here and there,
separated by odd gaps of from 500 to 2000 miles are clustered the remnants of a
dozen or so street railway systems.
Even more infrequent and
scattered are the few encouraging evidences of new construction in the electric
rapid transit field, which the 1950s also brought to light and which we can all
hope will become the harbingers of an increasing trend.
Confining ourselves to the
picture in California, what may we expect the 1960s to bring? For whatever they are worth, we offer the
following predictions:
During ten years to come,
all surface street railways in the state will be abandoned, including those
both in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Actual rapid transit
construction of some type will take place within the state, probably both in
Los Angeles and in the Bay Area.
Finally, the last
conventional interurban-type operation - to Long Beach - will disappear within
a year, owing to the intransigence of the Southern Pacific Company. (If wrong, we shall rejoice.)
What will the effects of
this total situation be upon the lives of those who are committed to
street-railway-centered enjoyments?
In the first place, the fan
trip, or excursion, will cease to be the characteristic railfan activity. Already with the near-demise of conventional
cars throughout the state, these occasions are losing their charm. The PCC car is simply not worthy of such
attention except on an annual or less frequent basic.
With the demise of
conventional traction and the simplification or extinction of once-complex
systems, opportunity for fresh collection “in the field” also greatly
diminishes. Railfans will instead
increasingly concentrate on cataloguing, organizing, and rounding out through
purchases the materials, which they have obtained during the abandonment-strewn
decade just passed.
The 1950s have already seen
phenomenal progress in the museum field, and the 1960s should well prove to be
the decade of unparalleled museum activity throughout the state. The time, money, and effort formerly
marshaled for excursions, distant “last-runs”, and the like, will now pour
increasingly into what is essentially a far more creative, if more demanding
endeavor: the construction of a
reality, tailor-made to fantasy.
Publication activities,
already large scale, throughout the country as well as locally, will continue
apace. Would projects as sumptuous as
the recent 1960 interurban-photograph calendar offered by Pacific Railway
Journal, or, on a higher plane, the newer publications in the Interurbans
series have been possible ten years ago?
The answer is no, for however fine some of those older publications
were, in retrospect they seem only feeble beginnings.
Meetings will continue, of
course, and may prove increasingly popular.
They too have their place as substitutes for non-existent streetcar
rides.
Marked by such enjoyable, if
slightly differing, interest, the years will continue to pass. In 1970, those who can remember riding the
Long Beach Line will smile indulgently upon the young newcomer who define the
streetcar as the recently-abandoned PCC, even as we who rode Birneys on
Edgeware Road think the newer generation--unable to imagine the route of the
Oak Knoll cars--as incredibly young.
More and more we shall
attempt to recall the exciting moments which recede in our memories into
antiquity: the PE 950s turning into Hill Street Station; a Watts car sounding
its gong insistently at an H3 on San Pedro St.; the motors of SN 1005 echoing
exotically against the narrow walls of the tunnel east of Havens.
More and more we shall
accept substitutes for these memories: The photograph of the car which,
although we are loathe to admit this, we can barely remember having seen or
ridden in actuality; the artificial experience of seeing a 5050 creep forward
under sagging museum trolley wire, while we vainly try to imagine ourselves
back on the Four Tracks.
These will be the
experiences of our future as railfans.
They must continue to be valuable ones.
During the decades ahead we shall have the interesting tasks of
providing, to ourselves and to the Great Outside World, that antiquarianism is
a truly creative and constantly regenerative experience, not merely the
psychosis of a handful of people who, fearing life in the present-day world,
seek vainly to exile themselves among self-indulgent fantasies.
MISCELLANEOUS
NEWS ITEMS
A TRIAD OF
WORTHY PUBLICATIONS
All street railway
enthusiasts must at times be concerned with the question of proper balance
among the publications that they receive.
Inasmuch as publications continually die and are born, as well as having
their qualitative ups and downs, a periodic reassessment of the well-balanced
library is in order.
We refer here not to occasional
major feature publications, such as Interurbans, which are always
eminently worthwhile, but rather to monthly journals devoted to the electric
railway field.
Over the past couple of
years, we have found a particular attractive combination of monthly
publications to be the following:
(1) TIMEPOINTS, of course,
for the local California news and features.
(2) ERA HEADLIGHTS, which
despite its necessary tardiness in presenting news, combines comprehensiveness
of world coverage with a regular diet of photographs and interesting features,
as well as more thorough accounts of news than are available elsewhere.
(3) RAILWAY REVIEW, which
offers nationwide coverage of electric railways with unparalleled speed and
also stresses rapid transit news. Only
the Railway Review is automatically sent by first-class mail to
all subscribers this assuring that the material is always fresh.
Timepoints provides local
concentration; Headlights provides a thorough, illustrated worldwide
documentary record month by month; Railway Review provides great
speed and a refreshing present and future-mindedness. Taken together, these three publications will do much toward
banishing ignorance from your domicile.
ORANGE
EMPIRE MUSEUM NEWS By James
Walker
OET has just issued a handsome
Annual Report of its activities for 1958-59.
Announcement of very worth
car-saving activity is contained on page 2 of this issue.
A special train (AT&SF) brought over 300 guests
to the Museum on November 15.
Three-dozen horseless carriages (antique automobiles) were also on hand,
and the crowd enjoyed a gigantic barbecue seated within the many
streetcars. The Railway Historical
Society of San Diego sponsored the excursion.
Paul Dieges has taken over
as 1959-60 president of the museum.
A thousand feet of overhead
trolley is on order and delivery is expected by the end of the year.
The body of LARY
experimental low-level car 2501 has arrived at the museum, purchased by Betty
Lihner. It had been on the Terminal
Island heap since 1955.
SAN
FRANCISCO BAY AREA
NEWS
. . . L Veysey
“Magic Carpet” car 1004 was
scrapped in November, leaving only 1003 operable. On December 13, Bay Area Electric Railroad Assn. toured the
system in 1003.
“Iron monster” 170, retained
for possible use as a line car, has been junked.
Muni expects a slightly
smaller deficit than last year.
EASTERN NEWS . . . . . . . . . .Robert
L. Abrams
The process of destroying
the street railway system in Washington, D.C., will commence on January 3, when
DCTS abandons lines 20 (Cabin John), 30 (Friendship Heights), and 70-72-74
(Georgia Av.). The rest of the system
is expected to follow just as rapidly as possible, perhaps within a year or a
year and a half.
It is expected that the
Grand Ave. Line in St. Lewis and the Oakwood line in Toronto will be abandoned
during January.
Finally among January
abandonments unconfirmed reports state that Johnston Traction Co.
(Pennsylvania) will discontinue all its streetcar service on January 11. Busses rather than trackless trolleys may
replace them permanently on the Roxbury, Cooperdale, and Ferndale lines, which
trolley coaches will avoid, instead exclusively serving Franklin and
Morrellville.
The Red Arrow trolley lines
(Philadelphia Suburban Transportation) are not in immediate danger; they may
remain as is for between one and ten years.
The Broad St. subway in
Philadelphia will be extended further south, and work on this major project is
to begin in 1960. An entirely new line,
branching off North Broad Street to serve the N.E. part of the city, has reached
the advanced stages of planning.
Construction on this major route will begin in 1963.
As of November 1, 1959, the
old 4000-class steel elevated cars in Chicago are still in service on all rapid
transit routes there except North-South, at least in rush hours.
PCC-type rapid transit cars
were running on all lines except Lake and Evanston. The North-South line requires 516 cars; West-Northwest takes 258,
Lake 166, Ravenswood 150, and Evanston, 74.
(Data from Railway Review.)
A subway for downtown Cleveland
is again being seriously considered.
All over the nation, the
trend seems steadily to indicate increased riding on rail rapid transit lines
and continued slow decreases in patronage on surface bus transportation.
Pittsburgh was bracing
itself for an expected strike on December 8 (J. Baxter)
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MORE
EASTERN NEWS . . . . . . Jim Walker
In Washington, DCTS has
applied for a 25 cents fare. (So has
PTC --R.L.A.)
Colonel Marrion Mills,
one-time San Francisco transit expert, spoke in Vancouver recently contending
that monorail was the only solution for rapid transit in cities of Vancouver’s
size.
Travel on the Broad St.
Subway in Philadelphia has been on the upswing this past summer.
NYCTA announced a deficit of
over $2 million for July-September.
Edward Dana, retired General
Manger of Boston MTA, has been elected trustee of the Seashore trolley museum.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rumors are again circulating that CA&E will soon
resume, this time only as far as Wheaton, under CTA aegis. We remain skeptical till we hear more.
CLUB NEWS .
. . . . . . . . Ken Harrison
Two Excursions Proposed
At the November meeting of
the Board of Directors, it was decided to sponsor two excursions. Of course, many members were aware of the
efforts to preserve two of the so-called 1800s of Los Angeles MTA, known to older
railfans as “600-class cars - the finest electric railway vehicle ever
created.” Thru the cooperation of the
MTA, there will be a two-car train of these cars run sometime in 1960. The pending Atkinson lawsuit will determine
the exact date.
The other excursion will be
of interest to those who follow the narrow-gauge lines. The premature arrival of a P-3 painted green
and green has moved us to sponsor a trip on this car, the 3148. Watch for Excursion Committee announcements
regarding these trips.
Another
Excursion Question
How many members would be
interested in another railfan trip to San Francisco? While there is not too much of unusual quality now available in
the Bay Area, the trip might be made better by the addition of a side trip to
the Pacific Coast Aggregate narrow-gauge line in Davenport near Santa
Cruz. The immediate reason of course is
the apparent uncertainty of the future of this unique industrial operation.
New
Program Policy Adopted
Following the suggestion of
the Vice President, responsibility for monthly meeting programs will be passed
around to the various local members so that each meeting will have some
different entertainment.
New
By-Laws Being Drafted
At the November Board
meeting, another important item of business was the presentation by the
President of a new By-Laws draft. The
new draft was read to the Board and copies were given to the Board members for
suggestions on revisions. These will be
presented at the December Board meeting and when a final draft is agreed upon,
the new By-Laws will be submitted to the members. Any suggestions will be welcome.