Los Angeles & Pasadena

Pasadena & Los Angeles Electric Railway
Los Angeles & Pasadena Electric Railway

Pasadena & Los Angeles Electric Railway Rolling Stock

PACIFIC ELECTRIC IN PASADENA:
The Great Merger brought the Pacific Electric Company to Pasadena. On September 3, 1911, the 'PE' obtained ownership of a general system of local and interurban rail passenger lines in the Crown City, which had been developed since 1886 by a number of predecessor companies. Chief among these predecessors were the old Pacific Electric and it's associated company, the Los Angeles Inter-urban Railway Company, henceforth LAIU. These companies traced their lineage back to the Los Angeles & Pasadena, the Pasadena & Mt. Lowe, the Pasadena & Los Angeles, plus a host of horse car companies such as the Pasadena Street Railroad, the Highland Railroad, the Colorado Street Railway, the City Railway of Pasadena, and the West Pasadena Railway.

To give a thumbnail sketch of street railway development in Pasadena:

1886 The first horse car line opens; 3'-6" gauge. Pasadena Street Railroad.

1893 The first electric line opens; 3'-6" gauge. City Railway Company.

1894 The Pasadena & Los Angeles Electric Railway purchases all Pasadena street railway companies.

1895 The P&LA opens the first interurban in Southern California:

Pasadena to Los Angeles.

The bulk of the horse car lines are rebuilt and electrified, 3'-6" gauge.

Additional electric lines built.

1898 The Los Angeles & Pasadena Electric Railway Company succeeds the P&LA. By this time the Pasadena city lines had grown to 32.17 equivalent single track miles.

Last horse car line abandoned.

1902 Old Pacific Electric succeeds the Los Angeles & Pasadena.

1903 Old PE rebuilds practically all Pasadena electric railways, standard gauging (4'-8½" between the inside edges of the running rails) them, laying heavier rail and reconstructing trolley wire.

1904 The Pasadena & Mt. Lowe Railway is absorbed, many new lines built. This was a period of intense activity and when completed, Pasadena had an exemplary completed, local and interurban rail network.

1911 Old PE and LAIU jointly performed this work.

1911 New PE succeeds Old PE and LAIU.

1912 Southern Pacific Pasadena Station electrified for PE use; access trackage via Broadway electrified.

Numerous extensions and new lines built, also three older line rebuilt.

1923 PE motor coaches replace all but four local rail lines; as these four lines are through-routed, plus two rail lines remain of a strictly local character.

1941 Remaining local rail lines abandoned; PE sells its city lines to Pasadena City Lines, Inc., a National City Lines property.

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