San Pedro — Red Car Update

Rail Transit Online, June 2000

A Request For Proposals was scheduled to be released the first week in May for track refurbishing and traction power on an 8,200-ft., four-station streetcar line in the San Pedro section of Los Angeles that’s designed to replicate the long defunct Pacific Electric.  The project was announced by the L.A. Harbor Department last July (see RTOL, Aug. 1999) and progress since then has been swift.  Historic Railway Restorations of Seattle was hired to design a replica of the PE’s 500-series cars, a job that’s now in the engineering design phase.  Meanwhile, other materials needed to construct two cars have been ordered.  They will be built in a former Seattle warehouse where five Spanish-designed Talgo intercity tilting trains were assembled for Amtrak two years ago.  The cars will ride on Taylor motor trucks from retired Boston Blue Line cars, four of which (plus a spare motor) have been purchased from the Seashore Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine.  These will be married to mine locomotive control equipment.  In addition, the Harbor Department has obtained the body of PE No. 1058, which had been mounted on rubber tires and exhibited around southern California by a private owner.  It will be placed on Japanese interurban streetcar trucks also obtained from Seashore.  Department spokesman Bob Henry said he hopes the trackwork and wiring can be completed by October and that the new replica streetcars will be delivered in December or January, when revenue service will begin.  The line will start at the Catalina Ship Terminal and end at 22nd and Miner Streets, with stops at the World Cruise Center, Harbor Boulevard and Sixth Street, and Ports O'Call Village.  Officials are hoping the trolleys will attract cruise ship tourists and those visiting Port’s O’Call, a reproduction of a quaint seaport, to visit, eat and shop in downtown San Pedro.  The line, formerly used to haul coal to the harbor, will continue to see limited freight operations during late night hours when the trolleys aren’t running.  Henry also said a 1.5-mile extension to the Cabrillo Marina is under consideration.  Pacific Harbor Lines, the freight operator, will run the trolleys and the fare is expected to be $1 for four hours of unlimited riding.