Tipsy
Jack Finn Collection
Spectators gather to observe the righting of a tipped-over Long Beach-bound Pacific Electric interuban no. 1260. Note the illuminated destination board is half-flipped between Eastern Division destinations Baldwin Park and El Monte. Another image here.
Jack Finn Collection
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[…] interurban no. 1260 tipped onto its side on San Pedro Street in Los Angeles. This image varies from the other image in the Jack Finn Collection in that another interurban has not yet arrived at the scene, making this possibly the earlier […]
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This photo location is on San Pedro Street in LA south of 6th St. The landmark identifying this location is the El Rey hotel in the righthand background. This location is where the ramp from Main St Station joins with San Pedro St..
The gates on the “Blimp” would make this in the mid-40’s. Also, El Monte and Baldwin Park were in the Northern District.
I never rode or Photgraphed the Once great Pacific Electric Let alone been To Los Angles But I like every thing there is to it especailly the porthole Blimps they used to ahev the closest thing we had in Philly was the MP-54 electric Multiple unit coaches Those were our response to your big red Cars
I rode the MP54’s when I visited Philly in 1971. The conductor noticed my cameras and asked, “How old do you think these cars are?” My guess was “Mid-1920’s” because I had just been to Chicago and ridden the Illinois Central electrics, which dated back to 1926. “Nope, 1913” corrected the conductor, making them contemporary with the “Blimps”. One big difference was the MP54’s were AC powered and the PE was DC. There were several railway car designs from the pre-World War I era that used portholes, including the McKeen gas-mechanical cars.
Sure The MP-54s were AC powered but they had the high pitche whistles like the “Blimp’ Hollywoods’ and 1200s” But they were sharp looking cars none the less It was a shame Metro Coach lines did not shunt the Pullman standrd PCCs to the Long Beach line and 8 ex Illinois terminal PCCS were up for grabs and when Johnstown got rid of thier PCCs it was a shame they were not sent to La and sue teh vintage stuff for rush hour fillers and Possibly but some “SIlverliners like the Pennsy & Reading
Bottom line it was too much like right
I suspect that PCC’s would ride “rough as a cob” on the Long Beach tracks, which had a lot of freight traffic (as opposed to the Glendale-Burbank Line where the PCC’s normally ran). There were several groups of PCC’s that San Francisco Muni was looking at to replace the last of the “Iron Monsters”, but the only deal they made was with St. Louis. I think Muni was looking for “all-electric” cars, which would make the PE units less desirable.
I recently came across a newspaper article from an old Daily News newspaper dated Nov. 28th, 1943 that had an overhead view of this very same wreck. The caption reads as follows: WRONG TRACK. Long Beach bound Pacific Electric car jumped the tracks where P.E. viaduct enters San Pedro st and leaned against a building at 626 South San Pedro st. None of the 22 passengers was even scratched. Motorman Earl Whiteside, 47, 973 Park Circle, Long Beach couldn’t explain wreck.
Interesting how they always used to print the address of the persons involved in the stories back in those days.