Ralph Cantos Collection

By Ralph Cantos Pacific Electric car no. 5111 poses for the camera of the late Jeff Moreau on this overcast day at Pico Boulevard and Main Street in Santa Monica. It’s a Sunday afternoon [...]

By Ralph Cantos THE CHANCE MEETING: This remarkable photograph taken on July 21, 1940 during a Railroad Boosters Fan Trip can only be classified as “fantastic” from a rail fan point [...]

By Ralph Cantos This fantastic faded shot of Pacific Electric Box Motors Nos. 1457 & 1458 working MU on the Santa Monica Air Line was taken about 1948. The two units have just crossed the [...]

By Ralph Cantos This beautiful photo was taken by the then-16-year-old Roger Titus. The date of this Fan Trip was November 7, 1954, and the 1165 poses for the camera at Inglewood Cemetery. All 16 [...]

By Ralph Cantos Box motor #1458 (Pullman Car Company 1913) rolls along the Northern Districts 4 tracks in this 1948 view. The 1458 was built new as a passenger car for Southern Pacific’s [...]

By Ralph Cantos The management of Nasty City Lines NEVER missed an opportunity to ridicule or denigrate the staple of American urban transportation, the city streetcar . NCL’s “Reign [...]

By Ralph Cantos By the mid 1930s, the Pacific Electric was operating a fleet of more than 500 rail cars. The newest of them, the 100s, had just arrived from St. Louis Car Company in 1930; all 160 [...]

By Ralph Cantos Its no secret that from about 1910 onward, Southern California’s budding movie industry was very fond of LA’s streetcars of both the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles [...]

By Ralph Cantos Last runs of any streetcar or interurban line is usually a sad, but uneventful occasion. However, that was not the case on Tuesday afternoon, September 29, 1953, when Pacific [...]

By Ralph Cantos This remarkable photograph from a Keystone Cops silent film made around 1918 shows Los Angeles Railway “Maggies” nos. 7 and 1 putting the “squeeze” on an [...]