Alan Weeks’ Pacific Electric Railway West Hollywood Car House and Shops

By Alan K. Weeks

Image 98 – The 100 class cars were really neat cars. They were shorter than most but they rode very well. Big leather seats inside. They eventually ended up in Vera Cruz Mexico. It was so nice to ride them again in 1959 when I was there. They had repainted some of them yellow. Some people called them Double Truck Birneys.

Image 99 – 900 Class Cars built some time in the 1920’s They were made out of wood did not hold up well in wrecks. They were used on the Venice Short Line along with the Wooden 1000 class. Both classes ran M.U.

Image 100 – Class 1000 Wooden Interurban cars. These ran in Multiple Units. I remember seeing three car trains on Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles.

Image 104 – Locomotive 1616 was used at night time on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood and in Hollywood / Los Angeles. There were numerous freight spurs that they switched cars in and out. They had a large freight house at Highland and Santa Monica Blvd. The work was all done at night. (There was a famous hotel I think it was the Hilton, still there at Santa Monica and Beverly Drive, that complained about the noise but the line kept on running.

Image 108 – If you can look closely in the right side of the Car Barn you can see a lone 5000-type PCC. The last new cars the PERy bought just before World War II. They ran on the Glendale-Burbank Line but must have been there for maintenance.

These Shops were the original Shops for the Los Angeles & Pacific Railway, one of the first interurban lines built in Los Angeles. General Sherman built this railway and West Hollywood at that time was named Sherman, hence the Sherman Shops. In 1911 the Southern Pacific bought both the LA & Pacific and the PE Railway from Henry Huntington and combined the two into the new Pacific Electric Railway. Through changes and mergers the MTA acquired the property and Built a new Bus Division 7 on the site. That was after all was abandoned in 1954.

Alan Weeks Photos and Collection