Los Angeles & Redondo Railway
By Steve Crise
The Los Angeles & Redondo Railway is one of the earliest railroads to be constructed in the Los Angeles basin. As its name suggests, it ran from the southwest corner of Jefferson and Grand to roughly Catalina and Diamond Streets in Redondo through the mostly vacant fields between the two cities. From its meager beginnings as a section of railroad right of way constructed by “The Rosecrans Rapid Transit Railway” in 1887, the LA&R eventually grew into a system of about 95 miles of 3’6” narrow gauge trackage.
To service and construct its fleet of coaches, steam locomotives and then its fleet of electric cars, the LA&R built a shop and car house in Redondo Beach on a trapezoidal piece of property bordered by Diamond Street at the southern tip of the property with N. Elena Avenue on the southwest side, Beryl Street bordered the northwest end and N. Francisca Avenue on the northeast side. The section of the road slicing on the southeast corner of the lot was Camino Real, present day Pacific Coast Highway, California State Route 1.
The location of the car house in the photo above was rumored to be in several different locations on or near this property. I set out to see if I could find the exact location of the huge structure or at least come within a few feet of where it once stood until it was destroyed by fire in 1921.
I found a very helpful clue in the form of a map drawn by Raymond E. Younghans in Ira L. Swett’s 1957 publication of Interurbans Special No.20 “Los Angeles & Redondo,” on page 65. It places the car house at the top of the property boarding N. Elena Avenue and Beryl Street. Using this information from the Younghans map I estimated its location on a Google Map capture as to where the building would be resting atop the shopping mall that has occupied the property since the early 1960’s.
My next point of curiosity was the three cars shown in the photo. Of the three cars, only two were identified by traction expert Craig Rasmussen, the provider of the image. He noted that the car on the left was LA&R #55, the center car was not identified but the car on the right was easily identified as LA&R #15, the prestigious Redondo parlor car and the pride of the railway.
I was not able to find any specific car being numbered as 55 on the railroad. There is a mention of cars 52-56 being rebuilt steam coaches that were made into interurbans after the railroad was electricized. These second-hand steam coaches were known as the “New York” cars because their being purchased used from the Third Avenue Street Railway in New York City in 1902. It is also assumed that LA&R car #3, one of the cars from New York, was renumbered to 55. With this being the case it is reasonable to assume that there was indeed a car 55, just no record of it in any books. The closest match I could find to the car in the photo was LA&R #50 (original LA&R #10), also purchased from New York, which is seen on page 40 of the aforementioned LA&R book.
About 1907, LA&R #55 was converted into a box motor with a freight door cut into the side for easier handling of freight. After the Great Merger of 1911 Pacific Electric renumbered the car to 1400. It was again renumbered to P.E. 1727 when it was again reborn as a tower car. One more renumbering would take place in 1931. It then became P.E. #00156 before the venerable car was finally scrapped on October 5,1934 after serving three different railroads on two different coasts. And as if that wasn’t enough, it also had the distinction of operating on two separate gauges of track during its lengthy career.
LA&R #204, also known as the “Redondo” parlor car likewise made the transition to the P.E in 1911 and was renumbered into PE’s #400 – #465 series cars and became PE #453. These were Los Angeles & Redondo’s final car-building product and had a very productive life on different lines throughout the system including the Glendale – Burbank Line, Rubio Canyon Line and on occasion in service for Santa Anita racetrack trains when heavy passenger traffic required their service. The entire class of the #450 – #465 cars were scrapped just a few months before the start of WW II. PE #453 had an earlier date with the scraper than most of the other cars in the series and in 1933, after 25 years of service, was discarded by the Pacific Electric and removed from the roster.
The J.C. Ainsworth, a 3’6” gauged Baldwin 4-4-0 seen in the above photo was named after one of the original founders of the Redondo Railway, Captain J.C. Ainsworth. Captain Ainsworth and his business partner Captain R.R. Thompson were heavily involved in the Pacific Northwest’s lumber trade. Their goal was to develop Redondo Beach into a major Southern California port for their lucrative lumber business. The success of their efforts soon eclipsed the steam locomotives’ capabilities, and it was decided to completely abandon steam power and modernize and eclecticize the entire road to a 600-volt DC system. This is when the New York cars, once pulled by the steamer, were converted in the LA&R shops to suburban electric cars. During the long service record of the J.C. Ainsworth for the LA&R it bore no less than three different numbers; #2, #23 and #421. Incredibly, the J.C. Ainsworth survived long enough to become a piece of Pacific Electric’s rolling stock. After the 1911 merger, Pacific Electric assigned this locomotive to be #1501, appropriately fitting into the PE’s steam locomotive classification numbering system. However, the 3’6” gauged engine was never used on the PE because of its incompatibility with the standard gauge 4’ 8.5” track that the PE operated on. The ancient engine was sold in 1913 to the San Fernando Rock Company.
As this exercise aptly demonstrates, there can be countless stories buried within these historic photographs. Here at the Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society, we endeavor to seek out as many facts and stories that to the average viewer are not necessarily obvious and research and share them with the world on this site. If you have a rare or interesting image from the bygone era from one of the many early transit systems in the Southern California area, please send your image and story to us and we will do our very best to decipher and post it on PERyhs.org for all to enjoy.
Source material:
- Interurbans Special 20, Los Angeles & Redondo Railway.
- Interurbans Special 28, Cars of the Pacific Electric Vol.1 City & Suburban Cars.
- Interurbans Special 37, Cars of the pacific Electric Vol. III Combos, RPO’s, Box Motors, Work Motors, Locomotives, Tower Cars, Service Cars.
- Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society image archives. PERyhs.org
- Craig Rasmussen Collection
- Michael Patris Collection
- Steve Crise Archive
