Boxcar 2699 in Alhambra
Alan Weeks Collection
With a Pacific Electric car passing in the background, PE wooden 40-foot boxcar no. 2699 sits on a siding in pre-1941 Alhambra.
Modified based on comment
Alan Weeks Collection
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This would have been 1941 or earlier–rail passenger service to Alhambra-San Gabriel-Temple City quit in 1941. That looks like an 800-class car in the bacground.
Probably taken at the intersection where Main, Palm and Raymond converge. I know the area well, since my dad’s machine shop is just south of there.
I disagree that it is conclusive to be 1941 or earlier. Passenger service was indeed abandoned on the line to Temple City , but the track and wire remained to the Alhambra Station for freight service. Harold Stewart made more than one negative of more than one of these cars at this spot after WW2 , um 1495-1499?
Apparently a 1498 would be towed to that track from 7th St to be unloaded/loaded and picked up/replaced by another the next day.
AND about the boxcar
SP and PE built hundreds of 40 ton cars ca 1917 and again ca 1921 – of wood with steel underframes [well centersills and bolsters, the needle beams were stubbed out from the sills]. In the first case, 1917, steel was scarce and carbuilders were jammed with orders. Dunno the 1921 rationale, perhaps it was to keep the SP shops busy in the recession. The new shops at Torrance built several hundred cars for SP and O&C, but i can’t recall if I ever knew where the PE cars were built, albeit Torrance should be a good guess. A stock car from this period/design scheme was consumed by the Great Perris Grassfire. The G40 gondolas of the family were scrapped in the late 1930s and gave up their [Vulcan] trucks to SP cabooses. Some B40s lasted to the late 1940s as SP and TNO revenue cars- someone else must do the fill-in for the PE cars.
And while I’m babbling, SP re-used anything and everything, perhaps it was the Original Hoarder. PE shops built those 1950-series bobber and cupola-free cabooses ca 1921 at Torrance. Where did the trucks come from? SP built similar cabooses as early as 1877, copied from the PRR. Most if not all were gone by 1910-ish. DID PE get the trucks from SP’s hoard behind the Sacto shops??
PE 2699 of the Class B-40-5. 100 cars,
PE 2600-2699, built at the Torrance shops Oct. 1918 through Mar. 1919 with Vulcan steel trucks. 12 of these cars were still listed in service on the the April 1950 ORER.
I had forgotten about the 800-class cars that were made into box motors. Too bad the car in the photo isn’t just a few feet further west…..