305 in Lynwood
Jack Finn Collection
Pacific Electric blimp interurban no. 305 rolls past a power substation in Lynwood on the Bellflower (formerly Santa Ana) Line.
Jack Finn Collection
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This appears to be Fernwood Ave (North) just east of State Street in the City of Lynwood. “Plaza Mexico” is located in the area directly behind the power substation, which is still there today. The P.E. tracks and Fernwood Ave (both north and south of the tracks) were razed to construct the Glenn Anderson I-105. The Lynwood Station is to the east (right) of the train at Long Beach Blvd.
The Lynwood Station incidently was moved circa 1983, restored and placed in its present location at Bullis Rd and Martin Luther King Jr Blvd in Lynwood as the anchor to the city’s Rosa Parks Transit Center. The adjacent buildings to the transit center mimic its Greek columns.
The substation is either Lynwood or Fernwood; it’s part of the Southern Calif. Edison system. I never got sent to this area, but certainly saw my share of SCE subs when I was a communications tech. When this picture was taken, many smaller subs communicated with the major subs (switching centers) with hand-crank telephones over open wire phone lines. Some went directly from copper wires on green glass insulators to fiber optics during the 1990’s. A major part of today’s SCE system was originally part of the Huntington empire, and SCE always had the electric railway business, right up to the last days of streetcars in LA, even after LA Water & Power took over the city of Los Angeles.
The Edison substation is today called Fernwood, but was known as Willowbrook Substation in the era when this photograph was taken. The station was renamed in about 1966. Lynwood substation is a smaller facility about 900 feet further southeast along Fernwood Ave.
Awesome information, Doug – thank you for contributing, as well as Brian and Bob!