Hi and welcome to our Show and Tell. We are showing off some of our fun items that we collected throughout the years. If you see something of interest and are in the USA please contact us. Then we can possibly list and reserve the item you’re interested in at our Etsy store for purchase. For pickup only items we can list and reserve the item at our Ebay store. We are not selling items through this website, it is for Show and Tell purposes only. Thank You!
Vintage Pacific Electric mfg, corp. Brass Sign Pacific Electric Railway Plaque. Measure 10″ x 8″ and 1/4″ thick. Nice weight at 3 pound 10 1/2 oz. Has its age wear with its scratches scuffs and adhesive on back, But very unusual being so well taken care of and looks just great! Dated 1954 and back is numbered D4993. Found some fun reading on PE for the cool Southern California Railway Museum at bottom of page.
Has 4 mounting holes and all corners are intact. Looks bronze or brass and nonmagnetic.
Has its discoloration, age wear, nice Patina and still looks great! Front reads Pacific Electric Oil Circuit Breaker, San Francisco Calif USA.
Made 1954. Cool PE Plaque! Please check pictures for description and condition.
Pacific Electric (PE) was America’s largest interurban electric railway system, blanketing the Los Angeles region with more than 1,000 miles of rail lines. The origins of the Red Car system date back to 1895 and the opening of the region’s first electric interurban line connecting Los Angeles with Pasadena. In 1901, real estate and utility tycoon Henry Huntington formed the Pacific Electric, sparking an intense period of interurban expansion and a battle with the Southern Pacific (SP) railroad for control of the region’s electric railways. Huntington sold his interests in the PE to the SP in 1910, and the Great Merger of 1911 consolidated almost all of the region’s interurbans under SP control. In exchange for his interest in the PE, Huntington gained complete control of Los Angeles’ local streetcar system, the Los Angeles Railway.
By 1914, more than 1,600 PE trains entered or left Los Angeles daily over the system’s four operating districts. The system reached its peak in the mid-Twenties; after that, it began a slow decline, halted temporarily by the traffic boom brought on by World War II, and then declining precipitously in the postwar years. In 1953, PE’s remaining passenger operations were sold to transit operator Metropolitan Coach Lines, who in turn sold the remaining lines to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1958. The last remnant of PE’s vast passenger operation, the line to Long Beach, was replaced with busses in 1961.
PE also operated a significant freight business, becoming the third largest originator of on-line freight in California. Many PE rail lines were retained for freight service after passenger operations ended, and several have even returned to transit use as modern light rail and commuter rail lines.
The Museum has a collection of over 35 pieces of rail equipment from the far-flung Red Car empire, including many of the most iconic pieces such as the classic Hollywood Cars of the 1920s and the enormous Blimps that closed out service on the PE in 1961.
