Orange County Branch Newsletter

August 2013

History and Heritage

History and Heritage - Horse Cars to Red Cars: Local Transportation 1900-1930


By: Carl Nelson, P.E. (ret)

My recent newsletter article on History of the Pacific Electric Railway Company’s El Prado Bridge in Torrance has renewed my lifelong interest in the trolley systems of Southern California.

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, I lived across the street from the dormant rails of the Pacific Electric’s San Fernando line running 5 miles beyond Van Nuys to San Fernando.

For 5 years on my daily walk to school along the tracks I longed to see a “Big Red Car” passing under the overhead wires. How would a ten year old know that the unprofitable passenger service had been permanently terminated in 1938?

Now, as a retired civil engineer, my interest has expanded to Pacific Electric’s Santa Ana-Orange line with a short-lived history similar to the San Fernando line. The Orange line is described by Pacific Electric Magazine as “this short and unimportant line of historical color all out of proportion to its geographical status” (see map below).

Clara Mason Fox, who was a turn of the century Silverado Canyon school teacher, authored “A History of El Toro” in 1939. Commenting on the pioneering history of the area before the 1889 birth of Orange County she wrote: “Travel by stagecoach, long hauls from the ranches: -- all these were to end with extension of the railway lines; and the great migration of settlers induced by cheap fares helped, too, to end the period of pastoral life in the southern end of the greater Los Angeles County.”

In the Orange County History series Vol. 2 (1932), Tustin pioneer Mr. C. E. Utt describes his family arriving by prairie schooner two years before the first Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) train reached Santa Ana City. According to Utt, “If we had business in Los Angeles (the County Seat), we drove in one day, did our business the second day, and returned the third day—eating dust all the way…If we wanted merchandise for replenishing the stocks of our small stores, we had it shipped from San Francisco to Wilmington or Anaheim Landing and then hauled it by team. Later we shipped via Newport, and with the advent of the S.P. railway, sometimes we used that more rapid but high-priced method of transportation”.

The Southern Pacific’s rail service from Los Angeles to Santa Ana had commenced in 1877, with ambitions to reach Yuma and connect with a railroad from Texas to form a transcontinental route along the thirty second parallel. Competition from Santa Fe’s California Southern Railroad from San Diego via Santa Ana to San Bernardino commenced in1888.  The Great Real Estate boom of the early 1880s, and demand for timber from the northwest stimulated the locally financed Santa Ana & Newport Railway’s construction of a freight rail line from McFadden Brothers Wharf at Newport in 1891. Soon steamships running between San Diego and San Francisco began to call every other day at Newport.

At the time, major population centers of Orange County included; Santa Ana (3,705), Anaheim (1,273) Orange (1,200) and Tustin (800). The stimulus for area growth was the introduction of irrigated agriculture. This followed the incorporation of Anaheim Union Water Company (1859)  and Santa Ana Valley Irrigation Company (1877) for the diversion of surface water from the Santa Ana River. Dry farming villages such as El Toro and Irvine would remain dormant until the introduction of imported water in the 1960s.

For local transportation, the Santa Ana, Orange and Tustin Street Railway (SAO&T) in 1886 developed two narrow gage passenger routes. The steel rails provided a smoother ride than traditional surrey or buckboard, but no faster. Speed was not a factor at the time. SA&OT’s horse or mule-powered cars had been specially built, two open air and one enclosed.

The Tustin route  began at 4th and Main in Santa Ana, running south on Main, east on First, and south on Lyon and then east on Tustin’s Main Street to the village center. The route was popular with ladies who could use it to access shopping or meetings in “downtown” Santa Ana. Due to financial problems, service to Tustin was discontinued in 1895.

The Orange route began at Santa Ana’s 4th & French streets, then ran north on Main Street to Santiago Creek. Due to the steep Main Street gradient, a steam "dummy" car soon replaced horses on the Main Street segment up to Santiago Creek.

Steam “Dummy car” at Orange Plaza

From Main eastward, the tracks followed the north bank of the creek in private right of way to Glassell and then north to Orange Plaza.

In 1895 the company survived financial difficulties thanks to support of Santa Ana merchants.

The line continued operations as the Santa Ana & Orange Motor Road until acquired in 1904 by Los Angeles Interurban-Urban Railway (LAIU).

LAIU replaced the narrow gauge tracks with heavier rails, standard gauge and overhead DC power. The line re-opened in 1906 with Red Car service as a local extension of Henry Huntington’s Pacific Electric interurban line from Santa Ana to Los Angeles. 

Hourly passenger service was convenient; however, during the peak year (1924) passenger count seldom averaged more than 10 per trip. Automobile popularity in the 1920s led to user-decline and the unprofitable passenger service on the Santa Ana- Orange Red Car line was discontinued in 1930.

In 1914 PE built a combined passenger freight station at Lemon & Chapman. The electric line was extended northerly from PE’s Orange Station to Marlboro junction for freight connections with SP’s Anaheim-Tustin route. Removal of Santa Ana’s Main Street rails in the 40s created an electric island, similar to the San Fernando line closure.

For many years thereafter, freight service, powered by a single gas-electric freight motor, continued north from the Orange station to the SP connection at Marlboro until the dissolution of the entire Pacific Electric Company in 1958.

Photo credits: Orange City Library, Santa Ana Register & PERy Historical Society (Donald Duke Collection)

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