Photographs of Los Angeles streetcars abound on the internet, but rarely do I see what they looked like on the inside. This is a Los Angeles Railway streetcar from circa 1927. The seats aren’t arranged as I expected. I’ve always imagined them laid out like on a bus. I notice the pairs of seats have a little handle so now I’m wondering if they were the ones you could swap direction. Also, the signs say “Exit at front” – I’d have though the standard procedure would have been to enter at front and exit at rear. (This is a Los Angeles Railway (LARy) street car, sometimes referred to as the other street cars. Red Cars belonged to the Pacific Electric (PE))
**UPDATE** – Stan C says: “Handles on the upper corner of each seat back were used when the car was going to be rolling in the opposite direction from its previous trip. The motorman would walk down the center aisle grabbing a handle in each hand, and “kerchunk” the seat backs the opposite way so that passengers would still face forward. The cars could be operated from either end. (They were not able to be “turned around” on their rails, but the seats could.)
Here is another reader’s account from John Mc:
“My folks were raising four kids in Glendale’s Glenoaks Canyon, back when the road ended in stables and an unsupervised rifle range. Just before the Red Cars were junked in 1955—I was 6—my mother took us to ride the trolley into downtown L.A. and back. At the L.A. end of the line, we stood and watched the conductor go through the car and turn all the seats around to face the opposite direction. He drove the return trip from what had been the back of the car. I was stunned and amazed.”
Interesting image find! We seem to be facing the rear, with an exit toward the street side and a stool for the conductor. He would take fares at the rear while the motorman sat at the front, thus the exit at his end. One-man cars like PAYE (Pay As You Enter) would of course change this boarding point to the front. There might be some safety considerations here as de-boarding passengers would not be immediately visible to autos coming from the rear where those in the road (leaving the sidewalk or in a safety zone) could be seen. Whatever their primary use, the handles on the seat would also help to stabilize walking passengers in a moving car, and as a secondary grip like the overhead straps for “standing room only”services. (Think of children not being able to reach the straps.) Oddly, the curved roof would be normal for Pacific Electric steel cars and the PCC’s used later than this date by PE & LARy, but I did not know they appeared like this in older LARy cars…may have to look into this further to what class it may have been from.
Aha, the known history of this singularly unique car is found here: https://socalrailway.org/collections/los-angeles-railway/2501-details/
A photo showing it assigned to Vermont Avenue service lets us see that it was equipped with eclipse fenders at both ends for bi-directional operation and coming set-up with four automatic doors (at all corners). However, LARy seems to have operated it as a front-enter/front-exit only from early on, if not right away. The signs telling which end to exit were there when it still had wood slat seats, so possibly they never used the rear doors in operations, but only during car servicing. And maybe the conductor position was either eliminated or never even existed from the start. (Technology is very useful in getting rid of jobs.) The hatch doors in the floor would have allowed for easy access to the traction motors during maintenance and, on this car, the trucks were mounted further in from the car ends than was normal. This left an overhang on turns which sealed the fate of this class, relegating the one car to line runs where swinging about was largely negated. The #2501 is a survivor awaiting restoration at Orange Empire Railway Museum (Perris). No other “L” class cars were built.