One of the great railway excursions Angelenos liked to take was Mt Lowe Railway’s Great Incline, an open-air cable funicular to the top of Echo Mountain in Altadena. These people have caught that streetcar from Pasadena and are waiting for the next car to take them to the summit, where restaurants, stores, and a 70-room Victorian hotel awaited them. This photo was taken around 1927, probably during the winter if those overcoats are anything to go by.
This is the trip they’re waiting to take.
The auto-colorizer does a fair job of bringing this scene to life.
What a fantastic excursion this must have been. From the top of Echo Mt another railway took passengers on to the Alpine Tavern which had its own accommodations. Actually the excursion could begin by Red Car from DTLA and only took 2 hours to reach the Alpine Tavern. It’s all gone now, but I have hiked the route from Altadena to the site of the Alpine Tavern, a much more strenuous way to get there than the folks in these photos had, but the view still is spectacular.