Here is scenic streetcar ride I’d like to have taken when it was around. This Pacific Electric Red Car is rolling northward out of Redondo on the ‘Redondo Beach via Playa del Rey’ streetcar route that followed the coastline south of where LA International Airport now is. In fact, that photo was probably snapped at roughly the site of LAX. But to ride a streetcar close enough to the beach to be able to jump directly into the sand seems a very Californian thing to do. The line closed in 1930 and I suspect this photo was taken around that time.
First day of work on the Pacific Electric Del Rey and Redondo Trolley Line, circa 1900:
Here is the Pacific Electric station at the neighboring beach to the north, Hermosa Beach:
Would it not have been rather dangerous to have those tracks so close to the water? What happened at high tide? Still a very cool photo Martin.
I wondered about that too. It does seem awfully close, doesn’t it?!
Not to mention, it would be a constant job to keep the sand off the tracks. And how do you even build railroad tracks on sand? Don’t they keep shifting?
As Paula has mentioned, the shore was actually a lot further away than it looks in this photo.
I think that the angle on the shot makes it seem the tracks are much closer to the water than they actually are. On the right of the tracks you can see the bottom of a hill. If this is in Playa del Rey, as suggested, this hill is actually something of a cliff, and there is a wiiiiiide stretch of sand from that hill to the water. I know. As a kid, I hated taking that long walk on the hot sand after our bike ride from Culver City. So, it might just be a foreshortened perspective.
That makes sense.
Not to “um actually” you guys, but the beach at this time was quite a bit narrower. It was only after they built the Marina and accompanying breakwater that the sand started to build up and extend the shore outward.
Well, I thought I was old, but I’m not quite old enough! I was going to the beach there in the middle 60s. A few years after the Marina was completed.
Hey JCF – feel free to um-actually us anytime to have something useful to add or see an error that needs correcting!
The Redondo Beach line actually continued operating until 1940. Full service ended in 1936 and only franchise runs operated on the line thereafter. In 1940, a new viaduct over the Ballona Channel was built after the old wooden one was damaged by flooding from the 1938 heavy rains. The Red Cars didn’t get to use the new viaduct for long, rail service ended that year. Red Cars operated from Culver Junction to the PE station at Playa Del Rey and turned back.
Thanks, Ron!