Vintage shots from days gone by!

Here is where blame went via conviction in 1949 which was upheld on appeal in 1951. This did not just involve the Pacific Electric system but also mass transit systems in other cities as well that were not created to spur suburban development. BTW, there is no such term as "escape goat." The term is "scape goat" and it does not apply to an entity that has a court conviction.
See below:
"Between 1938 and 1950, National City Lines and its subsidiaries, American City Lines and Pacific City Lines—with investment from GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California through a subsidiary, Federal Engineering, Phillips Petroleum, and Mack Trucks—gained control of additional transit systems in about 25 cities.[3] Systems included St. Louis, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Oakland. NCL often converted streetcars to bus operations in that period, although electric traction was preserved or expanded in some locations. Other systems, such as San Diego's, were converted by outgrowths of the City Lines. Most companies involved were convicted in 1949 of conspiracy to monopolize interstate commerce in the sale of buses, fuel, and supplies to NCL subsidiaries, but were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the transit industry."

 

I read a few years ago an article about the Thunderbolt. It said that these were incredibly fast and powerful but that the chassis wasn't really up to handle the power. It said that several professional drivers who ordinarily campaigned Fords were somewhat fearful of the Thunderbolt and declined the opportunity to drive them in competition. Did anyone else read that article or remember the issue discussed?

 

Newport Blvd, Costa Mesa, CA. Looking Northeast.

 

Fairmont Empress in Victoria, Can?

 

Up here in Canoga Park, It has been said that GM Planted palm trees in place of the power poles [for the Trolley's ] that were on Sherman Way! Take a drive up here sometime and see how tall [and messy!] they are now!

 

Château Frontenac in Québec city....

 

Any ideas on the engine type?

 

1935 machine demonstrates gearbox which is silent in all three forward speeds.


1941 ″Built-in Cabinets for the traveling salesman” Installed into the trunk of a 1941 Dodge “Luxury Liner” three-window business coupe.







L.A. expressway

 

Reo Royale



Reo Royale Indy Car
San Diego

 

To understand the transportation system in L.A., you have to understand L.A. Physically, there are actually two Los Angeles'. There is the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles. The City of Los Angles is inside the boundry of the County of Los Angeles. The City of L.A is over 500 Sq. Miles and has a population of just over 4-million. L.A. County is 4,751 Sq. Miles and has 88 incorporated cities inside of it's boundary, including the City of L.A. Total population for L.A. County is over 10-million people. 10-million people is more population than 41 individual states in the U.S. have. Inside of this mass of 88 incorporated cities are hundreds of un-incorporated cities (meaning that they have no actual city government). Just a name on a map, and in some cases, no actual boundries. For instance, there is no city called Hollywood, it's just a name and an "area" located inside the City of L.A. It has no fire department and no police department. The L.A County Fire Department handles the fires and the policing is also handled by the County cops (known as the Sheriffs Dept.). As far as the 88 incorporated cities and the hundreds of unincorporated cities, 99% of the people living here do not know where one begins and another one ends. In short, "L.A." is just one big area of almost 5,000 Sq. Miles and 10,000,000 people. If ever an area needed a working transportation system, L.A is the place.

We had one. We had a reasonable amount of busses and a great Street Car system. In the more urban areas, the Street Cars shared the road with the cars. No problem. I grew up here, I was born in Hollywood in 1939. Get on the "trolly", hand over your dime (or a Token) and you could go anywhere.

This is Hollywood Blvd. in the early 1950's. (By the way, the bus is not a city bus, it's a tour bus.)

They didn't always share the road with the cars, sometimes they had their own right away.

This is a very early photo of the Hollywood Freeway, with the Street Cars running in the divider.

And then, the Street Cars were removed and shorlty after, the tracks were removed. Build more freeways they said, add more busses they said. It's what the people living in L.A want they said. And at first, it sounded great and it was great. At first.

And then...


We all learned a new term - grid-lock. And we found out that L.A. had no "transportation system", just our cars and 10,000,000 other people in their cars. (Actually, more like 20+ million cars. The average here is 2 1/2 cars per person)

The next solution that the "experts" came up with was to spend a few billion dollars more and making the Freeways bigger, like adding lanes. Six lanes in each direction. Still a lot of brake lights ahead. Then the "experts" decided that we had too many people driving alone with no passengers (they were going to work and back you dumb mother %$#&@'s), so they said "we need a lane for car pooling", and they created the "diamond lanes". This is the lane left of the double yellow lines in the photo above. Just as F'd up as all the other lanes. Then the "experts" decided to restrict the Freeway entry lanes (on-ramps). One car per green light. So now, instead of being bumper to bumper on the Freeway, we were bumper to bumper on the Freeway on-ramps and of course, bumper to bumper once we entered the Freeway. Oh joy, this is fun. I purchased my 2015 Mustang with more HP than an old man like me shoud be allowed to have, so I could be bumper to bumper at 3.5 MPH.

However, we now have a pretty good "light rail" system in L.A., inside the City and in the surrounding areas of the County, and even a MetroLink system, with real trains. The Hub for all of this is Union Station in Downtown L.A. I can get on the Gold Line light rail in Monrovia (which is outside the City of L.A.) and in 20-minutes, sitting in a seat at Staples Center watching the Hockey Game or that round ball game. So, things are picking up. Of couse, we had all of that 75 years ago too, and we ripped it all up, and now it's coming back. And we spent billions doing it...

I love L.A...

 

Thanks, George, for the informative explanation of how people work. The new guy (or girl, now) always has a better idea than the last guy and always has the reason for the purported success and usually at great expense.

There is always a new guy...............

 

On another note, look at the photo above that shows the Freeway with 12 lanes of traffic and the Hollywood hills in the background. I remember at the time they expanded the number of lanes on this Freeway (called the 405 Freeway), which goes through the hills in the background into the San Fernando Valley. The "experts" reminded us that because of the frequent wild fires in the Hollywood Hills, the Freeway was a perfect fire break.

How about an early morning commute to work through this? Wildfires have a nasty habit of leaping over 10 or 12 lanes of traffic without even slowing down...

 

Rootie, I'm guessing that's Charlie Musselman in the Traylor car. Who is in the #37?

Thanks!

 

Len Duncan is in the 37, he relieved Duane Carter who started the car at Langhorne 1955.

 

Nope, the windows are too big.

 

City of Portland photo - NE Fremont Street between NE 24th Avenue and NE 25th Avenue, 1938