The old track on Pine Avenue is shown by the red car turning onto or out of the street to Ocean Blvd. The 1950-60s tracks were moved to Long Beach Blvd, about a half mile South. Hello, When we were little kids around the 1946-50s, Pine Avenue was fairly busy. It was the main downtown street leading from inland Long Beach directly to the ocean and sand once the downtown area was passed by crossing Ocean Blvd, in the photo above. The ocean across the street has actual surfing waves and was just as dangerous as any other beach location. The currents came down from the Palos Verdes Peninsula/San Pedro and swept South down the long…beach toward the Seal Beach community past Belmont Shore. The Pine Avenue downtown got busy as it became the center of business activity and the railroad tracks running down the center caused plenty of car/train action. So, by the 40s, the red car train system moved a few streets South to then American Avenue, which eventually turned into Long Beach Boulevard during our high school years. The corner of Willow Street and Long Beach Blvd in 1960-61. The cars coming toward the camera were coming from Bixby Knolls area heading to the avenue of cars on Long Beach Blvd. To the right heading East on Willow is the start of the Signal Hill climb. Our house is following the curve and turning right on Willow Street about three miles West toward Lion’s Dragstrip ambulance exit. (The trolley to Los Angeles starts its inland track direction through several So Cal cities from this point onward to Los Angeles from here. nearby Compton through South Central LA to reach the downtown center) Today, it is still Long Beach Boulevard and the Red Train Line is now called the “Blue Line.” Long Beach Boulevard is quite wide and allows free flowing car traffic, even with the central rail line tracks taking up the center row of the whole street leading into Bixby Knolls and the northern Long Beach city exit heading towards Los Angeles. Jnaki Our mom did not drive back then. But, when she had to go to Los Angeles, the taxi service was expensive, so she learned how to connect to the red line trolley cars that went to downtown Los Angeles. It was a city bus service from just down the block from our Westside of Long Beach house. It took us to ocean boulevard station and from there, we were able to ride the “red trolley cars” to Los Angeles. Near the Pike Amusement Center was the ocean front trolley station. From there, we did not have to transfer or change trains as it arrived in downtown Los Angeles, where we now rode the bus service to where we wanted to go or took a short taxi drive. YRMV Note: The original red car trolley trains ran from the harbor area down through coastal Long Beach, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach along the sand dunes/berms and ended up in Newport Beach.
The Jalopy Journal
