Vintage shots from days gone by!

And photos you will have, and a story of Old LA
Picture Los Angeles today, and most people summon up images of cars and freeways. But if you talk to people of a certain age who grew up in Los Angeles, and mention the words "red cars", you will hear about a time before the freeways, when a network of rail lines and electric streetcars connected L.A., Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. They reached their peak in popularity in the 1920s, then slowly fell victim to Angelenos' love of their automobiles. By the time the last Red Car was retired from service in 1961, only rail hobbyists expressed much regret. But in the years since, fond memories, and perhaps freeway gridlock, have made the Red Cars more than just a forgotten bit of L.A. history. As the new Metro Green, Red, and Blue lines now follow routes often very close to those once traveled by the old Red Car lines, this seems an opportune time to stop and remember what once was the premiere means of getting around southern California.
Reference: http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/historic/redcars/

 

WoW Mazooma, exactly how old are you,, j/k,,
are those from your family album ?

 

This is from a guy I heard never drove a car.

 

I assume it's not too late to add another bunny

 

Just for scale, check out those 2 guys standing at the front and the one guy at the rear.

 

Mazooma1- The first pic of the engine in the station(?),I'm assuming that's fotoshopped-judging by the luggage laying around,the beautiful location,etc. Is it?

 

Oh My Dear Lord... what a Great shot of a "Big Boy"!!!!

85 feet long and over 1 Million lbs....!

 

eeeeeeew....Trains.......This is a glass negative....

 

I did some reading up on these a few years ago and it had a built in auger system to feed it coal as no human could shovel fast enough to keep it going.

 

Is that fire brick on the deck under the seats?
Also, is that crumpled up looking sheetmetal heat shields?

 

It's still early, got anymore?

 

Wow oh Wow!
It's taken me days to get through this thread but worth every minute!
A superb array of images, they should be collected somewhere and either published or simply archived in case of a server problem (god forbid).
Well done to all the contributors... top stuff!

 

http://www.louielouie.net/blog/?p=474

 

http://www.comicsbulletin.com/busted/117139134763890.htm

 

I count 49 valves and 8 levers. None of them labeled, all of them red. Probably every one of them was so hot you'd have to wear gloves to work. Imagine the training it must have took to operate. No color codes or fancy labels here.