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 Anyone who lives in the San Gabriel Valley, just east of down town Los Angeles, will come across the name Huntington in a variety of places. The two most prominent uses of the name are Huntington Drive and Huntington Gardens. Though the two places are now separate entities, at one time they were part of one manšs dream of the perfect suburb. Our Mr. Huntington was the nephew and heir of Collis P. Huntington, the president of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Like his Uncle, he was a rail baron, except his rails were in the form of the PE Trolley line that ran roughly west to east across the Los Angeles Basin from Huntington Beach to his estate in San Marino, now known as Huntington Gardens. One of the ideas behind his trolley line was to encourage people to commute either east or west from down town to his vast real estate holdings in both Huntington Beach and in Alhambra, South Pasadena and El Sereno. Actually many of the other trolley barons created their lines to match real estate holdings as well which made riding the trolley very easy for people who bought their land or their homes from a trolley suburb. The trolleys though, very rarely spread beyond the planned communities and would often charge much higher rates for the few spurs that were built which outraged riders who were not part of the trolley suburbs.
  Though the buses are traditionally blamed for killing the trolley lines, it was more of a case of in fighting and under cutting on the part of the trolley lines. Back then mass transit in Los Angeles was broken up into privately owned companies and right of ways were fought over between the companies. The competition for customers originally created a vast series of trolley lines and bus lines at very little cost to the City of Los Angeles but these lines were chaotic and there was no way to govern the separate companies and make the disparate time tables mesh into any sort of efficient mechanism for taking riders across town. Although the PE line did not give as full of coverage as the MTA bus line does now, its route covered much of what is now the MTA Blue and Green Lines and the East/West route of Metrolink. If the P.E. line were still running today, I would be able to leave my front home on Huntington Drive, walk a few steps to a nearby trolley stop and then ride all the way out to the Ontario Hills Mall. I think it would have been a wonderful ride and certainly more intersting than being stuck in the traffic on the I10 which is quite common due to the rapid growth around Ontario. I can still enjoy a picturesque drive down Huntington and Foothill to the mall if I wish as Huntingtons' roads still extend out that way. Today, Huntingtonšs PE line is gone. Though many of the streets that still exist, the center rail line has been cemented in, built up and planted with trees. The trees make Huntington Drive a beautiful road to cruise along and Išm not sure I would want to give them up to get the trolley back. However, for the past decade, the City of Los Angeles, with its Metropolitan Transit Authority, (the organization that now runs the buses) has been building heavy and light rail. The heavy rail, ie, the subway, has gotten a lot of bad publicity and that publicity has halted the MTAšs most current light rail project, Pasadena blue line that would use Amtrakšs old line from down town, along the 110, through Mission West South Pasadena, and along through old town Pasadena. Ultimately, it would be extended out to Azusa, taking a special track down the center of the 210 freeway. It would be a wonderful way to commute to and from down town and to points east of here. The trolley system, is not dead in Los Angeles, but it after its recent resurrection, it is suffering growing pains. For the moment I will enjoy the lines that have been built, and will share my experiences in an up coming story. But I will also anxiously await the opening of Pasadena Blue line. Sarah Sammis works in the accounting department of an a furniture manufacturer. In her spare time she creates web pages, and enjoys: reading, taking photographs, painting, and creating 3d art. Her dreams are great sources of creativity, and Sarah creates because it is fun and rewarding. Images of the P.E. line are curteousy of Alan Radecki. Please visit his web site at: SP's Daylight trains | |
