Santa Monica Air Line

Santa Monica Air Line
The Air Line looking west from Ivy station (later Culver Junction), with the junction and station building in the foreground, 1905
Overview
Owner	Southern Pacific Railroad
Locale	Los Angeles
Termini	Pacific Electric Building Santa Monica, California
Stations	15
Service
Type	Interurban
System	Pacific Electric
Operator(s)	Pacific Electric
History
Opened	May 26, 1909[1]
Closed	October 26, 1953
Technical
Line length	16.88 mi (27.17 km)
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	600 V DC Overhead lines
hide Route map Legend mi 0.00 Pacific Electric Building Northern Division  J   R   S   S  Amoco to Bellflower, Long Beach & San Pedro  7   8   F   5   9  5.40 University  V  7.68 11th Avenue Cienega Airville Sentous Venice Short Line 11.16 Culver Junction Winslow 12.20 Palms Winship 14.87 Home Junction Soldier's Home 15.25 Bergamot 16.18 Sunset 16.88 Santa Monica Ocean Park Venice–Inglewood This diagram: view talk

The Santa Monica Air Line was an interurban railroad operated by the Pacific Electric between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles. It operated between 1909 and 1953.^[2] Most of the route is now used by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority E Line.

Route[]

Los Angeles to Culver Junction[]

Beginning at the Pacific Electric Building at Sixth and Main streets, the line crossed Los Angeles Street on a viaduct to reach San Pedro Street, where it turned south. It turned from San Pedro onto Ninth Street and ran to a right-of-way. At 25th Street and Long Beach Boulevard, at what was called Amoco (American Olive Company) Junction, the Air Line left the Watts main route and went west on a single track right-of-way diagonally across the city grid until Flower Street, where it joined Exposition Boulevard. At the west end of Exposition, the route followed Jefferson Boulevard to La Cienega, where it generally followed Washington and National Boulevards until Culver Junction.^[3]

Culver Junction to Santa Monica[]

The route turned north until it crossed Overland Avenue, continued on a right-of-way between Exposition and Olympic before reaching Colorado and paralleling that road to Santa Monica. The line curved to the southeast to meet Pico just west of Main Street. It ended south of Main and Hollister at the Ocean Park car house.^[3]

The former Santa Monica transfer station in July 2017. The building served as a transfer point between the standard-gauge and narrow-gauge streetcar lines in the area.

The table shows stops on the line in 1911, with major depots in bold:^{[citation needed]}

History[]

The line was built in 1875 as the steam-powered Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, intended to bring mined ore to ships in Santa Monica harbor's Long Wharf and as a passenger excursion train to the beach. Purchased by Southern Pacific Railroad, it was leased to the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad for electric passenger and light freight use in 1909 — the inaugural run was made on May 26 that year.^[1] Pacific Electric bought the line in 1911, along with all the other lines owned by Los Angeles Pacific. Tracks between Culver Junction and Amoco were electrified in 1912, allowing cars to reach downtown via the Watts Line.^[4] The Santa Monica harbor Long Wharf was closed to shipping traffic in 1913.^[5][6][7]

Service decline and end[]

With sparse population along much of the route, service on the Air Line was reduced as early as 1924, with passenger cars running only during rush hours.^[7][4] At that point most passengers traveled to Santa Monica on a different rail line which ran primarily on Santa Monica Boulevard. Pacific Electric would reduce the Air Line's service frequency until 1931 when only a single daily round-trip operated over the route.^[4]

The railroad tried to discontinue the service entirely as early as 1933, though patrons of the line successfully blocked every attempt.^[4] By then, Pacific Electric did not print regular timetables for the Air Line, attempting to reduce ridership to strengthen their case for abandonment. Fans and users of the service would advertise the trip independently of the company.^[4][8]

Passenger service on the Air Line was discontinued on October 26, 1953.^[7][4] The final few weeks only saw one daily round trip run between Amoco Junction and 11th Avenue. This was Pacific Electric's only service not transferred to Metropolitan Coach Lines, which had happened to their remaining lines 25 days earlier. This marked the railroad's exit from passenger services entirely.^[4]

Freight operations continued running over the tracks.^[9] Because the Air Line route was also connected to the Santa Monica Boulevard line via tracks on Sepulveda Boulevard, it was the only way for freight trains to reach West Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Hollywood warehouses (usually at night due to city regulations).

Former Air Line right of way, looking toward northwest, adjacent to Northvale Road (formerly, Exposition Boulevard) near Dunleer Drive. Palms Park is on the left and Northvale Road, which borders Cheviot Hills from the southwest, is on the right side of the right of way. Seen in 2005 prior to conversion to light rail.

As the use of rail for transporting freight gradually declined, the tracks along Santa Monica and Sepulveda boulevards were removed and service became sparse. The tracks alongside Exposition Park occasionally also served a special purpose to hold circus trains throughout the 1980s and to store various companies' passenger cars during the 1984 Olympic Games. The final freight run was from Fisher Lumber in Santa Monica in the morning of Friday, March 11, 1988.^[10] Power was provided by the Ivy Substation at 600 volts direct current until operations were converted to diesel engines.^[11]

After abandonment, ownership was maintained by Southern Pacific,^[3] which leased various portions of the land for semi-permanent structures. By the mid-1990s parking lots, storage facilities and some retail buildings had almost completely covered the tracks west of Sepulveda Boulevard — with unused signal cantilevers and crossing gates being the only clue to its former existence. East of Sepulveda Boulevard, tracks, bridges and tunnels remained intact but overgrown.

A lone Southern Pacific Railroad boxcar was marooned on a freight siding which once serviced a warehouse at 10151 National Boulevard, originally the Great Western Biscuit Company and later the publications division of Douglas Aircraft Company. In 2005 the building was leveled and the boxcar cut apart and removed to make way for Price Self-Storage.^[12]

Replacement[]

The right-of-way was purchased by what is now Los Angeles Metro in 1990.^[13] Track replacement and various construction tasks began in 2006, and the first phase of the "Expo Line" from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City opened in April 2012.^[14] Service for the second phase to Santa Monica began on May 20, 2016.^[15]

While most parts of the Air Line have been replaced in reconstruction, two major structures from those days remain: (1) The steel bridge over National Boulevard was deemed structurally sound and was repurposed in conjunction with a new bridge for a second track, and (2) the tunnel under the Santa Monica Freeway was put back in use.^{[citation needed]}

See also[]

• Streetcar Depot, West Los Angeles
• Streetcar suburb
• Streetcars in North America
• List of California railroads
• History of rail transportation in California

References[]

External links[]

Route map:

• Essay on the Santa Monica Air Line at Abandonedrails.com
• Information on the wigwag cantilevers at Trainweb.org/dansrailpix
• Historic photos ca. 1953 of the final days of passenger service on the Santa Monica Air Line
• Website discussion of route with photographs of equipment in 1930s-40s photographs of the PE's Santa Monica Air Line