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Interview: Jan Wight
Jan Wight recalls her days as a little girl riding the Red Car with her mother. She remembers it being fun; something different than the ordinary. It was fun because it was the closes experience she had to riding on a train.
As a little girl she and her mother would walk from Huntington Drive and Monterrey Ave. catch the Red Car at the Monrovia depot on the south east corner of Olive and Myrtle. Jan remembers the depot as a dirty white building that looked grey because of the dirt. She and her mother never sat on the few benches that were built into the depot because of the dirt. Occasionally, there would be bums sleeping on the benches. The depot was the only part of the old Red Car system where she would feel unsafe, but the moment they stepped into the Red Car she felt quite safe.
“My Mother and I would ride to downtown LA to shop and see the Easter and Christmas holiday decorations. We arrived in southern California in 1946 from Richmond, Indiana and they did not have decorations in Richmond like they did in LA. It was like being transferred to another land for me as a child. I actually saw a real Easter bunny (someone dressed up as an Easter rabbit), not a stuffed one.”
Jan recalls that the ace of living was quite slower then. People were did not fight the clock as much as they do today.
“I wish everyone could have grown up in. You trusted people, you knew your neighbors, you didn’t have to lock your doors – let alone have a security system, parents backed up the schools, and as a child you obeyed your neighbors just as you did your parents.”
Interview: Eleanor and Don Valentine
Eleanor and Don Valentine share a wealth of information on the history surrounding the old Pacific Electric railway system. This interview is rich with information, and we encourage you to listen to it in it’s entirety, but we have included topic flags for your convenience.
Bill Norgard Remembers When…
I was born in L.A. at the old General Hospital, Sept 28, 1934 and raised in Alhambra up until age 11.
During that time we used the Red Car to go to downtown LA to see movies. We would get on the car at Fremont and Ramona (now the 10 freeway) and pass through what is now Cal State LA. Right there was a bridge over a small creek, currently probably a flood control channel and onward to downtown LA. The trip ended at a Red Car Station after the Red Car went up a ramp to the main station.
We moved to Duarte in 1944. We used the Red Car line to get from the Oak Avenue (Street) Bridge to Monrovia to use the “Plunge”. The swimming pool was filled in and is gone. On the south west side of the bridge were stairs to descend to the tracks to catch the Red Car.
It was fun to place pennies on the rails and get them flattened. There were always horror stories about kids getting run over and legs being severed, your typical urban myths.
Sometime around 1947 the Red Car stopped running and this stretch of track in Duarte was used for a freight train to haul bananas to a packing house at the east end of town.
We moved to Oregon in 1948 for a few years so I don’t know much of the history after that. The old rail line is now a recreational trail and is heavily used by bikers, walkers and horseback riders. There is even a doggie poop bag dispenser and doggie drinking fountain. The trail utilizes the space earlier occupied by the Red line and connects via the Puente Largo Bridge (previously used by the Red Car Line)to the bike path that follows the San Gabriel River from the mouth of the canyon to the beach approximately 40 mi.
Interview: Socorro Gutierrez
I was a little kid when I rode it. It was a lot of fun riding in the Red Car, it didn’t play music but the scenery was entertaining. I remember catching the Red Car on Vermont in and taking it all the way to Pico toward Santa Monica beach. I even took it to Long Beach.
In the summertime we would open up the windows if it got too hot. I could even remember where we sat, it was varnished wood, and the pole you held on to was chrome. I even remember the conductor turning this lever type thing, then with his foot he would press down and you could hear “dingding dingding.”
There were all sorts of people that rode the Red Car, young and old.
To get on you had to walk up some stairs and enter through the front and if you wanted to get off you had to pull a string and exit through the back.
I felt safe inside the Red Car. It was spacious inside, there was so much room. Everywhere we went we would take the red car. The conductor was always so nice and he always had a little hat on.
After the Red car went away, the trolley took over, it was a yellow car. I missed the Red car after it was gone, it was beautiful. The buses were not as exciting they had too many restrictions, why you couldn’t even open up the windows.
“My Fondest memory of the Red Car is every time the car went “dingding dingdinggggg.”
I have heard about the Gold Line Extension and I probably will ride it but if I could bring back the Red Car I would.
Listen to the full, uncut interview here.
