For about a decade in the early 2000s, the quaint sounds of clattering wheels on railroad tracks and the periodic blast of an E-flat horn was common place on San Pedro’s waterfront — as it was in generations past throughout Los Angeles, when electric track routes crisscrossed the growing metropolis from 1901 to 1961.
The Port of Los Angeles’ mission to re-create a small slice of L.A.’s beloved Red Car era drew plenty of nostalgia during the 12 years its vintage Red Carr ran back and forth along Harbor Boulevard. It opened in 2003 and closed in 2015.
Those Red Cars have sat in storage ever since — but perhaps not for much longer. There’s currently a proposal to loan those vehicles to museums.
Red Cars ran throughout Los Angeles back in the day, including in and around San Pedro.
But just as L.A.’s Red Cars faded with time and progress, so San Pedro’s 1.7-mile-long slice of that re-creation fell victim to changes as well.
These days, a faster and more efficient light rail system is being constructed throughout L.A., but the charm of the early Red Cars endures.
San Pedro’s short replica line, in the end, wasn’t sustainable, however,.
It was shut down when discussions for a revamped waterfront — and a Harbor Boulevard realignment — began taking center stage.
The line also proved expensive for the port to maintain and was not well used over time by cruise passengers as was hoped. It also could not be expanded safely onto other streets — a desire that many had for the trolleys to be routed through the historic downtown district — that were simply too narrow. The cars also posed regulatory and safety issues because they traveled high off the ground and required elevated boarding structures for today’s passengers.
So the cars (one restored original and two replicas) came to a permanent stop and were moved into storage at the south end of town.
Now, a plan has surfaced to loan the cars out to nearby museums as displays where they can at least be seen by the public.
Those plans are tentatively set to be presented to the Los Angeles harbor commission on Thursday, Oct. 8. A vote would likely come at a follow-up meeting later in October.
Under the proposal, the original and restored “1058” Red Car will go to the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris, with the two replicas being loaned, respectively, to the Travel Town Museum in Griffith Park under the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, and to the Lomita Railroad Museum in the city of Lomita.
All of the museums “are very happy and promise take good care of them,” said Augie Bezmalinovich, the port’s San Pedro community affairs advocate.
Bob Henry, the port’s former legislative representative, shepherded the creation of POLA’s Red Car re-creation project on the waterfront for years.
Henry, now retired, said the plan to loan the long-stored, heavy-duty rail cars out where they can be seen and appreciated “was an excellent idea.”
“We had the right people at the right time,” Henry said of the original project.
Once suggested, the idea was embraced and launched by an earlier port administration during the council term of Rudy Svorinich Jr. Carpenters and other specialty workers were recruited and the original car was painstakingly restored while the wood replicas — including all the details and rounded corners of the originals — were also completed.
It all cost more than the originally projected $10 million, Henry said, but was an effort that brought joy and is still talked about among port workers who were involved.
Some have hoped the Red Cars could be brought back for transportation in an encore appearance in the port town, but the challenges were too many.
Ideas have been kicked around for how the stored cars could possibly be repurposed as stationary attractions along the waterfront, Bezmalinovich said. Some ideas have included using them as a stationary coffee or food carts, possibly at the new West Harbor site.
But none has panned out as workable because of the cars’ narrow interiors, he said.
“They’re narrow and tiny (inside),” Bezmalinovich said of the retro trolley cars. Reconfiguring them would destroy them, he said.
Still, many people wanted to see them kept local. But exterior space on the waterfront or other areas even for a static display seemed unfeasible, he said, adding that both West Harbor and Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles were approached.
The best option remaining, he said, was to loan them to reputable museums that could handle the large cars and where they’d be seen and appreciated by the public.
The Red Car re-creations, after all, brought joy, Henry said.
“It was tough in a way, but we knew things were going to change down there,” he said of the project’s end. “I rationalized that my job was to build it — and I built it. That was the thing we were proud of; everything after that could not be controlled.”