Pacific Electric

Pacific Electric

Pacific Electric Building and Main Street
Overview
Headquarters	Los Angeles, California
Reporting mark	PE
Locale	Greater Los Angeles Area
Dates of operation	1901–1961 (passenger), 1965 (freight)
Successor	Southern Pacific (freight) Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, Los Angeles Metro Rail (passenger)
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Electrification	Overhead line, 600 V DC, 1200 V DC (San Bernardino Line only)

The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.

The system shared dual gauge track with the 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge Los Angeles Railway, "Yellow Car," or "LARy" system on Main Street in downtown Los Angeles (directly in front of the 6th and Main terminal), on 4th Street, and along Hawthorne Boulevard south of downtown Los Angeles toward the cities of Hawthorne, Gardena, and Torrance.