Nostalgia & History > Hollywood Blvd Friendship (freight) Train 1947

I find this totally fascinating.
Start of the post war Friendship Train rolling down Hollywood Blvd crossing Highland Ave.
Friday Nov 7, 1947. Eight box cars for food, 14 flatcar floats, pulled by motor 1630. ~1000ft long (23x40’).

Does anyone know more about the PE/SP logistics of this event?
Like where was it assembled, how far down Hollywood Blvd did it go, was there another freight motor on the other end?
Was this the only “real freight train” ever to roll down Hollywood Blvd?
Any other existing photos?
I did some web searches and don’t have any more info except below.

The picture appeared on the cover of Traction Prototype and Models issue 36. The editor sold it to me. He bought it from someone selling photos from a closed Cleveland, OH newspaper. The photo service that took/distributed it appears to be “Acme Telephoto”…….. newswire photographs which were originally transmitted via the Acme Telephoto Trans-ceiver by Acme News Pictures…………………

Excerpt from the internet:
My Diary (Part 2) by Margaret O'Brien, Copyright 1947, 1948

November 7: Tonite we went to the Friend ship train. We went in Carmen Mirandas car and Florence Meyer from Philadelphia went with us. I never saw so many searchlights or so many people. Evreybody in Los Angeles must of been there. They had a big platform in the middle of the street for the show. I saw Virginia O'Brien and Kathryn Grayson sing and Red Skelton and Danny Thomas and Eddie Cantor made jokes. Then Mr. Drew Pearson and Governor Warren made speeches and I did too. Next Irving Berlin got up and asked everybody to sing God Bless America. Then the Friendship train came tooting by and there was Van Johnson and Judy Garland and lots of other stars standing on it and waving at everybody. All the people got on the train and went for a little ride down Hollywood Blvd.- all except me. Mama said I should go home because it was after my bed time. Mama said the train is going all over the country to get cans of food for the poor little children in Europe who are hungry. And every city will add another train. I hope by the time it gets to New York it has about a thousand trains. I am tired so I will go to sleep- good nite.

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BobP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I find this totally fascinating.
> Start of the post war Friendship Train rolling
> down Hollywood Blvd crossing Highland Ave.
> Friday Nov 7, 1947. Eight box cars for food, 14
> flatcar floats, pulled by motor 1630. ~1000ft long
> (23x40’).
>
> Does anyone know more about the PE/SP logistics of
> this event?
> Like where was it assembled, how far down
> Hollywood Blvd did it go, was there another
> freight motor on the other end?
> Was this the only “real freight train” ever to
> roll down Hollywood Blvd?
> Any other existing photos?
>
It's always dangerous to say never but suffice it to say the PE's Hollywood Blvd. line was almost if not entirely passenger oriented. It was built by PE predecessor Los Angeles Pacific and acquired in the 1911 'Great Merger'. Interurbans Special #16 has a wonderful map by the prolific Ray Younghans that does show an 'Old Freight Station' on the line at roughly the intersection of Hollywood Blvd and Cahuenga which would tend to support the argument that there was at some point in time freight service on this line. I am looking through my library for any photographic evidence of "real freight train" service on this line. In later years, (prior to the 1970's) PE
(later SP) had a "Hollywood Freight Station" (again, thanks to the Ray Youghans map) on Santa Monica Blvd at about Highland Ave. This was cutback in the last years when service only went as far as the Continental Baking Co.

If you search ebay regularly you may find a copy of the Pacific Electric Railway's employee magazine for this time frame. I'm sure they would have given an event like this some coverage. I do recall seeing your picture or one very similar to it in my dads collection.

I googled and found this link: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/dickson.htm#admin
Apparently Dick Dickson was the executive director of The Frindship Food Train while it visited L.A. If I could only figure out how to access the photo archive available at the Truman Library there might be some interesting pics.


Charlie

I saw a newsreel recently on the Turner Classic Movies channel, that covered this train's movement across the country. Lot's of scenes of steam and early diesels.

Almost always all freight, but there was the occasional small freight move. Generally to get around a blockage on the other lines.

(forwarding from EspeeDad)

I've been reading my Los Angeles Pacific Railway book a lot lately and
it references that LAP did quite a bit of freight handling between
downtown LA to all points on their system. The main freight house was
at the northwest corner of what is now Cesar Chavez & No. Broadway.
This was on their mainline to Hollywood and Santa Monica which was
narrow gauged prior to 1909. Although most freight to Hollywood would
have been routed on the Santa Monica Blvd. (aka Colegrove) line to the
Highland Avenue (aka Cahuenga Valley) line, Hollywood Blvd. was just a
rural dirt road back when the LAP laid out their track @ 1900. So,
it's possible that freight was routed over this line too.

When the PE took over the LAP in September 1911, the LAP freight house
was not used very much (PE freight was handled over at the 26th Street
yard that tied into the Santa Monica Air Line). I believe that the old
LAP freight house was abandoned @ 1920.

My dates maybe a bit off as I am doing this all from my own memory (no
book in-hand).

Thanks for sharing...

Dad/Steve/EspeeDad

I happened to catch the short documentary/news footage on TCM too and was lucky enough to record it on a DVD. A very interesting piece of movie footage and history as the train went across the country starting with 8 cars and ended up having about 270 cars (split into a couple of trains) by the time it reached the New York City docks for loading onto ships. The food was then distributed in France, Spain and Italy. Even a brief scene with the train next to the ALCo PA and the original Freedom Train. ...................... C.C.Chas.

corrections from EspeeDad...

~~

Howdy,

I restudied my comments last night. Here are some corrections to the
information I sent out yesterday:

The Highland Avenue line was not known as the Cahuenga Valley Line.

The tracks on what is now Cesar Chavez Avenue (alias Sunset Blvd. and
previously Bellevue Ave.) from Hill Place down the hill to N. Broadway
(alias Buena Vista Street) were abandoned by the PE in 1913 in
conjunction with the City of LA's project to widen Sunset Blvd.

TCM aired that same "short" this past Wednesday, which prompted my origination of the apparently "parallel" topic.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1436725