Nostalgia & History > SP Red Cars in Oregon 1929

This photo is from the Oregon Historical Society's Photograph Collection. The SP had an interurban in Oregon using red cars that were similar but somewhat smaller than the red cars that were in the San Francisco Bay Area and moved to Southern California during WWII. One of the Oregon cars is at the Orange Empire Railway Museum.

SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES' "RED ELECTRIC", FORMERLY OPERATED BETWEEN PORTLAND & CORVALLIS ON OSWEGO LINE. [Graphic], 00/00/1929
Call Number: 005107
Database: OCLC-MARC Bibliographic (OCLC)

Enjoy,
Marty Bernard

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I believe that car at OERM is the 1299, formerly a Portland car that was converted to a business car.

Steve

The car at OREM is #485 a trailer car. Actually it is only a body. Here is its web page:

http://www.oerm.org/collection/other-traction/sp-485

Steve, I think you are thinking about a PE car.

Marty Bernard

Marty:

PE business car 1299 was converted from Portland car 477.

Steve



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/14 16:39 by SGillings.

People outside Oregon don't realize how long of a trip this was. Portland to Corvallis is about 85 miles, roughly similar to the Sacramento Northern run from Oakland to Sacramento. I was just reading about this operation and was surprised to find that it ran through my town of Tualatin. We could sure use that operation now. My daughter is going to OSU and if the Red trains were running I wouldn't have to buy her a car.

SGillings Wrote:
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> Marty:
>
> PE business car 1299 was converted from Portland
> car 477.
>
> Steve


Thanks Steve, didn't realize that, here's its web page:

http://www.oerm.org/collection/red-cars-pacific-electric/pe-1299

Marty Bernard

Marty, thanks for the link to the 1299 at OERM. In the image "onboard the 1299" the balding man in the flannel shirt is my father who passed away in August 05.

Luke


MartyBernard Wrote:
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> SGillings Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Marty:
> >
> > PE business car 1299 was converted from
> Portland
> > car 477.
> >
> > Steve
>
>
> Thanks Steve, didn't realize that, here's its web
> page:
>
> http://www.oerm.org/collection/red-cars-pacific-el
> ectric/pe-1299
>
> Marty Bernard

Here's ex-Portland combine 1373 at 5th Ave. in Arcadia, back in 1939. The trailer was totaled (it had been knocked loose from the tractor, so the driver had no physical injury). The car was repaired and put back into service, and lasted to the end of the 1200 class in 1951. We'll probably never know for sure, but it may have been the first car from LA in the morning, with the baggage compartment loaded with newspapers. When I delivered the LA Times in the 1960s, my dealer told me about going to the crossing where the Monrovia-Glendora Line crossed Bradbourne Ave., and having the papers tossed off the car as it went by. He said sometimes they'd get a mean conductor who would toss the bundles far apart from each other. The collision in the photo would have been on the trip back to Los Angeles.

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