March 7, 2007

Fancy a Train Ride to the Beach?

BACK IN THE DAY, a Pacific Electric Red Car floats along a steel bridge over Fletcher Drive in Atwater Village.

From transportation photographer and prolific publisher Donald Duke, courtesy Metro Transportation Library and Archive Collection.

UPDATE: More coming! The Metro Library has been quite accommodating with my Atwater Village train history research. I'll try to post 2-3 more photos and one amazing rail map before the weekend.

11 comments:

mjs said...

What a beautiful pic. Thanks for posting it!

+++

Miles said...

that is awesome. I take it that it's looking towards silver lake and not toward atwater. more please!

AVN said...

More coming! The Metro Library has been quite accommodating with my Atwater Village train history research. I have 2-3 more photographs and one amazing map to share... Hopefully get to it before the weekend... - AVN

Glen said...

I take it that it's looking towards silver lake and not toward atwater.

That's the view looking North toward Atwater Village.

I'm amused to note that the hillside that has recently been used for the art project involving old TV sets is obscured in this shot by... a billboard for a TV set!

(The concrete pillars that the TV sets were placed on are the footings from this bridge.)

AVN: Have you seen the wooden trestle that predated the steel bridge, back before Fletcher Drive went through underneath? I think the LA Public Library's historical-photo database has some good shots of it.

Glen said...

Well, the LAPL database has at least one photo, though it's not the best I've seen.

I'll see if I can find a better one.

Glen said...

The Fletcher Drive bridge was built in 1904. It was 453'6" long and had a clearance of 40'9'' from the pavement. This huge bridge was originally entirely of timber construction but in 1928, for the purpose of allowing Fletcher Drive to be opened beneath it, the center portion was rebuilt. This rebuilding consisted of installing a steel span construction 97' long supported by two steel structure box bents resting on concrete foundations, with a clearance of 61' through which Fletcher Drive passed.

-- http://www.erha.org/pewgb.htm

Bill said...

Have you run across any pics of the stairs leading to the station at Glendale Av & Riverside dr? To bad they weren't incorporated into the apartments built on the site...

MeekoRouse said...

I'm thinking I might attend the book signing at Metropolis Books this Saturday.. there's 3 local LA historical titles being featured including the Pacific Electric Red Cars.. should be in interesting.. 2pm at Metropolis Books downtown.

Militant Angeleno said...

Back then the place where the train was running was not considered Silver Lake but "Monte Sano." There was a Silver Lake back then but it was really the area around the reservoir.
And it was heading southbound to Edendale, then Echo Park, then the subway tunnel ending at the Subway Terminal in Downtown.

DanJ said...

Was the area Monte Sano named after the sanitarium or vice versa? I remember when the sanitarium had a fire back in the 60's. We could see it from the house on the other side of the 5 and the LA River. How many people remember waiting for the trains at Los Feliz, Glendale and Fletcher before they built the underpasses?

RHOBERT TACHAMET said...

Does anyone remember the tunnels at Riverside Dr near Fletcher?
they were there for a very long time. I think by the late 1980's they were filled in.
No trace of the tunnels remain.
I don't know if it was a storage for the trains or a tunnel for passage.