San Diego Electric Railway
Class 5 #401 on Broadway
near the Union Depot. 50 cars of this class were built in 1924 by American
Car Co. Built to modernize the system, the first 25 cars were built with
field shunts to run faster on the Mission Beach-La Jolla line and the Ocean
Beach line. Also equipped with MU control and run in 3 or 4 car trains.
The normal operation required a car dropped off at Ocean Beach Jct, another
dropped at the Mission Beach amusement park owned by the ry. and the one
car to proceed to La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya). They originally came with
pantographs, but they did not work right and were discarded in one year
and replaced with poles. They also could be un-coupled at speed so as to
not slow the operation of dropping cars. (They actually slowed down for
this operation.)
Bill Volkmer collection
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