THE BIG RED CARS

This silent short, "The Big Red Cars" shows interurban trolley cars of the Pacific Electric Railroad. It was shot by Leo Caloia, a municipal worker who shot short films in his free time, including some of the earliest motion picture footage of Marilyn Monroe. Some of these films were marketed by a company called World in Color Productions for the home market. At :34, shots of 1950s Los Angeles with car 1535, also known as a "blimp". Car 1519 is shown at 1:31. At 2:08 the Winona station is shown, just north of Compton on the Long Beach Line. Car 1524 passes at 2:26. The cars shown in the film are an arch-roof, double-end, double-truck, steel coach with a smoking compartment. They have distinctive porthole style windows on the ends. This type of car was known as a "blimp" on the Pacific Electric. The Pacific Electric lines in the Los Angeles area were electrified at 600 volts DC. For more information on the Pacific Electric visit the website https://www.pacificelectric.org/