REPORT

R-56-3
TWENTY YEARS AGO- APRIL, 1949
In 1924, a new high speed interurban line was opened to La Jolla, complete with freight service. New cars were bought to service this line. They consisted of the fifty 400's which ran until all street car service ended in 1949.
Although busses had displaced the street cars on First Avenue in 1922, the peak route mileage was in 1925. Busses replaced street car service to Chula Vista in 1925, and the street cars held their own for nearly a decade. With the depression the lines were gradually bussed until only the lines to La Jolla and routes 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9 and 11 were left in the city.
High speed interurban service to La Jolla ended in 1940.
With the coming of World War II, San Diego was hard pressed for transportation. The bus lines and the remaining street car routes were overtaxed. The country was scoured for street cars. The cars came from Salt Lake, Scranton, and in the end some old relics that had been built in 1905 for the Third Avenue Railway in New York City.
Some trackage was added during the war, but with the end of the war the bus once more began to bump off the trolley.
In 1948, only three routes, 2, 7, and 11, remained. That year the San Diego Electric Railway was sold to the National City Lines and became the San Diego Transit System.
On April 24, 1949, the remaining 78 green and cream street cars were removed from service and replaced with busses.
At the end of the street car era the company had the fifty 400's and 28 PCC cars. Seventeen of the PCC's now are in operation at El Paso, Texas, and two PCC cars were saved. One, the 508, is now at the Orange Empire Trolley Museum at Perris, California. The other, the 528, is at the Southern California Exposition at Del Mar. One of the old Third Avenue cars is at the California Railway Museum at Rio Vista Junction, California.
In July of this year, another of the last runs will take place when the San Diego-Coronado Ferry will be displaced by a bridge. Some of the ferries have already been sold to the State of Washington for use on the Puget Sound.
By the end of April all of the spans will be in place on the new Coronado Bridge. Better hurry and take that last ferry ride. They'll be gone before you know it.

REPORT
Report is the official publication of the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association of San Diego County, California, Incorporated.
Report is distributed free to members and other interested persons and published six to twelve times yearly.
Museum Officers include:
Richard Pennick, president; Jerry Windle, vice president; Thomas Matson, secretary; David C. Hobson, treasurer; Eric Sanders, board chairman
Museum Address is:
P. O. Box 12096 San Diego, California 92112
Report Address is:
2418 Edding Drive Lemon Grove, California 92045
Charles Kent, editor

SP APPLIES FOR TRAIN OFF
In the past the Southern Pacific has made application to the PUC for discontinuance of the San Joaquin Daylight and the connecting Sacramento Daylight. In the past the carriers request has been denied.
Within the past month the SP has again applied for discontinuance of service. This time the carrier has asked only to drop the Sacramento Daylight, trains 53 and 54.
Recent timetable changes on the SP has made all trains make connections between New Orleans and Portland with the exception of the San Joaquin Daylights.
We wonder if this could be a move to kill patronage on the San Joaquin trains. Another possibility would be to operate the same equipment from Portland to New Orleans via the Coast Line.
The SP also wants to form a holding company, called SP Inc. which would allow it to diversify. The present Southern Pacific Company would be included in SP Inc. But, believe it or not, the resulting corporation would still be known as the Southern Pacific Company. Can you beat that.