Of the rail lines created at the turn of the 20th century, in order to build interurban links through Southern California communities around metropolitan Los Angeles, the Pacific Electric grew to be the most prominent of all. The Pacific Electric Railway is synonymous with Henry Edwards Huntington, the capitalist with many decades of railroad experience, who formed the "P. E." and expanded it as principal owner for nearly its first decade. Huntington sold his PE holdings to the giant Southern Pacific Railroad in 1910, and the following year the SP absorbed nearly every electric line in the fourcounty area around Los Angeles in the "Great Merger" into a "new" Pacific Electric. Founded in 1901 and terminated in 1965, Pacific Electric was known as the "World's Great Interurban."

The Pacific Electric Railway originally provided reliable transportation across more than 1,000 miles of track. Postwar society's affair with the automobile led to the loss of an infrastructure that could have formed the basis for an enviable modern light-rail system, one that current society would be happy to utilize. Authors Steve Crise and Michael Patris look back at the railway and its landscape today. Both serve on the board of the Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society, from whose archives most of these images are taken.

The first comprehensive case study of railroad electrification in the United States, this pioneering book highlights a subject of current government and industry studies and a target of billions of dollars of Amtrak rehabilitation funds. Both energy conservation and environmental quality remain at stake together with transportation efficiency. Electric traction on the Pennsylvania Railroad was a technological success handicapped by an economic factor: the onetime relatively low cost of petroleum, which gave diesel locomotives and highway vehicles a temporary advantage. Today the growing cost advantage of electricity--generated with coal; atomic energy; water, wind, and solar power--prefigures a revival of electric railroad traction. Drawing upon previously untapped records of the PRR and its suppliers, notably General Electric, the author traces stages in cooperative risk management. First came challenges of limited scope which steam locomotives were unable to meet: the New York City tunnel extension of 1910 and the Philadelphia suburban modernization begun in 1913. Next came a decade of mainline electrification, 1928-38: first New York to Washington and then passenger and freight extensions to Harrisburg. These projects were preceded by large-scale research and experimentation, followed by constant improvement in equipment and operations. Electric traction is depicted as a program involving not only the railroad but also its consultants, equipment and energy suppliers, and (to a lesser degree) governmental bodies. Locomotive and power transmission design is described in detail--with copious illustrations--as are the creative achievements of managers, engineers, and workers. And the presentation will be clear to readers without specialized technical or business backgrounds.

This highly illustrated 1897 handbook by a leading electrical engineer offers unique insights into the earliest days of electric locomotion.