Various - NSC 05-Set 3 - Mixed Freight Consist, North America, Transition Era - Pacific Electric - 2-Pack

Specific Item Information: Road numbers. 1344, 84

Model Information: Occasionally, the NSC would package and sell multipacks of cars and/or locomotives where the individual items were made by different manufacturers.

Prototype History: A mixed freight train is a train that hauls a variety of different freight cars or wagons. A mixed freight depends on the locale and industries. The train will be carrying cars to be brought to a yard where a local will bring them to the various industries. The location determines the industries, and the industries determine the cars.

Which cars are in which trains is determined by the waybills they are assigned - which is close to a totally random process. For example, through freights simply run from up staging to down staging and back, stopping long enough to trade out 30 percent of their cars and change from steam to motor (catenary) or vice-versa. Thus freights will have a variety of cars, changing each time they pass through a switching yard.

Road Name History: The PE was established in 1901 and built an electric interurban line between Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. With this first line completed in 1902, the PE began building outward in every direction. This caught the attention of Southern Pacific who at first attempted to obstruct the PE’s expansion and then bought a 45% stake in the company. Henry Huntington, PE’s founder, then established a new company, the Los Angeles Inter-Urban Railway and resumed his expansion under that flag – outside of the influence of the SP. By 1908, LAI-U had grown larger than PE but Huntington had come to a truce with Southern Pacific. He leased the LAI-U to Pacific Electric and over the next few years sold control of his various traction lines in the state to SP. In 1911, the PE, LAI-U, Los Angeles Pacific and a handful of smaller lines were combined into a greater Pacific Electric.

The new PE blanketed Southern California from San Fernando and Pasadena to the north, Santa Monica, Redondo Beach, San Pedro, Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Balboa along the coast to as far east as Redlands. With 575 miles of line, they were the largest electric railway in the world at the time of the consolidation.

Near the end of the Second World War, PE rostered 483 electric passenger cars ranging from small street cars to large interurban cars, 41 box motors for package freight, a trio of RPO-Express cars, and for heavy freight service 44 electric freight motors, 19 steam locomotives, and 6 diesels (some of which were equipped with trolley poles to trigger PE’s signal system.)

As the popularity of the automobile increased, PE began abandoning lines. In a few cases, lines that were making money were forced into abandonment to make room for new highways. In 1953, the remaining passenger service was sold to Metropolitan Coach Lines. PE continued on as a freight railroad. The freight operations were gradually dieselized with power leased from SP with the last electric freight motor switching customers along Santa Monica Boulevard in January of 1958. In 1965, Pacific Electric Railway was finally merged into parent Southern Pacific.