S was a

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

line in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. It was operated by the

Los Angeles Railway The Los Angeles Railway (also known as Yellow Cars, LARy and later Los Angeles Transit Lines) was a system of streetcars that operated in Central Los Angeles and surrounding neighborhoods between 1895 and 1963. The system provided frequent loc ...

from 1895 to 1958, and by the

Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (sometimes referred to as LAMTA or MTA I) was a public agency formed in 1951. Originally tasked with planning for rapid transit in Los Angeles, California, the agency would come to operate the vesti ...

from 1958 to 1963. The route was very popular due to its proximity to Hollywood as well as the sizable manufacturing district in South Los Angeles.

History

San Pedro Line (1895–1911)

The original San Pedro line began at an uncertain point in

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

and reached the South Side of the city by way of Fourth Street, San Pedro Street, Park Avenue (present-day Avalon Boulevard), Gage Avenue, and South Central Avenue to 68th Street.

S Line (1911–1963)

Following the Great Merger of 1911, the tracks on Fourth Street were removed, and the San Pedro line now ran from San Pedro Street to Seventh Street from Downtown to the outskirts of Westlake. Here, the route took advantage of an old LAIU track on Hoover, Wilshire, and Commonwealth to continue northwest via Sixth Street,

Vermont Avenue Vermont Avenue is one of the longest running north–south streets in City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, California. With a length of , is the third longest of the north–south thoroughfares in the region. For most of its length be ...

, Third Street, and Western Avenue to

Santa Monica Boulevard Santa Monica Boulevard is a major west–east thoroughfare in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It runs from Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica near the Pacific Ocean to Sunset Boulevard at Sunset Junction in Los Angeles. It passes t ...

on the southern edge of

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

. In 1921, the route was given the letter designation "S." During the LARy and LATL eras, further route changes were made. The LAIU shortcut to Sixth Street was eliminated and the route ran straight on 7th between San Pedro and Vermont, while the route's southern terminus was extended further south to the intersection of Avalon and Firestone Boulevard. When the N line was decommissioned in 1950, S was re-routed to fill in its route along 8th street. Operation of the line passed to the

in 1958. Streetcar service ended on March 31, 1963, by which time the southern terminus had become Central and Manchester Avenue.

Rolling stock

After 1955,

PCC streetcar The Presidents' Conference Committee (PCC) is a streetcar (tram) design that was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful domestically, and after World War II it was licensed for use elsewhere in the world where ...

s replaced the old rolling stock on the line.

Sources

External links

S Line Archives
— Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society * Los Angeles Railway routes Railway lines opened in 1895 Railway lines closed in 1963 1895 establishments in California 1963 disestablishments in California {{California-transport-stub