Yesterday's big activity at Orange Empire Ry. Museum in Perris, CA was moving our narrow-gauge streetcar collection around to provide display space for Los Angeles Railway funeral car Descanso. Built in 1909 by LARy shop craftsmen, this unique car had previously been "buried" in our workshop barn, coming out in the sunshine only on special occasions. Moving it required another streetcar or a forklift, because the car has no motors. Now it will be in Barn One (Ray Ballash Car House), where visitors can see a relic from the days when the streetcar system was an integral part of city life. As far as we know, Descanso is the only surviving funeral trolley in North America. It is also the first streetcar in California to be preserved by a railfan group, having been donated to the Railroad Boosters (now Pacific Railroad Society) in 1940. The club had the car moved from Los Angeles to Summit, a Santa Fe station in Cajon Pass, where they used it as a clubhouse for weekend trainwatching and photography sessions. In 1967, Santa Fe closed its trainorder office, SP was building their Colton-Palmdale Line and PRS realized that Descanso had to be moved. They took a vote and Orange Empire became its new home. For a while it was on outdoor display, then it was stored in Barn Three, a work area not normally open to the public. Around 1990, PRS members "backdated" car, repainting it to its orignal gray finish (in its clubhouse days it was yellow) and refitting the interior to show what it looked like when it gave many Angelenos their last trolley ride. As a final touch, a local funeral director donated a sample coffin (empty!). Viewing hours are 9 to 5, Saturday and Sunday.

Bob,
Good work there! It is great that more vivitors will be able to see this one of a kind car.
i have seen the car and it appears it is sitting on a pair of shop trucks without motors. Did the car have its own motors or was it a trailer towed by another powered car? We had some of them here in San Francisco; but they are long gone from the scene.

Ted Miles

Descanso had two motors, but they were removed in 1939 (according to Yellow Cars of Los Angeles), a year before the car was given to Railroad Boosters. I'm not sure if the present trucks are shop trucks, or the standard LARy arch-bar trucks used under hundreds of pre-World War I trolleys. I can check for gears on the axles next weekend. It does have Type K controllers at both ends, but they're for looks only, as there are no plans to remotorize the car. One "oral tradition" that the Yellow Cars book would contradict is that the motors were removed during World War II for a scrap drive to help the war effort. On further thought, the idea of removing motors from a car sitting up in the mountains, far from any sort of shop facilities does seem rather far-fetched.
Another bit of funeral car lore: Funeral directors (or "undertakers" as we used to call them) in the LA area would charter the cars for a flat rate, $15 as first, and later, $25. This is the answer to visitors asking, "So did the railway sell, for example, 14 round-trip tickets and one one-way?"

Great picture and very interesting. I've just started to model in O scale trolley and interurban.

Darn it. People have been dying to ride that car for years.



Okay, okay, I'll go stand in the corner now.

Alex #4 made a grave mistake by starting a battle of puns.

I'm an incorrigible punster. Don't incorrige me.

I'm spinelessly unable to resist a pun. That's right, an invertebrate punster. So slug me. (Oops, that belongs in the N&W Bellevue thread.)

Dept. of Agriculture reports a bumper crop of corn has appeared.

Perhaps OERM is leery to make this car "live" again with motors, out of fear from what else they might bring back from the dead. They would need to add an exorcist to the restoration crew. Not too hard to come by in California, I would think.

Its unfortunate that the Chicago funeral cars did not survive... A west side L car and CA&E interurban #10 come to mind.

As long as they're not DEAD-set against such a restoration.

If anyone is really curious, I can check and see how much of the original electrical and brake hardware is still there (which would determine how difficult a "reanimation" would be). A while back the subject came up when we had the car on outside display, and the general opinion was that the body was old (like 100 years) and fragile, and we should resist the temptation to make like Dr. Frankenstein. Also, we have plenty of other cars that need electrical and body work, so this one is probably quite a ways down the list.

Yeah, I can really dig it, but I must add the course of this thread is mortifying.

Examination of Descanso yesterday showed that most of the electrical and air brake hardware is still in place. One axle in each truck has a gear on it, indicating that these are most likely the trucks that it had during its operating days. That said, to the best of my knowledge, there are no plans to remotorize the car. As it is presently displayed, the casket compartment doors are open on the south side, with a piece of clear plastic in the opening, giving a view of the sample casket inside. Future plans include a platform allowing visitors a good look at the inside. Side note: at yesterday's OERM Annual Meeting, from where I was sitting it appears that the window glass is original to the car, being somewhat "ripply" like the glass in an old house.

I forwarded this story to a friend who has a blog which covers news of Boyle Heights & central Los Angeles.

Here's his story:

http://www.theeastsiderla.com/2010/03/l ... named.html