Los Angeles Times article

End of the line for a remnant of Southern California's Red Car service

So according to the numbers shown, it cost them about $13 a head to operate it, but they show and income equal to just $0.17 a head being charged?!

$11,800,000 cost to operate, $146,000 in revenues from 827,000 riders?

Either the person who wrote this article has the numbers wrong or there are complete iditos overseeing the fimamces/accounting of this operation.

Fixed that for you.

As incredible as it may seem, I have seen operating ratios even more preposterous on certain transit operations, although this one is certainly a "doozy" as the saying goes.

Mind you, it's possible to "massage" the accounting of such operations to show what one wants. Did they factor in capital construction and equipment costs, for example?

Thanks, damn typos on cell phones...fimamces/finances.

Oooh....you mean.....wait, I thought politicians/ idiots are one in the same?

I went down to San Pedro today. Because of a "Lobster Festival" that was happening at "Ports O'Call Village," that part of the port and the roadways around it were a "zoo!"

One car, the #501, was running and the 500 was outside the barn/tent with its pole up. The south end of the line is next to a couple of public parking lots and one of the original goals of the line was to transport people to and from 'Ports O'Call Village."

In one of the early years of the line's operation for an event like this, they managed to have all three cars out running. The two replica cars and the PE "1058" rebuilt from a 950 class car by its former owner and then re-electrified by the harbor.

Today, most of the people using the parking lots were being shuttled by buses. The single car was seen full to capacity upon leaving the southern terminal -- but the operation was leisurely without any urgency to move people.

The replica car line was a favorite of a former Port Director (General Manager of the Port of LA). He remembered the red cars from his youth (and maybe his father had worked for the company). When the port began looking at revitalizing Ports O'Call Village the need for transportation was realized and he pushed for a replica operation. The construction of the cars and the electrification of the trackage was all paid for out of the port revenues from the containers moving through the port.

Then after the project was completed he retired and new management was not so enamored with the electric cars.

Over the succeeding years the contract with Herzog to operate the line was cut back from the original four days a week and two cars on weekends. In the early years the operation even saw a few commuters using the line -- they would park in the public lots and then traveled the almost a mile to the stop near the downtown San Pedro offices.

On some of the heaviest patronage days during events -- to encourage use of the cars -- the fare may have been waved.

One big attraction at the harbor is the battleship IOWA. It is located just south of the cruise ship terminal and shares the same parking lot for visitors. The Red Cars go right past this parking lot; but the one stop is adjacent to the cruise ship terminal and the other probably equally faraway around the fire boat building.

Here is the link to the Port's webpage about the Waterfront Red Car Line. It has links to an expansion report done in 2009. A list of ridership and cost figures can be found in this PDF of a PowerPoint presentation: Waterfront Red Car Line Overview Presentation

We'll have to see what the next few years will bring for the line and the cars.

One of the consultants for the original project and the first maintenance manger for the line said that he would make some changes if more cars would be built for the operation. They would not clerestory roofs but arch roofs. Instead of being varnish finish inside, at least the lower portion of the interior walls would be painted. All of these changes and some others because of maintenance costs. My comment back to him was that this sounds like the changes the streetcar and interurban companies made in the late teen's and the 1920s.

If the cars are not used again by the Port of Los Angeles, I expect that Orange Empire will be interested in them.