Can anyone provide information on California's Interurban Electric Railway? At least one car came to Utah during WWII and still exists.

It was a late 1930's spin-off of Southern Pacific commuter service to Oakland and Alameda, Calif., with ferry connections to San Francisco. It used the Bay Bridge for a short time just before abandonment. Portions of some of the lines were taken over by Key System in the early 1940s.

Much of the IER equipment still was intact when World War II began. The cars wound up all over the United States.

The largest number went to Pacific Electric in Los Angeles. Trailers and de-motorized cars were used at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, Ogden Army Depot in Utah, Red River Army Depot in Texarkana Texas,
Mobile Alabama, Portland Oregon, and San Diego, California.

An excellent book on the subject is "Red Trains in the East Bay" by Robert S. Ford,Interurbans Special 65.

The U.S. Maritime Commission brought the equipment south to the Pacific Electric. On Terminal Island a shipyard building Liberty Ships was started prior to our entry into the War. To provide transportation after the start of the War and gas rationing the Maritime Commission built an extension from the PE onto Terminal Island. The Maritime Commission had more cars on the PE than it needed and so the PE was soon leasing the extra cars and after the war it bought these cars.

The PE and its successors operated the cars until 1961 and Orange Empire Railway Museum obtained two of these cars and a similar car once operated on the Northwestern Pacific in Marin County, north of the Golden Gate.

The Bay Area Electric Railway Association at Rio Vista Junction has one of the ex PE cars and 4 (I think) bodies of cars that went to Utah.

Thank you all for the information. Now that I have some background history I will be posting the story of four "survivors" in Utah shortly.

And I will get the SLG&W roster posted, it is essentially ready.