The Santa Ana–Huntington Beach Line is a former

Pacific Electric The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system ...

interurban railway The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...

line in Orange County, California. Unlike most of the company's services, trains did not travel to

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is ...

and instead provided a suburban service between Santa Ana and Huntington Beach, for a time running as far as Balboa.

History

The route was laid out by the Pacific Electric Land Company in 1907; the company existed solely to build and lease lines for Pacific Electric to operate. Service began on July 5, 1909. Several spur lines were constructed to transport

sugar beet A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together wi ...

s from farms near the route. The line came under full ownership of PE in 1911, two weeks following the Great Merger. The service was truncated to terminate at Huntington Beach in the south starting on October 15, 1912. An evening car ran as far north as Orange in 1915. As a result of the

1918 Spanish flu pandemic This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Events Below, the events ...

, frequencies were reduced to a single daily round trip starting on October 27 of that year. In November 1921, a second round trip was added, but this was short lived as service was discontinued outright by the following March due to a bridge on the route being damaged in a flood. The line was formally abandoned on January 30, 1931. The establishment of the Santa Ana Army Air Base in 1942 brought about demand by the government for direct rail service. As a result, PE built a single-track line which was owned by the government. No passenger service was provided; freight was exchanged at Greenville. By mid-1948, Pacific Electric had purchased the requisite

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

lines to allow them to move freight to Newport and Huntington without the trip through Long Beach and Sunset Beach. By the 1990s, the route through Santa Ana had largely been converted to the Pacific Electric Bicycle Path.

Route

Leaving the Santa Ana Pacific Electric Depot, cars ran south on Maple Street to New Delhi, where a couple of branch lines met the main tracks and turned to the southwest for about a mile before continuing west, paralleling Alton Avenue. The line crossed the

Santa Ana River The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California in the United States. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows for most of its length through San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, before cutting through ...

, continuing until Bushard Street to turn south into Huntington Beach. A segment of the right of way west from the former Dyer spur is used as the Union Pacific Santa Ana Industrial Lead. The north–south segment in Santa Ana paralleling Rousselle and Maple was partially rebuilt as a

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

Stations

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Santa Ana-Huntington Beach Line Pacific Electric routes Light rail in California Railway lines opened in 1909 1909 establishments in California Railway services discontinued in 1922 1922 disestablishments in California Closed railway lines in the United States Railway lines closed in 1931