The Highland Park Heritage Trust plays host...

The Highland Park Heritage Trust plays host to a program Sunday commemorating the Yellow Car and Red Car lines, which plied the streets of Highland Park before 1965, and celebrating the light-rail cars of the present.

The program will be held, appropriately, at the Huron Station, a renovated streetcar power station at 2640 Huron St., at the corner of 28th Street, in Cypress Park.

First, says Heritage Trust spokesman Charles Fisher, there will be a 90-minute film from the Electric Railway Historical Society, with rare color footage of Highland Park streetcars in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Then come a pair of short films about the creation of the Long Beach Blue Line, which opened last year.

As a historical subject, the heritage group approaches streetcars with a sense of nostalgia, Fisher says. But as a current affair, they’re eyeing it a little warily.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission is trying to persuade the Atcheson, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to allow the construction of a light-rail system along the railroad tracks that slice through Highland Park.

A good idea, says Fisher, a coordinator with Transamerica Real Estate Tax Service. “Maybe it would get people out of their cars,” he says. But it shouldn’t be at the expense of losing a lot of historic buildings, he adds.

“We do have concerns about certain planners pushing for high-density development along the route,” Fisher says.

But streetcars always seem to stir up a lot of emotions. “It’s part of our history,” he says.

The event, which will include an awards ceremony for residents who have shown extraordinary community pride and devotion to the community’s cultural heritage, starts at 3 p.m. Admission is free.