O.C. Hasn’t Always Been So Off-Track

Last week, we dusted off some local freeway history, sharing tales of those paved giants that crisscross Orange County and played such an elemental role in its evolution. Today, we dig a little deeper into a different chapter of local lore to track the on-again, off-again history of rail transit in Orange County.

Orange County leaders will meet today to discuss the future of urban rail, and many observers believe that policymakers and the public will embrace a proposed rail line that would, by 2008, shuttle commuters and tourists through seven local cities. With a price tag of more than $1 billion, it would easily be the most ambitious urban rail project ever seen in Orange County, but it would also be far from the first.

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HORSEPOWER AND PEANUT ROASTING: The original urban rail in the county was oat-powered, according to the book “Rails Through the Orange Groves.” On Nov. 23, 1886, the first passengers hopped aboard the open-air benches of a trolley that was pulled by horse along a 7-mile rail line that linked the downtowns of Tustin and Santa Ana. During its modest and somewhat troubled history, the horse cars (and, eventually, steam cars and mule cars) of the Santa Ana, Orange & Tustin Street Railway Co. ventured down lines that stretched north into Orange and expanded their range in Santa Ana.

But, by 1890, the local real estate boom bottomed out, hurting the SAO&T; Railway Co.’s bottom line. Ridership (and perhaps the horses) began to sag, and when the city of Santa Ana decided to pave its streets in 1895, the first local urban rail experiment was put out to pasture. Stung by his losses, the owner of the company, Milton Bund, refused to honor his agreement to pay for the paving around his rail lines. It would not be the last time that the interests of cars and rail were at odds.

Even after the company crumbled, one of its lines remained intact--the portion that began at Chapman and Glassell in Orange and cut over to the west to follow Main Street in Santa Ana south to 4th Street. The authors of “Rails Through the Orange Groves,” Stephen E. Donaldson and William A. Myers, write that the track was dubbed the “steam dummy line” and was used by a steam trolley affectionately called “the Peanut Roaster.”

“The dummy line lasted longer than any of the county’s other boom-era urban transit lines because it filled a real need, serving two communities with sufficiently large populations,” the authors write.

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RED FADES TO BLACK: While existing populations were the key to the success of the Peanut Roaster, another urban rail system rolled into Orange County with the promise of bringing in new people. On June 17, 1904, the distinctive-looking and popular Pacific Electric Red Cars from Los Angeles rattled and rumbled for the first time into a fledgling pier town that had been known as Pacific City until, a year earlier, a developer named Henry Huntington bought the place up and suggested a name he liked better.

From the beginning, Huntington Beach was promoted for its unspoiled beaches and a pier that stretched farther into the sea than any other along the local coast. The arrival of the Red Cars and their passengers (who paid 75 cents for a round trip from Los Angeles) brought droves into the beach city. And, when the rail line was pushed south a year later, it ignited development in Newport Beach as well. Two thousand people used the opening-day trolley service into Newport Beach, and developers were paying attention. The cost of beachfront lots soared from $125 to $250, Donaldson and Myers write in their book.

The Red Cars also ventured away from the coast, and their arrival in 1905 in Santa Ana was hailed as a momentous day in the county’s maturity. Ironically, the journalists and VIPs who boarded a fancy Pacific Electric parlor car for the ride down to Santa Ana were hustled off the train and into 23 waiting cars to tour the rest of the growing city. The automobile was taking over and rails were being pulled up to make way for pavement. The last of the Red Cars pulled into Santa Ana on July 2, 1950.

A unique traveling experience was lost. In 1985, writer Patrick Mott wrote an ode to the Red Cars and their magical allure, and he quoted Spencer Crump, a former Orange Coast College professor who penned two books on Pacific Electric.

“It was the scenery that attracted people to the [Red Cars]. It was efficient, and that appealed to the commuters, but it was great just to ride along the ocean with just a few bathers out there or to go through the big fields and orange groves,” Crump said. “I get letters all the time from people who look back on the Red Cars with nostalgia, for the scenery as much as the cars themselves.”

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The Roads Scholar wants to hear your insights, stories and questions about traffic, the commuting experience and Orange County transportation issues. You can call him at (714) 966-5724, send e-mail to geoff.boucher@ latimes.com or mail letters to him at The Times Orange County, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Please include your full name, hometown and phone number.