Over the last year, the Pacific Electric class C-30-2 caboose has become an obsession of mine. Considering how much data is out there on the different interurbans and streetcars, I am always surprised at the lack of information there is on the freight equipment. What I am putting on this page is more data than I have found ANYWHERE online or published in books. In the late 1930’s, the Pacific Electric was using a mixed bag of bobber caboose, home made caboose, and converted boxcars. As the equipment aged, the Pacific Electric started to look for a replacement. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, the Pacific Electric looked at it’s parent road, the Southern Pacific as a source of inspiration. The Southern Pacific had a huge fleet of C-30-1 and C-30-2 caboose that worked great for them. The Pacific Electric decided to build ten caboose based off of the C-30-2, and they were exact copies, minus the cupola. The Pacific Electric C-30-2 were built in 1938 and 1939, numbered between 1960 and 1969. When they were built, the Pacific Electric followed the lettering standard of the Southern Pacific, using just the initials and the number for identification. The Southern Pacific used this style of lettering until 1946, I do not know when the Pacific Electric changed. The above picture from 1948 is a great source of information. It shows that the Pacific Electric followed the Southern Pacific in spelling out the full road name, and it clearly shows the data that modelers look for. This is my favorite picture of a Pacific Electric C-30-2 that I have seen. Starting in 1948, the Southern Pacific began painting the hand rails on their caboose white, the Pacific Electric followed suit. Unfortunately, the date when the Pacific Electric did so has apparently been lost to time, yet if you want to know the exact date that a PCC car ran to Santa Monica….. The final paint scheme of the flat tops was again a copy of the Southern Pacific. The SP changed both the lettering and the paint scheme in 1955, and I have not been able to track down an exact date that the Pacific Electric started to paint their caboose this way. These cars were painted in the traditional boxcar red, except the ends were painted in Daylight Orange. The Billboard style lettering is the only time that the road name was applied below the windows. I have seen images stating that these cars were in use as late as 1962, however they could have lasted until the merger of 1965.
The North Shore also had flattop waycars. Didn't the PE have some of the only trolley pole equipped cabooses?
Randy, I have been a PE fan for as long as I can remember. They never had a pole on a caboose. They did have poles on diesel locos to trigger street crossing signals
Seeing that photo of "1957", I had no idea they had any of the so-called "bobber" (four wheel) styled caboosess.
The bobbers were built in the Pacific Electric Torrance Shops in 1921. Two were gone by 1930, one caboose disappeared in 1938 and another was gone in 1939. The last four perished in 1941
This adds up to eight total bobbers. Why were they scrapped, 1941? Twenty years of age is not that long in railroading terms.
They were numbered 1950-1957. Some of the earlier cars lasted longer, I personally think that they rode roughly and the PE crews and track were not easy on them.
Great info and pictures! It should be noted that some of PE's cabooses had cupolas, just not the C-30-2s. Don't forget that 6 PE cabooses still exist at Orange Empire RR Museum (including one of the bobber cabooses) including 2 flat tops: 1905 and 1962 (the others are 1970, 1971, 1973 from Lehigh Valley Railroad and 1985 from Richmond, Fredericksburg, & Potomac Railroad).
Really interesting stuff y'all! Jeff, I never knew LV hacks made their way west to the PE. Amazing. These photos show the value of non-locomotive subject matter. As modern fans, sometimes I think we concentrate on motive power to the exclusion of other things that could be of greater importance. It's hard to believe that our era will yield anything of interest to a future generation, but it will. Rolling stock, structures, signals, bridges and area overviews will be much appreciated I think.
The LV hack is made in HO, and I would love to have one in N... As for the pictures, your right. I used old photos of the Pacific Electric Santa Monica Freight Station to scratch build a model, and was able only to find images of three sides, and I couldn't find a pictures of the building next door to it....
