Owensmouth Line

The Owensmouth Line was a Pacific Electric interurban service that connected the San Fernando Valley to Downtown Los Angeles. The route was largely developed as the result of real estate speculation.

Owensmouth
Sherman Way in Owensmouth, 1920, with Los Angeles Pacific Railroad lines
Overview
Owner	Southern Pacific Railroad
Locale	Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley
Termini	Downtown Los Angeles Owensmouth-Canoga Park, California
Stations	34
Service
Type	Interurban
System	Pacific Electric
Operator(s)	Pacific Electric
Rolling stock	PE 5050 Class PCC Cars (last used)
Ridership	1,038,622 (1926)[1]
History
Opened	December 16, 1911 (to Van Nuys) December 7, 1912 (Owensmouth)
Closed	June 1, 1938 (Canoga Park–Sherman Way) December 29, 1952 (all service)
Technical
Line length	29.1 mi (46.8 km)
Track gauge	4 ft 8 ^1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Electrification	600 V DC overhead line
Route map Canoga Park De Soto Browns Canyon Winnetka Mapleton Aliso Canyon Reseda Pattenton Fremont Bull Creek Solano Cabrillo Hanna San Fernando North Sherman Way terminus after 1938 Southern Pacific RR Van Nuys Whitley Castro Cortez Kester Junction Tujunga Wash Garnsey Sadler Eucalyptus North Hollywood Hoffman Los Nogales Los Angeles River Universal City Oak Crest Barham Boulevard Hollywood Park Dusky Glen Cahuenga Pass US 101 Beverly Hills Sherman Highland Avenue Colegrove Virgil Avenue Beverly Hills Sunset Junction US 101 1st Street Toluca Substation and Yard Hollywood Subway US 101 (Harbor Freeway) Subway Terminal

History

The Pacific Electric streetcar service to Owensmouth (present day Canoga Park) was part of a real estate development in Southern California.[2] Nearly the entire southern San Fernando Valley was bought in 1910 by the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Co., owned by a syndicate of wealthy Los Angeles investors, developers, and speculators: including Harrison Gray Otis, Harry Chandler, Moses Sherman, Hobart Johnstone Whitley, and others.[3] It anticipated possible connections to, but was planned independent of, the soon to be completed (1913) Los Angeles Aqueduct from the Owens River watershed to the City of Los Angeles through the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County.

Cahuenga Pass in 1922 prior to freeway construction

To help promote sales of the land, General Moses Sherman's Los Angeles Pacific Railroad set off to build a streetcar line across the San Fernando Valley, to serve the three plotted new towns: Van Nuys (1911); Marion (now Reseda); and Owensmouth (now Canoga Park) (1912).[3] At the time, streetcar lines were seen as a necessity to promote development. Alongside it across the Valley westward from Van Nuys was Sherman Way: the "$500,000 paved boulevard" with lush landscaping and no speed limit where one might get up to 35 miles per hour (56 km/h), a separate dirt road for farm wagons/equipment, and telegraph lines.[3] Los Angeles Pacific Railroad later sold the line to the Pacific Electric. The line opened to Van Nuys on December 16, 1911, extending to Owensmouth on December 7 the following year.[4]

Owensmouth was named in classic real estate "boosterism", as 'nearest' the outlet-'mouth' of the Owens River Aqueduct and echoing English and New England town names such as Falmouth, Yarmouth, and Plymouth.[3] It was actually 20 miles (32 km) away when founded in 1912 and used well water instead until being annexed to L.A. city in 1917.[3] The controversy of Valley land speculation and the aqueduct brought the community to change its name from Owensmouth to Canoga Park in 1931, after the Southern Pacific "Canoga" station there.[3] The name of the Pacific Electric line was unchanged as Owensmouth until the demise of through service.

The route originally navigated the Cahuenga Pass in its own right of way on the west side of the state highway. When the Hollywood Freeway was built, the line was relocated to the freeway's median strip.[5]

Postcard depicting the private right of way in the Hollywood Freeway median strip (right of center frame), c. 1940

Services were truncated to North Sherman Way on June 1, 1938, and finally replaced by buses on December 28, 1952.[1][4] Unlike other lines which saw a decrease in service after World War II, ridership greatly increased in the service's final years.[4]

A survey conducted by Caltrans in 1981 reported that almost all of the line had either been removed or paved over for street use.[5]

G Line

In the 2000s a new cross-Valley rapid transit line was built: the Metro Orange Line, a dedicated bus transit-way which uses part of the old Pacific Electric right-of-way (Chandler Blvd. east of Ethel Ave.) and the former Southern Pacific south and west Valley route (from White Oak Avenue to the Chatsworth station). Service commenced in 2005; it was renamed to the G Line in 2020.

Route

Leaving Downtown on the same tracks as the Beverly Hills Line, the line continues along the Sherman Line at Sunset Junction before turning north at Highland. The line continued on its own private right of way though the Cahuenga Pass, turning up Vineland Avenue through North Hollywood, and onto Chandler Boulevard. Proceeding west to the curve onto Van Nuys Boulevard, it ran through Van Nuys to a curve (Sherman Circle) off of Van Nuys Boulevard turning west onto Sherman Way to Owensmouth. On Shoup Avenue, named after Pacific Electric president Paul Shoup,[3] the center was used as its end of the line sidings.

List of major stations

Station	Major Connections	Date Opened	Date Closed	City
Owensmouth
Van Nuys	San Fernando	1912	1952	Van Nuys
Lankershim (later North Hollywood)	San Fernando	1902	1952	North Hollywood
Highland Avenue	San Fernando, Sherman, Venice via Hollywood	1902	1955	Los Angeles
Colegrove	San Fernando, Sherman, Venice via Hollywood	1902	1955
Virgil Avenue	San Fernando, Sherman, Venice via Hollywood, Western and Franklin Avenue	1902	1955
Sunset Junction	Beverly Hills, San Fernando, Sherman, Venice via Hollywood, Western and Franklin Avenue	1902	1955
Subway Terminal Building	Beverly Hills, Echo Park Avenue, Glendale–Burbank, Redondo Beach via Playa del Rey, San Fernando, Sawtelle, Sherman, Venice Short Line, Venice via Hollywood, Western and Franklin Avenue, Westgate	1905	1961

Ridership

Passengers (Fare and Transfer)[1]

Year	Passengers	Car Miles	Revenue
1913	368,688	276,895	$ 81,917
1914	487,907	378,151	$115,228
1916	454,942	315,820	$ 88,879
1918	499,282	381,858	$101,452
1920	815,483	394,132	$191,198
1922	795,906	494,037	$202,058
1924	912,075	585,773	$219,281
1926	1,038,622	624,206	$225,957

See also

• Picover station
• East San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor

References

1. "San Fernando Valley Line". Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
2. Coscia, David (2011). Pacific Electric Railway and the Growth of the San Fernando Valley. Shade Tree Books. ISBN 1-57864-735-5.
3. "The Owensmouth Baby"; by Catherine Mulholland; Santa Susana Press (CSUN—California State University, Northridge); ©1987; ISBN 0-937048-42-9.
4. Veysey, Laurence R. (June 1958). A History Of The Rail Passenger Service Operated By The Pacific Electric Railway Company Since 1911 And By Its Successors Since 1953 (PDF). LACMTA (Report). Retrieved 19 September 2020.
5. "1981 Inventory of Pacific Electric Routes" (PDF). Caltrans. February 1982. Retrieved 3 June 2020.