LARy 1559

Built

1925
Type K - Home Built
 
November 11, 2000- OERM's Tom Jacobson accepts the donation of LARy 1559 from Will Walters representing the Pacific Railroad Society. Car 1559 had been on long-term loan to the Museum, and has now been formally donated.

 

Since its earliest days, the Los Angeles Railway prided itself upon its ability to build, as well as repair, its streetcars. This car is an example of the type of large-scale car building that the LA Railway was capable of. In 1925, the LA Railway shops built 82 of these ‘Type K’ cars as homemade copies of the predecessor ‘Type H’ class. Accustomed as their shops were to working in wood, the ‘Type K’ cars were constructed as clever wood copies of the all-steel ‘Type H’. 

These ‘Type K’ cars used a steel underframe, but the framing above that was wood. A thin steel sheeting was affixed to the exterior, thus giving the appearance of an all-steel car. The use of truss-rods below the floor line (a structural necessity found on most wooden railroad cars), is the give-away that this is a wooden carbody. 1559 was purchased from the LATL by the Pacific Railroad Society, and has been at the Museum since 1958. It was formally donated to OERM in 2000. PRS' other car at OERM, the Descanso, can be found here.

 

Links:  Pacific Railroad Society
 
Additional Photos:

coming soon

 

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