The Redondo Beach via Playa Del Rey line was one of two electric railway lines to Redondo Beach operated by Pacific Electric prior to World War II. This reflected the fact that PE was formed from a merger, in 1910, of several electric railways acquired by Southern Pacific Railroad. The route that had the higher ridership in the '30s was the more scenic route down the coast from Playa Del Rey. Nonetheless, the ridership was quite small — only 2,000 daily boardings in the late '30s. Both routes to Redondo Beach were eliminated in 1940. Only the route via the coast got a bus replacement. In the late '40s the PE bus line to Redondo Beach via Playa Del Rey was generating a slight profit.
The Redondo via Playa del Rey line traversed the same route as the Venice Short Line from the Hill Street surface terminal (south side of Subway Terminal Building) to Culver Junction. Culver Junction is shown in the photo below. The tracks diverging to the left are the Redondo Beach line, which traversed the median of Culver Blvd. The tracks in the foreground are the Santa Monica via Venice Blvd. line ("Venice Short Line"). The station in this photo is the station for Culver City. (Photo is from the book "Pacific Electric Stations", available from the Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California)
The next shot shows a PE car in Playa Del Rey. The grade crossing behind the rail car is for Mesmer Avenue. The vacant lots reflect the low density of development of much of the L.A. area before World War II.
Not far from the Playa Del Rey station of the PE was the Playa Del Rey lagoon, shown below. This estuary was, at this time, fed directly by Ballona Creek. The pavilion is at left. The building in the center is the hotel. The track curving around the edge of the lagoon and past the pavilion is a shuttle line between Playa Del Rey and Venice which ran until 1936. Just to the left of the hotel the shuttle line crosses over the mouth of Ballona Creek on a wood trestle. The lagoon would be severed from Ballona Creek in 1938 when the creek was confined to a concrete channel.
The next photo was taken somewhere south of Playa Del Rey. The Redondo via Playa del Rey line ran along the beach from Playa Del Rey to the north edge of Hermosa Beach, where it moved a block or so inland.
The next image is a very early photo of the PE line along the shore through Manhattan Beach. The Manhattan Beach pier is visible in the background.
At Greenvich Village Drive the line curved in from the beach and ran through Hermosa Beach in Pacific Avenue (now called Hermosa Avenue). In the following photo from 1917 we can see that the line originally had a reserved median in Hermosa Avenue. With the growth of auto ownership after World War 1, the tracks in Hermosa Avenue were paved over.
The last photo here is a shot looking south on Pacific Avenue in what used to be the Redondo Beach central business district. The building in the center was the Garland Hotel. A PE car is headed south towards its terminal at Clifton-by-the-Sea. Tracks at the right are freight tracks of the Santa Fe, which originally led to wharves. At one time Santa Fe hoped that Redondo would be able to compete with San Pedro for ocean shipping.
