This streetcar is painted to commemorate Los Angeles Railway Co (LARy). Los Angeles ran PCC streetcars from 1937 to 1963. San Diego got California’s first PCCs, beating LARy by a few weeks, but LARy got bragging rights when Shirley Temple unveiled its first PCCs.

LARy served central Los Angeles using narrow gauge track. Rival Pacific Electric (PE) was more of an interurban operation, running its few PCCs on its line to from downtown LA to Burbank and Glendale.

Unlike the intricate paint scheme of PE’s PCCs (modeled by Muni No. 1061) LARy’s first PCCs came in simple two-tone yellow as seen on this car. Later, the company and its successors tried other combinations, including the green, yellow & white modeled on No. 1080, but they never matched the dashing PE design.

Still, the narrow gauge PCCs outlasted their standard gauge PE counterparts, and even after leaving Los Angeles, many of the LARy cars soldiered on for decades more in their second home—Cairo, Egypt.

» Los Angeles Transit Lines No. 1080
» Pacific Electric No. 1061