Metropolitan Coach Lines

Company History: MCL was established in 1953 to purchase the passenger business of the Pacific Electric serving the greater Los Angeles, California area. The deal consisted of the purchase of the bus lines and related facilities and the free rental (for the first two years) of the right of way, trolley wire network, and passenger rolling stock of the PE rail operations. After two years, a rental fee would be introduced. PE would continue to move freight on the appropriate lines. The familiar red cars began to receive winged MCL logos over the round PE logos. Before long, Metro green paint began to gradually replace PE red paint. The goal of MCL was to convert the remaining interurban operations to busses before the free-rent period came to an end. However, community opposition prevented the changeover and MCL still had 73 interurban cars in operation on 4 lines when the whole operation was sold to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Commission in 1958.

Successor/Parent History: The LAMTA was established in 1951 to study the possible construction of a monorail between Long Beach and Panorama City (in the greater Los Angeles, California area.) Of course the monorail project never happened but in March of 1958 LAMTA did become a railroad when they took over the remaining streetcar and interurban lines of Metropolitan Coach Lines (who had been operating the passenger service on the old Pacific Electric since 1951) and the Los Angeles Transit Lines (formerly the Los Angeles Railway.) Two of the old PE routes were closed during the first year of LAMTA operation. The remaining two PE lines were closed and converted to bus service in 1961. The remaining former LARY routes were closed in 1963. The following year, the agency was taken over by the Southern California Rapid Transit District.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.