Nearly four decades after being mothballed, the Red Car trolley system is about to begin rolling again.

Starting in November, an $8 million system consisting of a refurbished 64-seat 1909 Red Car and two 48-seat replicas made from scratch will be transporting tourists and local residents around the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro.

Inspired by the port-area system, an ad hoc group of community leaders is working to bring the system back to downtown as well.

“We want to tap into many Los Angeles residents’ nostalgic affection for the Red Car,” said Robert Henry, project manager. “They say Los Angeles had the world’s greatest transportation and (city officials) should never have taken it away.”

The beloved Red Cars and their transit cousin Yellow Cars traversed 1,000 miles of track linking neighborhoods, cities and counties from 1903 until the systems were dismantled in 1963.

The particular 1909 Red Car being reactivated in San Pedro has been in storage since it was taken off the tracks in the late 1950s. It initially suffered the indignity of being used as a storage facility by a Compton water heater manufacturer, but San Pedro resident Richard Fellows bought it in the early 1960s.

He installed rubber tires and a Chrysler V-8 engine on the trolley and drove it in parades and other special events for decades.

Four years after Fellows’ death in 1995, port officials bought the Red Car for $80,000 and moved it from his Vernon storage facility to a Wilmington warehouse, where F & M Car and Locomotive of Indianapolis is converting it back to a 1000-Class trolley car.

The vehicle is being outfitted with new seats, trolley wheels and rewiring to accommodate the new 600-volt propulsion engine that will be powered by a mile and a half of electrical wiring that will hover above the Harbor Boulevard route.

Port officials paid Historic Railway Restoration Co. of Seattle $1.7 million to build the two replica 500-Class cars, each of which is taking 18 months to construct.

“The original cars were made with wood frames,” said Kim Greenawalt, co-owner of the company, which has 16 employees assigned to the project. “These are going to be made in a steel frame clad in wood, so they will look like the originals but will be much stronger.”

Operating plans

Plans are to simultaneously operate the two replicas each with a driver as well as a conductor selling tickets and pointing out port sites with the vintage model saved for chartered events and to be used as a back up when one of the replicas is in the maintenance shop.

The hope is that 500,000 people a year will shell out $1 each for four hours of unlimited rides, though that would only cover half of the projected $1 million in annual operating costs. Looking to undertake a similar Red Car system renaissance, an ad hoc group of downtown boosters are pushing to lay down nine miles of track extending northward from USC along Figueroa Street and looping through northern downtown in a “P” shape.

Among the landmark areas the envisioned line would pass are Staples Center, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, the Theater District, Civic Center, the Music Center and Olvera Street. These, too, would be replicas of the original cars.

Fate of original cars

The few existing Red Cars have been used for everything from chicken coops to mountain cabins and small restaurants. About 55 of them are owned by the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, Calif.

“There are just almost none available,” said George Eslinger, director of the Los Angeles Red Car Concept Committee, as the group calls itself. “When they first dismantled the system, most of the cars suffered one of two fates. Many were shipped to other countries, or they were crushed and dumped offshore as fishing reefs in Santa Monica Bay.”

Various ideas for a Red Car rebirth have been floated for years with little success. Earlier this year the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rejected the group’s request for $500,000 to conduct a nine-month feasibility study. The MTA is restricting its funding to construction, not studies.

Nonetheless, the downtown group insists that its envisioned nine-mile Red Car system, or at least a portion of it, could be running two to three years after funding is secured. Despite the numerous obstacles, the group is motivated by memories of L.A.’s once-glorious transit past.