The Red Car

Hollywood is a growing metropolis. What better way to get around it all than by taking a trip on one of Pacific Electric's Big Red Cars (Pacific Electric, a real public transportation company that thrived in Hollywood during the '20s and '30s, was also the trolley system depicted in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?).

Well, you can dream anyway. The Red Car Trolley popped up a couple of times in Disney's Hollywood Studios history as a potential attraction. It was part of early concepts for the park and was later proposed for Sunset Boulevard. In the end, the trolleys themselves never materialized (a version is being planned for Disney's California Adventure by 2012), but details alluding to them can be found throughout the park.

Down at the corner of Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards is a large Spanish Mission-style structure. On the Hollywood side, it's L.A. Cinema Storage, but around the corner on Sunset it becomes the garage for the Pacific Electric Trolley Co. Notice the oversize door for the trolleys that opens up onto the street, as well as the Pacific Electric logo at the top of the building. Pacific Electric World's Wonderland Lines - Comfort, Speed, Safety (and there's that year again... 1928).

This corner of Disney's Hollywood Studios is a literal crossroads. It's the first point at which Guests entering the park have a decision to make as to the direction their next adventure will take. It also plays the role of crossroads in our story.

Hollywood Junction at Sunset Boulevard, aside from being a great spot to check attraction wait times or make dining reservations, is dressed out as a trolley depot here in old Hollywood. Below the Pacific Electric-branded clock is the departure board, letting us know how long it might take for each of the listed destinations.

A map on the back wall details the complete Pacific Electric Railway route, serving all of Southern California.

Schedules for each of the routes are available at the desk. None of these routes serve your specific destination? There's a direct line here so you can phone a cab. They'll even hold your luggage for you on the patio while you wait.

If the Big Red Car is your transportation of choice, there's a Car Stop right there on the corner and a line running straight down Sunset.

While a trolley attraction never became a reality at Disney's Hollywood Studios, that doesn't mean there isn't a Red Car to be found. Down Sunset near the Theater of the Stars stands a merchandise cart in the form of a Pacific Electric trolley car.

The route ID on the side of the trolley lists Hollywood, Sunset and Gower Street (the cross street that runs in front of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror toward Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith), and the number of the trolley - 694 - is a tribute to the June 1994 addition of Sunset Boulevard to the Studios landscape.

Alas, the Red Cars weren't meant to last in Hollywood. Just as talkies replaced silent cinema, the automobile did in the trolley system. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Judge Doom and Cloverleaf bought the Red Car just to shut them down and build freeways. Here in "the Hollywood that never was," the tracks have simply been paved over. Near the corner of Sunset and Gower, portions of the asphalt have worn away, revealing the original brick and trolley tracks beneath. If only we could hop back in time and take a ride...