Thanks to a Facebook post from Dave Lessig (who also posted a video from which the above image is a frame grab), we have learned that the Southern California Railway Museum has made Pacific Electric 1299 operational for the first time since it left PE in 1956. Its condition has been updated in PNAERC appropriately.
Car 1299 is a unique and very historic piece of equipment. It was built as a trailer for the Portland Eugene & Eastern in Oregon and is the only complete survivor from that line. In 1929 it was sold to PE, which motorized it and rebuilt it into an "officer's car" for use by company officials. This included, among other things, tall solarium windows at both ends. It was used by PE until 1956 but was not sold to Metropolitan Coach Lines with the interurban system, and was apparently retained by PE for a little while. In 1958 it went to the LA County Fairgrounds in Pomona, where it was maintained in good condition and kept as a display piece until 1998, when it went to its current home in Perris (then known as Orange Empire). It's been stored indoors at Perris but until now has never run. Congrats to the volunteers at SCRM who made this happen!
I have a home movie my mother took showing 1299 on the former SP Duarte Branch, which PE took over in 1942 but never electrified. It was kept in service to Arcadia after the PE main line between LA and Monrovia was abandoned in 1951. It was hauled by a 4600-class SP diesel switcher; this was around 1957.
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