Rebecca Zahau. Transportation and infrastructure San Diego Electric Railway The San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy) was a San Diego-based, light rail mass transit system founded by Spreckels in 1892. Spreckels' strategy involved buying up several failed downtown horse- and cable-drawn trolley routes, consolidating and standardizing the trackage, and electrifying the resulting unified street railway system. Over the years, the SDERy constructed new lines to connect San Diego's burgeoning downtown with the region's up-and-coming outlying communities, including Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, and Normal Heights (developments where Spreckels owned the bulk of the land). Spreckels' underlying philosophy in this regard can best be summed up as follows: At its peak, the SDERy's routes would operate throughout greater San Diego over some 165 miles (266 kilometers) of track. And though the system had operated continuously for more than half a century, steadily declining ridership (due in large part to the phenomenal rise in popularity of the automobile) ultimately led the company to discontinue all streetcar service in favor of bus routes in 1949. San Diego Class 1 Streetcars One of Spreckels' major contributions to the city of San Diego was his commitment to the construction of Balboa Park in preparation of the Panama-California Exposition. As the owner of the San Diego Electric Railway Company, he also developed a unique fleet of special streetcars that could handle the large crowds attending this event. Following the Exposition, the Class 1 streetcars would go on to provide a continuing public transportation service for the city of San Diego over the next 27 years. An evolution from previous streetcar models, the Class 1s were designed with artistry, state-of-the-art technology and San Diego's unique climate in mind. Under Spreckels' guise, the engineers of SDERy drafted up plans that took elements from both the "California Car" and the "Closed Car" designs and refashioned them into a new, modern transit fleet. Their plans were sent to the Saint Louis Car Company (SLCCo) where these beautiful, Arts & Crafts-style streetcars were built and shipped out to San Diego. Ultimately, the Class 1 streetcars ran all over San Diego, from Coronado through Downtown, Mission Hills, Ocean Beach, North Park, Golden Hill, and Kensington. They even briefly served as a link to the U.S.-Mexico Border. These streetcars were "retired" in 1939 to give way to the cheaper, Depression-era Presidents’ Conference Committee (PCC) streetcars. Today, only three of the original twenty-four Class 1 streetcars