The Red Car is not a passenger car, but a tower car used to service and repair the overhead electrical lines. Despite the romance of the old red cars, the passenger lines never turned a profit during the PE’s long history, their main use coming during the hot summer season when inlanders wanted to escape the heat. Ridership became even less after the invention of air conditioning in the later 1920s, and with the growing popularity (and affordability) of automobiles in the 1920s. With declining ridership, the PE reduced the Long Beach to Newport run to a single daily round trip in June 1940 and then fully abandoned the line a few months later on November 18. The need to move growing number of workers during World War II gave the Red Cars a momentary reprieve but after the war service was only seasonal for a few years and then the cars shut down for good in 1950.

What to do with the abandoned rail right-of-way became a major political battle in the 1960s and early 1970s. Some developers proposed using the undeveloped land for more apartments. Others lobbied for additional parking areas. But the town eventually rallied behind funding and constructing a Green Belt.