Thanks for posting these photos, Matt. PE was my hometown railroad, though the Yorba Linda line, which ran through our town, had been dieselized in the early 1940's. The crossbucks were still stenciled with the PE emblem.
But the redcars were still running in Los Angeles and Long Beach, and your photos have brought back pleasant memories of the big "blimps" with their whining gears as they accelerated.