In 1915, ten years after the Santa Ana line opened, Bellflower's Pacific Electric facilities included substation #12 and a small waiting shelter on Somerset (Bellflower) Boulevard. The Pacific Electric was an electrically powered interurban rail system that drew power from its own steam plants, Southern California Edison, or the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, converting high-power AC current at points along the line into 600-volt or 1200-volt DC for train operation through overhead wires, trolley poles, electric motors, and steel rails returning the circuit to the substation. By 1927, passenger traffic at Bellflower had grown enough for a new depot building to replace the earlier shelter, and by about 1943 its outdoor porch had been enclosed during World War II, when Pacific Electric carried record passenger traffic. The 2008 restoration returned the building to its original 1927 appearance. At its peak around 1915, the Pacific Electric Railway was the world's largest electric interurban passenger system, with 1200 route miles of track across Southern California from Owensmouth, now Canoga Park, to Redlands and from Mt. Lowe above Altadena to Newport Beach and Balboa Island. Large interurban cars first used in the San Francisco Bay area were brought to Los Angeles to carry war workers to the shipyards at Terminal Island for the U.S. Maritime Commission; after the war, Pacific Electric bought most of them, and as 'blimps' they became the mainstay of the Santa Ana and Bellflower lines after World War II. Passenger rail service to Santa Ana ended on July 2, 1950, cutting the line back to Bellflower, and after Bellflower became California's 348th city on September 3, 1957, all passenger rail service from Los Angeles to Bellflower ended on May 25, 1958.