Last night ERHA had a preview of a movie showing an end-to-end ride on the ex-PE Long Beach Line, taken from the front platform of a "blimp". It was quite intriguing, noting some of the landmarks, looking at all the "old" automobiles (Wow! a 59 Chevy! Check out the Studebaker!) and observing the rather "primitive" grade crossing protection--mostly wig wags. Of course most of the cars of that era had no air conditioning, and megawatt sound systems were far in the future.
Regarding the nickname "blimps": A former PE motorman (whom I knew as an SP engineer working out of Baldwin Park) said that he always called them "bombers". When I was a wee lad, and they showed up on the Monrovia Line (the only place they could run on the Northern District), my mother called them "Missions"--not for any connection with early California history, but a shortened version of "U. S. Maritime Commission" which was on the letterboards for their first few years in the Southland.