Edison seems to be doing a lot of upgrade work in the area recently. Back on Oct 22, they replaced several pad-mount transformers in the Glenmead Park neighborhood where my friend, Dale (the one with the Holophane light) lives. Although the utilities in this neighborhood are underground, it runs along an easement behind the homes and every few houses has a pad-mount in the backyard. They used cranes to lift the new transformers over the homes in the same manner.

Interesting, was the power shut off while they were doing this?

Most likely, small isolated areas are shut off to do this work. The primary lines are 12kV.

Small isolated area being all the houses, etc. visible in this photo?

I guess he means small and isolated compared to Los Angeles? Here I don't think they shut off the power when renewing poles. I think just when they transfer the transformer. I've never lost power when they've replaced poles near me...

They're shutting off power to my neighborhood next Thursday to replace/update equipment (Southern California Edison sent us a notice last Tuesday of the planned outage) I'll try to get some pictures when the day comes.

There are a couple old pad-mounted transformers with "Replace" spray painted on them.