It's Official: Geneva Canopy Dedicated
December 2, 2010
SFMTA CEO Nat Ford (pictured at the microphone above) led the cheers today at the dedication of the new Geneva Canopy project -- the covered storage facility for 24 streetcars in Muni's historic fleet. The building was erected under a $6.9 million design build contract with Shimmick Construction. An SFMTA press release put the total project cost at $10.1 million dollars, meaning that so called "soft costs" came to about a third of the total, despite the fact that design and engineering was wrapped into the construction contract. Market Street Railway President Rick Laubscher also spoke at the dedication, paying tribute to two former MSR board members, Art Michel and George Miller, for leading our advocacy efforts on the much-needed project for years. He also thanked the San Francisco Municipal Railway Improvement Corporation, a special purpose financing entity, which provided major funding for the project.
A few streetcars have been using the facility on a test basis for the past month while the contractor was finishing up work. Now, it will be filled with F-line cars every night, just in time to avoid the coming storms.
Pretty cool that they framed #1071 front and center with the shot of the new storage canopy at the press conference. Newly-revamped car with newly-built structure, sure makes for good PR!
Say, is that a new layer of dark green paint around #1071’s windshield? That wasn’t there in past shots of the car.
Sharp eyes, Jeremy! After this car was cosmetically renovated, including restoration to its original home-town Twin City Rapid Transit paint scheme, we heard from experts at the Minnesota Transportation Museum that we missed a couple of details, including the dark green on the windshield surround (we had it as more yellow). We passed that along to Geneva paint chief Carole Gilbert, who is great about detail when she gets all the information. She applied that paint, along with green trim at the bottom of the doors to match the skirt color, when touching the car up for its appearance at yesterday’s event.
I’ve noticed that among rail fans enthusiasm for vintage transit borders on the Puritanical—I’ve heard grumblings about the appearance of this new shed, when it goes quite a way towards the old vernacular. If it was up to me, I’d have tried to blend it in to the “new” building at the back, with zero frill, and no real facade. Still, l think this new shed is a pretty fine piece of work.
The detailing on the new car is an improvement, also.
I’d like to find more pictures of the shed online—it seems rather difficult to do so, and I’ve googled every possible phrase I could think of—again, a lot of rail fans apparently don’t think it’s worth the effort to photograph, so most entries are of the proposals for the crumbling brick shed in front, or dated pix of the old tin barn—very picturesque to be sure—that was torn down.
With the new shed and modern paint, these cars should sparkle for a generation or more with minor touch ups…
It will be nice to see Car 1 standing proud under this new building as the showcase of the SFMTA Historic Line-up…