Here in the world’s tech center, we expect to be amazed by new things. But it’s a special treat to be amazed by something old. Or in this case, two things that are old today but were once new.

Exhibit A, brought to our attention by Todd Lappin, Market Street Railway board member and curator of one of the city’s best neighborhood blogs, Bernalwood. Todd reported on this incredible collection of super-high-resolution aerial photographs that covered the entire city…in 1938.

Click to enlarge. Market and Van Ness, August 1938, zoomed-in aerlal photo from David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.

For San Francisco history buffs, it’s a dream come true. For streetcar buffs, even more so. Here’s just one example: a screen shot, zoomed in on Van Ness and Market. You can see how Muni’s H-line cut across Market at a ridiculously oblique angle to connect from Van Ness to 11th Street. There’s a streetcar navigating the gauntlet now. You can also see the switches that connected Van Ness to the eastern side of Market. These were used to detour Muni J, K, L, M, and N streetcars up to Geary when downtown Market Street was closed for parades, and for cars assigned to Geary Carhouse to get in and out of service on the N-Judah, during the years it was based there.

Zooming in on other photos will give you a great closeup of the old Elkton Shops, where our namesake built and maintained streetcars, Fort Mason, showing how the H-line ran right through the Fort, and many other disappeared pieces of streetcar history. Or check out the freight yards at Mission Bay, the State Belt Railroad along the waterfront, and many other lost pieces of the past. It’s an incredibly engaging time-waster, for those so inclined.

More current and colorful is this film clip shared with the world by our good friend Rick Prelinger, who has done so much to preserve what would otherwise be lost footage of America’s past. This one is a real doozie: what amounts to a home movie, shot in Cinemascope! Note: we’re having intermittent problems with embedding this video. If you don’t see it immediately below, click here.

The 21-minute film was mostly shot from an automobile by Tullio Pelligrini, an amateur who, true to the literal definition of that word, apparently did it purely out of love for San Francisco. (The point of view concept is reminiscent in some ways of the famous Miles Brothers’ Trip Down Market Street film, shot from the front of a cable car on Market Street just before the 1906 Earthquake.) In fact, there’s an echo of that earlier film just after the 16 minute mark: “Iron Monsters” (the original Muni streetcars) sharing Market with the almost-new “Baby Ten” PCCs. Some great cable car footage follows.

If you like this film, you’ve GOT to sign up for Rick’s next showing of “Lost Landscapes 6,” his compilation of wonderful film scenes from San Francisco’s past. This will be included along with a wonderful WWII drive up Market and other scenes. It sold out the Castro Theater last month. The repeat show is Tuesday, January 24, at 7:30 p.m. at 300 Funston Avenue, corner of Clement. It’s a $5 suggested donation — a real bargain — and requires an email RSVP.

Muni has finished testing on the second of the rewired 1070-class of streamliner PCCs. No. 1079, honoring Detroit, started regular service on the F-line today.

PCC No. 1079, honoring the Detroit Department of Street Railways, turns the corner from Mission onto The Embarcadero during its first stint in F-line service in 2008. Frank Zepeda photo.

As regular readers know, these 11 streetcars were acquired from New Jersey Transit in 2004 after finishing a 50-year career Newark. After repainting and other modifications for Muni service, five of the 11 cars, including No. 1079, saw some service on the F-line until it was determined that their (original) wiring was just not holding up and needed to be replaced.

There have been problems with the reliability of the new door controls on these cars. The first car accepted, Twin City Rapid Transit No. 1071 (the original owner of these 11 cars, which sold them to Newark in 1953), went out of service for a couple of days in its first week, but has been on the line for several days in a row now.

The next streetcars likely to be accepted are No. 1078 (San Diego), No. 1080 (Los Angeles Transit Lines) and No. 1074 (Toronto), probably in that order. These three could all be in service within a few weeks.

The Muni project team wants to test these cars in the order they were received back from Brookville Equipment Company, the rebuilder. By that standard, Nos. 1070 (Newark livery), 1072 (Mexico City), and 1073 (El Paso-Juarez) would be the next cars to be put into acceptance testing.

Behind them would come Muni original No. 1040, which we reported on last month. It is now at Cameron Beach Yard.

You can always see the operational status of every car in the F-line fleet by clicking here. You can also see which cars are actually on the F-line right now by clicking here. If you’d like to thank us for providing all the information we do (we’re all volunteers), we’d welcome your membership here or your donation (of any amount) here. Thanks.

The San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), America’s first publicly owned urban transit system, begins its 100th year of operation today. Created early in California’™s Progressive Era, in part as a reaction to a corrupt privately owned transit company, Muni opened its first lines on Geary Street 99 years ago on December 28, 1912. Ever since, Muni has played a big part in the lives of San Franciscans, taking them to work, study, shop, and play.

Fifty Thousand San Franciscans came out to cheer the opening of the Municipal Railway on Geary Street, December 28, 1912. Muni Archives.

As Muni’s non-profit preservation partner, Market Street Railway has already released its 2012 Centennial Calendar (which will be available at a reduced price when our museum reopens January 4). MSR members also took the lead in creating a wonderful book documenting Muni’s first century.

Official Centennial events are still being planned by Muni. Market Street Railway has made detailed suggestions and stands ready to assist with making such events a success. We’ll let you know as soon as specific events are announced, to allow maximum time for your planning. Meantime, here’s to Muni’s 99th birthday!

Hey, we’re thinking ahead. Our 2012 calendar is a big success, but we’re already starting work on the 2013 version. Our annual Museums in Motion streetcar and cable car calendar is a very important part of our fundraising, and we’re putting out the call to all photographers who’d like to see their work published in our gorgeous large format calenda to submit photographs.

The back cover of our 2012 calendar includes thumbnails of the large images we used on each month’s main page. Click to enlarge.

You can do that by clicking here to access our Flickr group and just follow the directions on the post to submit your photos. You can also sign into the site with your Facebook ID.

Photographers are always fully credited with email address and website published in the calendar and are given five calendars for their own use. We’re answering questions about calendar submissions on that site.

San Francisco Municipal Railway streetcar No. 1 on Stockton Street at Market, the terminal of the original F-Stockton line, Christmas Day 1944. Roy D. Graves photo, Market Street Railway Archives.

It’s December 25, 1944. We’re at Stockton at Market Street, the terminal of Muni’s original F-line. And welcoming riders on this Christmas Day 67 years ago is none other than Car No. 1, recently repainted from its original gray and maroon “battleship” livery into Muni’s brighter blue and gold. It is ready for another trip on the F, past Union Square, through the Stockton Tunnel and Chinatown to reach North Beach, then on Columbus Avenue, North Point, Van Ness and Chestnut to the Marina District. (If you think this sounds like today’s 30-Stockton, you’re right. The original F is its direct ancestor.)

There was a glimmer of brightness on the war horizon this day, too. More than three years after Pearl Harbor, Allied forces had turned the tide against both Germany and Japan. While there would be months of fierce fighting ahead, the end of the war was now in sight.

On the Home Front, transit systems across America were overwhelmed with riders driven from their automobiles by gasoline and tire rationing. The strain was showing on Muni. Only three months before, it had taken over operation of its private competitor, Market Street Railway Company, only to find its equipment and facilities near collapse. Yet the system soldiered on, making do however possible. In a way, the soon-to-be-popular song, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” described the need to defer needed repairs: “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” (By the way, that song made its debut on the lips of Judy Garland in Vicente Minnelli’s movie “Meet Me in St. Louis,” which also gave us the song, “Clang, Clang, Clang Went the Trolley.”)

Our exclusive member newsletter, Inside Track, is about to publish the second in a multi-part history of Muni, “Muni At War,” with lots of rarely- or never-before seen photos, including this one, which we acquired from a collector on eBay. If you’re not a member of Market Street Railway, this is a great time to join because new members will also received the last issue of Inside Track, with photos and text describing the origins and first 30 years of Muni’s history.

As for Car No. 1 itself, it’s fully restored to its original appearance and ready to play the starring role in Muni’s centennial year. We’ll be operating a charter of the streetcar in the next few months for members only, riding the rails west of Twin Peaks in a rare treat. (Another great reason to join MSR.) Watch here for details.

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now (or celebration of your choice)!

Our San Francisco Railway Museum will be closed for inventory and cleaning between December 24 and January 2. We’ll be open again Tuesday, January 3 at 10 a.m. You can still shop for gifts online, and of course, the F-line streetcars and cable cars are operating daily.

We’ll also be here with some new posts next week. Stay tuned and Happy Holidays.

PCC No. 1071, painted to honor Minneapolis-St. Paul, testing recently on West Portal Avenue.

Yellow isn’t traditionally thought of as a year-end holiday color, but that Twin City Rapid Transit livery still makes for nice “gift wrap” for PCC No. 1071, which (fingers crossed) entered revenue service for good today. It has been here more than a year after having been completely rewired at Brookville Equipment Company in Pennsylvania, but as we’ve reported in our member newsletter, Inside Track, getting the new door controls to operate reliably has been a vexing problem, and a variety of other glitches has cropped up over time. The car entered F-line passenger service earlier this year on a trial basis, but was soon pulled off the street as unreliable.

Now, though, with more than 3,000 test miles on No. 1071, the Muni engineer and project manager have accepted No. 1071, and it has been carrying passengers on the F-line today. Other cars in this class currently being tested, and which soon may join the active F-line fleet, include Nos. 1074 (Toronto), 1078 (San Diego), 1079 (Detroit), and 1080 (LA Transit Lines). As these streetcars start carrying passengers, additional rewired cars already back in San Francisco will start the testing process, including Nos. 1070 (Newark), 1072 (Mexico City), 1073 (El Paso-Juarez) and 1040 (an original Muni streetcar, painted in the 1950s “Wings” livery). For the current status of all 16 streetcars in this rebuilding contract (and all the others as well), click here.

The delay in getting these streetcars into service is a major reason we’ve seen so many buses on the F-line of late. Service had been increased to run every five minutes in September on the premise that these streetcars would be ready then. So they’re needed just as soon as they’re ready.

We celebrate the “present” that 1071 represents for the F-line fleet, and really hope all the bugs are worked out of it and the other streetcars in this group now, so that there won’t be any need to take it to the “return counter” after the holidays.

Decorated Powell cable car No. 13 at the Market Street turntable. Jeremy Whiteman photo.

Our friend, cable car gripman Val Lupiz, has done it again. As in past years, he and his friends have decorated several cable cars for the holidays. We wanted to make sure you didn’t miss this one in particular: green and red Powell car No. 13, painted in the United Railroads livery the Powell cars wore after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.

It’s a vintage transit twin (well, sorta) to the green Milan tram, No. 1818, our volunteers decorated for the holidays, now running on the F-line. We’re hoping to do a much more elaborate holiday scene next year, in conjunction with Muni’s centennial. If you’d like to lend your talents (or at least your enthusiasm), drop us a line here.

By the way, our campaign to create a complete set of vintage Powell Street cable car liveries is nearing completion. By next summer, rebuilt No. 26 will rejoin the fleet in 1947 Muni green and cream, as will Powell cable car No. 1, restored to a closer approximation of the line’s original 1888 livery. We’ll let you know when the celebrations of these cars take place.