Market Street Railway and the San Francisco Railway Museum invite you to visit us at the third annual San Francisco History Expo. This great event takes place Saturday, March 2 from 10-5 and Sunday, March 5, from 10-4, at the historic Old U.S. Mint at Fifth and Mission Streets, worth a visit by itself.

Our display of San Francisco transit artifacts at the first History Expo in 2011.

This amazing event, sponsored by the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, brings together more than 40 local and neighborhood history groups in a mini-museum of San Francisco history. It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to learn about the city’s varied history through displays, presentations, photos, videos, fine art, music, children’s activities and historical re-enactments.

This year’s event is bigger and better than ever, with the added excitement of a raffle. Tickets will be available for purchase at the entrance and throughout the halls, and each exhibitor will offer an item of their choosing for raffle. Buying extra tickets will increase your chance to win that special something, and will help offset the expenses of holding the event.

Over the last two years more than 7,000 people have attended this one weekend only event, and viewed exhibits from the SF Museum Historical Society, Guardians of the City, Market Street Railway, LGBT Historical Society, SF History Association, Chinese Historical Society, The Western Neighborhoods Project, and many others. This year promises to be the best yet. Visit our booth and see transit artifacts and interesting items from our archives.museum

Copyright 2013, Jeremy Whiteman.

Muni’s shops continue to make gradual progress on 1946 Melbourne tram No. 916, a 2009 gift to the City of San Francisco from the Australian State of Victoria. The retired tram needed extensive modifications to meet Muni and California operating standards, and to operate on the opposite side of the road from its native city. (Door controls, for example, had to be reversed.)

Market Street Railway has assisted in procuring needed parts. With staffing very tight, the work has moved forward gradually as time was available. On February 19, though, the tram emerged from the electronics shop at Green Division and motored across town under its own power, following the F-line, the future E-line, and finally the T-line (here crossing the historic Fourth Street Bridge) to Metro East at Illinois and 25th Street, where its wheels are being reprofiled to Muni specifications. No firm date for it to join the fleet, but it is coming along nicely.

Your support, as a member or donor, makes it possible for us to help Muni acquire and restore historic streetcars and trams like this one. Thanks.

We’re still taking photo submissions for our 2014 calendar, and especially encourage new contributors. Several great photographers, like Jason Brickman, whose work is shown above, have begun contributing in the past few years.

This high-visibility product is a great opportunity for both pros and amateurs to get published, while supporting our mission of preserving historic transit in San Francisco. All the proceeds from calendar sales go to support Market Street Railway programs.

You can learn all about submitting photos to our calendar on our Flickr group. We now take submissions on a year-round basis, so feel free to visit the group and submit any time.

An excellent article by Aaron Bialick in Streetsblog San Francisco discusses the possible demise of the northern end of Interstate 280 as a means to help facilitate — and pay for — undergrounding of High Speed Rail and Caltrain to reach Downtown. A version of this plan has been mooted by the Mayor’s Office.

The article includes a link to a fascinating and very thoughtful study by Ben Caldwell, studying for his Master’s at UC Berkeley’s School of Urban Design. Caldwell goes beyond the “just tear it down” mentality to analyze how to knit the urban fabric of that part of the city back together. An important part of his vision is an extended E-Embarcadero streetcar line, which Market Street Railway has been advocating for ten years.

Caldwell understands that the center of residential and job gravity in San Francisco is moving south and east toward the Central Waterfront. He, like us, advocates extending the E-line (slated for full-time operation starting mid-2014) from its first-phase terminal at the Caltrain depot south on the T-line tracks to 18th or 20th Street and the Pier 70 area. But Caldwell goes further, advocating that the E then loop through the exciting developments by Orton and Forest City at Pier 70 and emerge on 22nd Street, then run west to the Caltrain 22nd Street station, which would be upgraded into a major transit hub once the 280 freeway above it were removed.

Detail from Ben Caldwell’s presentation on removing I-280, showing E-line extension around Pier 70 and onward to the 22nd Street Caltrain station. Click to enlarge.

Caldwell goes even further, with a “long-term” proposal for an extension along 24th Street to Church, including a tunnel under Potrero Hill, to create what he calls the “C-Circle” line surrounding the vibrant growth areas from the Mission to Mission Bay.

Okay, that C-line part might seem a bit breathless, or at least ahead of its time, but remember the admonition of the great urban planner Daniel Hudson Burnham: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.”

We like the way Ben Caldwell thinks big. It’s certainly worth talking about. A couple of caveats, though. Every media mention of a potential teardown of even the northernmost tip of I-280 (from Mariposa to King Street) has generated a firestorm of vitriol among commenters. This presages a long and divisive process. And time is not the friend of this project, since Caltrain backers want electrification of the line — necessary for use by high speed rail trains as well — to go forward in the next few years. That may well conflict with any 280 removal. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, we invite you to join our movement to extend the forthcoming E-Embarcadero historic streetcar line both south to Pier 70, and, at its other end, west to Fort Mason. One way to help is to offer comments to SFMTA’s Transit Effectiveness Plan, which only envisions the E-line from Caltrain to the current F-line terminal at Fisherman’s Wharf. You can see the environmental documents for the TEP here, and offer comments until February 22 by email here. If you support extending the E-line to serve the growing Central Waterfront and the National Park attractions of Aquatic Park and Fort Mason, it’s worth your time to say so now.

By the way our next “Inside Track” newsletter, out late this month, will feature our comprehensive vision for the E-line. Our newsletter is a key benefit of being a Market Street Railway member, and your membership is what enables us to advocate for the historic streetcars and cable cars. We hope you’ll join, or, if you’re already a member, send this article to your friends.

When the Giants got into the World Series last fall against the Detroit Tigers, we ran a story about F-line PCC No. 1079, painted in tribute to Detroit, and noted that the Tigers had failed to win a world series during the Motor City’s PCC era. Would the specter of a Detroit PCC in Giantstown doom the Tigers? We all know how that turned out — a sweep for our team!

Now, the 49ers are in the Super Bowl against the Ravens of Baltimore, another ex-PCC city (from 1936 to 1963), honored in the F-line fleet by No. 1063. Could the PCC jinx recur?

Muni PCC No. 1063, painted to honor Baltimore. Bill Storage photo.

It’s not so simple this time. A Baltimore NFL team DID win the NFL Championship during that city’s PCC era — twice, in 1958 (a legendary overtime win over the New York Giants) and 1959 (beating the Giants again).

But wait. That winning Baltimore NFL team wasn’t the Ravens; it was their predecessor, the Colts, who now play in Indianapolis (which never had PCCs, by the way). The Ravens, as football fans know, played in Cleveland as the Browns during that city’s PCC era. Muni has a PCC painted for Cleveland in its fleet, too (No. 1075). And yes, the Browns won multiple NFL Championships while PCCs ran there.

So, unless it turns out to be a jinx to simply HAVE a PCC representing our opponent’s city, it looks like the ‘Niners are on their own this Sunday.

Trivia: the last time BOTH cities in an NFL Championship Game were actively operating PCC streetcars was 1955 — Cleveland (still running the Shaker Heights line) and Los Angeles (which retired its double-ended Pacific Electric PCCs that year but was still running its narrow gauge single-enders under the banner of Los Angeles Transit Lines). If the New England Patriots (representing Boston) had beaten the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game, it would have happened again this year.

Go ‘Niners!

We’ve had some questions about the buses serving the F-line during evenings this week. As we learned from MSR member (and Muni employee) Matt Lee via our Facebook group, “DPW [the Department of Public Works] is doing some repair work to the center median between Castro and Guerrero due to the [palm] tree roots damaging the concrete retaining walls and our track crew is checking to make sure there is no damage to the tracks.”

Canary Island palms were chosen to beautify the medians installed along with the F-line tracks on upper Market almost 20 years ago because they were already a tradition on nearby Dolores Street and because they are one of the few mature trees that can be transplanted and survive in urban environments. Only trouble is the root system is shallow and can break up surrounding pavement. When there are streetcar tracks in that pavement, it pays to keep a close eye on things, as Muni is doing here.

By the way, Matt also reports that the F-line with be “bustituted” all day Sunday in anticipation of post-Super Bowl activity.

PCC streetcar No. 1078, honoring San Diego, at Powell and Market. Adolfo Echeverry photo. Click to enlarge.

If you’re serious about your photography and you love San Francisco’s historic transit vehicles, we invite you to contribute to our 2014 calendar. That great shot above is by Adolfo Echeverry, a contributor to our 2013 calendar. We love shots like this that show off distinctive architecture or street scenes in addition to the streetcar or cable car.

You can learn all about submitting photos to our calendar on our Flickr group. Look forward to seeing new photographers join us for 2014!

One important aspect of Market Street Railway is the preservation of important documents that illuminate San Francisco’s transit history.

Muni’s first schedule, from the Market Street Railway Archives. Gift of Galen Sarno. Click to enlarge.

The leader of our archival activity, Alison Cant, has sent along this wonderful document, bequeathed to us by the late Galen Sarno (a very generous supporter of our San Francisco Railway Museum, by the way). It’s Muni’s very first schedule, for inbound streetcars on the A-Geary, beginning December 28,1912. If you click to enlarge the photo, you’ll see that eight cars were scheduled (Muni only had ten on hand at the time). It took 28 minutes to go from Tenth Avenue and Fulton Street (Golden Gate Park) to Geary, then all the way downtown to Kearny and Market Streets. Today, the schedule for the 38-Geary is about the same to run from Park Presidio (near 14th Avenue) and Geary to the same point downtown, about the same distance.

The first car of the morning left Tenth and Fulton at 5:30 a.m. The last car of the evening left Kearny and Geary at 1:37 a.m., headed for the barn at Geary and Presidio Avenue (home to Muni trolley buses today).

The more things change…