California Street cable car No. 57 awaits its next run up the very steep California Street to the top of Nob Hill, down to Van Ness Avenue, and back again. The Cal line offers a spectacular ride through the towering monoliths of the Financial District, the colorful bustle of Chinatown, and the stateliness of Nob Hill, with spectacular views of downtown and the Bay from atop the hill.

Most visitors start at the east end of the line, two blocks from the Ferry Building at the three-way intersection of California, Drumm, and Market Streets. It’s easy to reach by the F-line historic streetcars (Main/Drumm stop), or by the Muni Metro and BART subway (Embarcadero station).

Financial District
The first five blocks of the line take you through the deep canyon of lower California Street, where the cable car looks out of place against the forest of high-rises. Even here, though, there are pieces of the past, such as the Tadich Grill on California near Battery, the oldest restaurant in California, and still a hopping experience. The street is flat until you reach Montgomery and see the 52-story Bank of America building on the south side. Up to this point, the ride has been tame, some might think boring.

Chinatown and Nob Hill
Beginning at Kearny, it gets interesting. Two blocks north is Portsmouth Square, where the American flag was first raised over California in 1846 (when San Francisco was still called Yerba Buena). It’s now the green heart of Chinatown, one of the best places in the city for people watching.

One steep block up California is the main street of Chinatown, Grant Avenue. Walk either way on this street and you’re immediately in the middle of it all. Old St. Mary’s Church is a long-time landmark on the corner. Two more steep blocks take you to Powell, where all the cable car lines intersect. Except in early morning and late evenings, it’s tough to get a space on a Powell car going to the Wharf from here, so keep riding.

Now you’re on Nob Hill (which some claim is a contraction of 'Nabob,' or rich influential person). The California cable line was originally built in 1878 by Leland Stanford, partner in the Central Pacific Railroad, part of the first transcontinental line, which opened up California to the rest of the world. Stanford and his partners, Mark Hopkins, C.P. Huntington, and Charles Crocker, all had fantastic mansions on the hill. Stanford and Hopkins lived side by side on California between Powell and Mason, where hotels carry on their names today. The 'Top of the Mark' cocktail lounge, famous since it opened around 1940, provides great views and a real San Francisco ambience. The Mason Street stop serves both the Mark Hopkins and grand Fairmont Hotel across California Street, another landmark recently restored to its original grandeur.

This illustration by David Dugan from Market Street Railway's historic travel poster series of merchandise portrays California Street cable car No. 51 passing through charismatic Grant Avenue in the heart of Chinatown.

As the cable car crests the grade westbound at Mason, you’ll see the gripman drop the cable at the last minute. This is not because a cable car line with a higher cable crosses here (as happens for the Powell cars crossing California), but because the cable takes a 90-degree right turn here and runs without track three blocks north under Mason Street to reach the cable car powerhouse. This arrangement was installed when the cable car system was consolidated in 1957. As the cable car continues west, note the Flood Mansion on the left, last of the 'Nabob’s' palaces to survive. (Almost all were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire.) It is now the very exclusive, male-only Pacific Union Club.

Next to it is Huntington Park, named for C.P. Huntington, and across from the park in the Huntington Hotel, an elegant restaurant named 'The Big Four,' themed around old California, particularly the railroad days. At Taylor Street is the imposing Grace Cathedral, a landmark Episcopal Church comparable to some of the great cathedrals of Europe.

The remainder of the route features mostly apartment buildings, large and small, which grow more modest as you get farther down Nob Hill. At the corner of Hyde and California, looking somewhat out of place, is a supermarket. This parcel was the California Cable Railroad Company’s carbarn and general offices, serving the cars of both the California and O’Farrell, Jones & Hyde lines until the company went broke in the early 1950s. After Muni took over, they consolidated operations at the Washington & Mason powerhouse, and reworked the track on Hyde Street to let the Cal cars reach their new barn.

It’s interesting to contemplate that if a different consolidation plan, proposed by leading members of the Board of Supervisors, had prevailed, the Cal cars would be turning here to run out Hyde to Aquatic Park (instead of connecting a Powell line to the Hyde track as ultimately happened). A California-Hyde line, connecting Chinatown’s main street directly to Fisherman’s Wharf via scenic Nob and Russian Hills, would have been much busier and more tourist oriented than a California street-only alignment, and development patterns would have been different, too.

As it turned out, the California line passes Hyde and rolls only three more blocks before terminating. Polk Street offers some interesting shopping opportunities with a local neighborhood focus. At busy Van Ness Avenue, which is the main automobile link between the Golden Gate Bridge and Downtown, the line abruptly ends. It once extended nearly twice this far, through Pacific Heights to Presidio Avenue (with steam train connections to the beach in the early years), but was cut in half in the 1950s consolidation. There is still talk about re-extending the line to a more attractive terminal, either via California and Webster to Japantown, or via Polk to City Hall, but these have never gotten past the talking stage.

Still, if you’re looking for a pleasant cable car ride without the long lines, the California line is the place to go.

There is, of course, much more to be said about the current cable car system. Those seeking more information, such as histories of individual cars, details of the operating system, and so forth, should visit the website of our partner nonprofit organization, the Cable Car Museum. There you’ll find the answer to just about any cable car question you might have.