Most of his 26-year Muni career has been spent maintaining streetcars—the historic fleet in particular. He has gained recognition and awards from his colleagues and Market Street Railway as well.

Manag started his Muni career working on buses, then took an exam and in 1979 was called on to start working on streetcars.

“I had never seen streetcars all my life before I started working on them. I asked the foreman a lot of questions and learned on my own in just three months,” says Manag, a native of the Philippines, a country with no streetcars. He emigrated in November 1970.

Though he learned the cars in a short period, it was still not easy for him or his co-workers. “In the old days, they don’t tell you the secrets,” he says. “That’s why I tell the new guys, ’You’re lucky they send you to training. In our time, we had to learn it on our own.’”

Manag gained lots of that learning during the Historic Trolley Festivals from 1983 to 1987. Working with Karl Johnson, an experienced Muni maintenance hand who knew old-time streetcars from his museum work, Manag quickly showed a knack for diagnosing and fixing the wide variety of antique streetcars from around the world that ran during the Festivals.

Now everyone consults him on problems with the streetcars. And he doesn’t let problems stop him. Whenever parts are missing or unavailable, he makes them himself if at all possible. “A lot of things you can’t find on the book so you have to use your imagination. With me, it pops in my mind what I have to do, how to do it, then I come up with ideas.”

He uses his ingenuity not only at Muni’s Geneva Division maintenance facility, but also on the road. “Once they had this car that had an accident, they turned the battery off and it drained. I just looked around, started a few things, and it started running. Everyone was amazed, and I felt happy and accomplished.”

Manag loves all of the old streetcars, but favors PCCs for their reliability and parts availability. In addition, they can be fixed on the road easily and quickly. In fact, he likes the PCCs over the Boeing LRVs that replaced PCCs on the J, K, L, M, and N lines in the early 1980s.

“When people get on the PCCs, they almost always say, ’These are better than the old Boeings.’” He says tourists have even assumed a private company operates the F-line, because the PCCs are cleaner and more comfortable than other Muni vehicles, with cushioned seats and graffiti-free panels.

Manag has enjoyed the recognition he has received for his work on the vintage streetcars, but adds, “I also want to be compensated properly for my expertise.” He doesn’t feel that his multiple skills are properly recognized within the Muni system, which has affected his interest level, he says. As an example, he says he is often consulted by the maintenance trainers, yet ironically still gets training from the same individuals. What’s even more ironic, he feels, is that they teach what he considers the wrong things, far from the information Manag provided. He once tried to negotiate his compensation to no avail.

“If I wanted to quit tomorrow, I can do it. I don’t have to worry about money,” says Manag. He says he is not seeking money alone, but rather fairness in giving rewards and incentives to employees.

Manag stays at his job because he loves the streetcars. “When my wife and I drive down Market and we see a trolley, she always say, ’There’s your baby over there.’”