Short Circuit?
Sipping a coffee early on Friday, June 15 at the Starbucks next to our Pharr restoration facility at Market & Duboce, my peripheral vision picks up a flash of unexpected color on the F-line. It's the intricate Cleveland livery of PCC No. 1075. Noteworthy, because I've already seen its San Diego and Detroit sisters go by carrying passengers, with the Birmingham car scheduled out as well... (more)

Demise of a Dream
Every so often, a breathless call would come into the Market Street Railway office. It usually went like this. "I was driving back from Tahoe and I saw all these streetcars sitting in a forest. They look like old Muni cars. Do you know about them?... (more)

Brussels Sprouts Trams
In May of this year, my wife (Market Street Railway Director Carmen Clark) and I spent four days in Brussels, Belgium. The city has a population of about 400,000, with the metropolitan area being almost one million people. The transit service is provided by the STIB, which operates streetcars, two subway lines, and an extensive bus operation... (more)

The Long Hello
On April 9, a pea-green PCC streetcar picked up its first paying passengers on the F-line, marking the first 'new' streamliner to enter revenue service since the F-line opened in 1995. Car No. 1078, painted to honor San Diego, drew stares among F-line regulars with its unfamiliar livery, and compliments for its fresh paint inside and out... (more)

W(h)ither the Vintage Cars
With all the attention given to the eleven additional PCCs purchased from Newark, we have spent rather less time in recent months bringing Market Street Railway members up to date on the 'vintage cars'. We define the vintage cars as the sixteen unique passenger cars that either represent San Francisco's actual streetcar heritage dating back 112 years, or that provide authentic dashes of flavor from other great cities around the world... (more)

Third Street Memories
Far from busy Third Street and its two streetcar lines, my childhood was spent in a quiet section of Cow Hollow, which was Dinky Territory—with center-door Muni E-line cars and the Market Street Railway single-truck Fillmore Hill counterbalance. Occasionally, I would ride larger streetcars in the Marina, Pacific Heights or Downtown... (more)

Museum Momentum
The first four months of the San Francisco Railway Museum have been a resounding success, according to Rick Laubscher, president of Market Street Railway, owner and operator of the new museum. "We've welcomed visitors from all over the world, but especially current and former San Franciscans who are delighted to see the city's transit heritage preserved and interpreted... (more)

Vehicles of Recovery
On April 17, 1906, San Francisco was the West's grandest metropolis. Four companies provided the city's street railway services. San Francisco's largest transit provider—with 139 route miles out of the city's total of 154—and its only city-wide street railway system was United Railroads of San Francisco (URR). Central to its operation were its cable car operations that included the five Market Street cable car lines... (more)

Half of 'New' PCCs Here
At press time (December 20), six 'new' 60-year old PCC streetcars are at Muni to stay, more than half of the group of eleven Muni bought third-hand from Newark NJ after their retirement there in 2002... (more)

San Francisco Railway Museum Opens
Thanks to the generosity of our members and friends, Market Street Railway's new San Francisco Railway Museum opened its doors to the public on September 2, 2006. The museum is located at the Steuart Street F-line stop, half a block south of Market, catty-corner from the Ferry Building, in the wonderful Hotel Vitale building... (more)

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Inclined toward history
When you think of American cities with truly historic transit woven deeply into the fabric of the town, you think of San Francisco of course, for its cable cars and the F-line, and New Orleans with it St. Charles streetcar line. But there's another example: Pittsburgh, with its 'inclined planes' and its PCC heritage... (more)

'Torpedo' Rehab a Go!
On September 19, the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) unanimously approved the advertising of a request for proposals to completely remanufacture four more of Muni’s largest PCC cars, Nos. 1006, 1008, 1009, and 1011... (more)

Fort Mason Extension Progress
Despite the near-term travails facing historic streetcar service in San Francisco, Market Street Railway is always maintaining a long-term vision. Central to this is a service extension through an historic rail corridor from Fisherman’s Wharf to Aquatic Park and Fort Mason. A major step forward along this path has now been taken, with work begun in May on an Environment Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed extension... (more)

Slow But Steady
There's a least a little progress to report on vintage streetcar restoration projects underway involving especially historic cars... (more)