Month: October 2010

David Dugan

Market Street Railway x Dress-Lace Inc Mini Lace Dress

Market Street Railway x Dress-Lace Inc Mini Lace Dress – Gray / Elbow-Length Sleeves

This Market Street Railway x http://dress-lace.com women’s mini lace dress will provide a fresh, casual look for your transitioning seasonal wardrobe. The dress is constructed from high quality cotton knit and has a slight amount of stretch for a more comfortable fit. It is a mini length dress with the hemline ending at the upper thigh area. The dress comes in four color choices. Select your favorite from black, taupe, royal blue or emerald green. This dress has flattering elbow-length sleeves and a rounded neckline. It has no buttons or zippers, and slips easily over the head. The dress is fully machine washable in warm water. We recommend tumble drying on a low heat setting. The lace dress has a loose cut and may be worn with or without a belt. It is available for purchase in sizes Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large.

Share
Rick Laubscher

Come Out of the Rain!

130_351 inside Geneva 102910.jpgThe long-awaited shed at Geneva Division is covering its first streetcars tonight. Vulnerable canvas-roofed streetcars including 1914 Muni No. 130 and 1926 Johnstown, PA No. 351 (left) were joined by venerable 1916 work car No. C-1 in taking shelter under the new canopy structure, after the 600 volt overhead wires were activated today. Regular F-line revenue streetcars, including PCCs, Milan trams, and older vintage cars, are pulling into the shed tonight.

Market Street Railway is working with Muni to schedule a formal dedication of the facility, which our organization has advocated for more than a dozen years, helping Muni arrange funding from the San Francisco Municipal Railway Improvement Corporation (SFMRIC), among other sources.

What a warm sight on a rainy night!  Congratulations to all at Muni who have supported this effort.

Share
Rick Laubscher

The Giants-Cleveland-F line Connection

1075-from Curbed Flickr pool.jpgOur friends at Curbed SF posted this photo as part of their Giants’ coverage. No doubt because of the orange and cream livery.  Doubt they know that F-line PCC No. 1075 actually pays tribute to Cleveland Transit System! 

Wait, there’s actually a connection, though.  Cleveland Transit System’s streetcars were painted in this livery in 1948, the last time the Indians won the World Series (one of only two teams with a longer championship drought than the Giants (the Chicago Cubs are even more hapless) . 

And it was in 1954 that Cleveland Transit System’s last streetcars stopped running, the same year that the Giants last won the World Series, beating — the Cleveland Indians!  (But streetcars in Cleveland continued rolling on the suburban Shaker Heights line, with PCCs giving way to LRVs in 1983.)

(The baseball futility scoreboard – most years since last World Series win: Giants 56; Indians 62; Cubs, 102 and counting!)

And yes, Muni has a PCC honoring Chicago too.  We’ll share a surprise about that one next week.

GO GIANTS!

Comments Off on The Giants-Cleveland-F line Connection
Share
Rick Laubscher

Muni Promotes F-line at SFO

Milan SFO banner.jpg

When you’re asked to promote part of your transit service to visitors
arriving at SFO, what do you choose?  The “halfway to the stars” icons?
How about the F-line streetcars? There are several banners up at SFO with photos of Milan tram No. 1893 or San Diego PCC No. 1078, with the theme “Milan [or San Diego] on the outside; San Francisco from the inside.” The tag line: “When you’re in San Francisco, Muni gets you everywhere you want to go.”

It’s yet another example of how Muni uses the F-line to put its best public foot forward in a variety of situations. When you go to SFMTA Headquarters at 1 South Van Ness Avenue, you’ll see a disproportionate percentage of F-line images on the walls. If it’s presentations about SFMTA, reports, other documents, same thing.

And why not? The F is one of Muni’s most popular lines, because it’s fun to ride. And the great variety of liveries on the streetcars brings an extra dollop of color to Market Street and The Embarcadero.

In fact, the F-line streetcars are almost a flashback to the days of the 1906 Market Street film profiled last week on 60 Minutes. You can’t tell in the black and white film, but the cable cars on Market in those days were color coded, with a different bright color for each line (red for Haight, yellow for Valencia, white for Castro, etc.), providing a kaleidoscope of transit color then just as the F-line streetcars do today . (This kind of detail is included in our exclusive narrated version of the 1906 film, available here and at our San Francisco Railway Museum.)

If anyone has spotted different promotional banners like this in the other SFO terminals — or elsewhere — let us know with a comment.

Share
Rick Laubscher

The Best Version of the Market Street Film Profiled on 60 Minutes

Rick Laubscher History Spotlight, Video

Did you see the story that was just on 60 Minutes about the now-famous “Trip Down Market Street” film? Although the film is more than a century old, a version of it with just an instrumental sound track suddenly starting spreading like wildfire on YouTube in 2008. That version has 1.8 million views right now, even though the film itself is so grainy and dirty you can’t see much detail. But thanks to archivist Rick Prelinger, who digitally restored the… — Read More

Share
Todd Jappin

It’s Here! MSR’s 2011 Museums In Motion Calendar

Todd Jappin Uncategorized

Just in time for, well, next year, Market Street Railway is proud to unveil the 2011 edition of our Museums In Motion calendar. Printed in a large, 16 x 11 inch format, the 2011 Museums In Motion Calendar features thirteen beautiful full-color shots of San Francisco’s historic rail vehicles in action on the city streets, plus 24 spectacular black & white historic transit photos from the Market Street Railway archives and other sources. It literally takes a village — or,… — Read More

Comments Off on It’s Here! MSR’s 2011 Museums In Motion Calendar
Share
Rick Laubscher

60 Minutes and 104 years

Rick Laubscher Features, History Spotlight

This Sunday night, October 17 at 7 pm, CBS News 60 Minutes (Channel 5 locally) is scheduled to run a story on what they call a Market Street “mystery” that was recently solved.  All fans of San Francisco history and historic transit will want to watch this story, which centers on one of the first commercial films made in the U.S., a 12-minute trip down Market Street on board a cable car (yes!) early in the 20th century. Don’t think… — Read More

Share
Todd Jappin

Autumn in San Francisco: Sunshine and Streetcars

Todd Jappin Photo of the Moment

As Mark Twain once said “San Franciscans prefer to TiVo their summers.” Actually, that’s completely untrue. Twain never said that. In fact, the thought never even crossed his mind. Then again, he didn’t say that bit about “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” either.  Nevertheless, both misattributions describe a set of circumstances are quite genuine: Autumn in San Francisco really does function as the city’s summer, as the cold fog of summer melts away… — Read More

Share
Rick Laubscher

7 Come 11

Rick Laubscher Uncategorized

Lucky in craps, lucky in streetcars. The two yellow Milan trams (1807 and 1811) luckily showed up back to back on the service pits at Geneva Division the other night as a camera wandered past.  It’s a tribute to Carole Gilbert and her Muni paint crew that 1811, painted some time ago, looks as fresh as the freshly painted 1807, which just reentered service following two years of accident repairs.

Comments Off on 7 Come 11
Share
Todd Jappin

Visualize This: Modern Streetcar Service in Downtown Los Angeles

Todd Jappin News, Policy & Planning, Video

As part of an effort to bring a streetcar line to Downtown Los Angeles, two LA filmmakers produced this tidy little video. It extols the economic and social benefits of streetcar service, and provides nifty computer-generated visualizations of what modern streetcars might look like operating in downtown LA. As an added bonus, the introduction to the video includes some nice historic footage of LA’s streetcar fleet before it was abandoned in 1963: Here’s the complete video:

Share
Rick Laubscher

Another Milan “Mellow Yellow” on the Street

Rick Laubscher Fleet Updates, News

Following a two-year absence to repair accident damage, Milan tram No. 1807 is back on the F-line today, resplendent in its fresh paint scheme.  It is the second of Muni’s ten vintage 1928 Milan trams to be repainted in the yellow and white livery the original trams of this class wore in that Italian city. (No. 1811 was the first, several years ago) The yellow and white livery lasted only a few years in Milan, replaced by a two tone… — Read More

Comments Off on Another Milan “Mellow Yellow” on the Street
Share