“Ring out” 150 Years of Cable Cars with special rides this weekend
We at Market Street Railway have been proud to join SFMTA/Muni in leading the year-long civic celebration of the cable cars’ 150th anniversary.
We at Market Street Railway have been proud to join SFMTA/Muni in leading the year-long civic celebration of the cable cars’ 150th anniversary.
Flipping that old saying to promote “120 years: SFMTA Photo Archive 1903-2023” now showing at the Harvey Milk photography center, 50 Scott Street, adjacent to Duboce Park. (N stops right there at East Portal of the Duboce Tunnel, the 22 and 24 are nearby.)
SFMTA’s blog post for the exhibition has details we won’t repeat here.
They say you never forget your first. Absolutely true for the open-top streetcar from England that turned heads on Market Street 40 years ago during the first Historic Trolley Festival that paved the way for the permanent F-line. People took one look, then a double take, and noted the smiles of the riders. It was quickly dubbed the “Love Boat”.
Did you know that much of our merch is ours alone?
From November 13-19, leaders of numerous nations will gather in San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference. These include many heads of state, including President Biden, China’s President Xi, and others. The US Secret Service is in charge of security, and they have demanded that a portion of Nob Hill around the Fairmont Hotel be sealed off tight as a drum, along with the area around Moscone Center.
Muni’s most popular electric streetcar, an 89-year old Boat Tram from Blackpool, England, will be back on The Embarcadero for an encore at the end of Fleet Week, Saturday-Sunday, October 7-8, 10:15 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Dianne Feinstein is rightly being remembered for an astonishing range and depth of accomplishment during her 90 years of life. Her memory is a blessing to all who knew her, especially the thousands of women she mentored as a breakthrough female political leader.
Close to 10,000 smiling people showed up to give some love to San Francisco’s transit history over the weekend of September 23-24. The tenth Muni Heritage celebration was the biggest yet, drawing families from the City and around the Bay, and transit fans from around the nation and even from overseas.
The family-friendly Muni Heritage Weekend lets you ride vintage streetcars and buses and special cable cars that rarely operate. The world’s oldest cable car (1883), one of the oldest electric streetcars (1896), the very first streetcar Muni owned (1912), and the wildly popular English open-top “Boat Tram” (1934) will all be carrying passengers between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, September 23-24.
The 1934 English “Boat Tram” is Muni’s most popular streetcar. But due to a variety of circumstances, including what Muni leader Julie Kirschbaum says is an ongoing shortage of trained operators, it didn’t carry any passengers this year until September 12-13 (Sunday-Monday). Instead, vintage Milan and Melbourne trams have been alternating on Sundays and Mondays carrying people along the northern Embarcadero between Pier 39 and the Ferry Building (with an additional stop at our San Francisco Railway Museum).