This cable car was built in 1893 in the East Bay town of Newark by Carter Brothers. It served the Sacramento-Clay line until the 1906 earthquake and fire, and then was moved over to Powell Street, where it has run ever since. It was numbered 520 until Muni dropped the first number on Powell cable cars in the 1970s.
August 2, 1873 — In the wee small hours of a misty San Francisco night (they didn’t call the month “Fogust” back then, but it was), a new type of transit was about to be inaugurated. An endless wire rope clattered beneath Clay Street. An odd open vehicle sat on the rails at the top of the hill. Standing by was Andrew Smith Hallidie, a Scot who had experience using wire rope in the mining business, and was part of the team promoting this new technology, aimed at making horsecars obsolete.
Maybe our best yet. You can get it either at our museum shop any Tuesday through Saturday, Noon – 5 pm (and save the shipping cost) or anytime at our online store. And if you join us for $100 or more annually here, you’ll get the 2023 calendar free! (Current and new members who qualify for the calendar will get it in plenty of time for the new year.)
Muni’s 21-Hayes bus line returned to service on July 9, 2022 after a 27-month pandemic suspension. Early in the pandemic, Muni management hoped that the crisis might give them an opportunity to rationalize the network by permanently shutting down some of the parallel routes that dated back to the 19th century. The 21 was one of several lines, including the 2-Clement and 6-Parnassus, on that list.
On Saturday, July 9, Muni restarted service on several routes with long histories that were shut down at the beginning of the Covid pandemic; routes that at least some in Muni hoped would not come back at all. SFMTA’s blog has the whole list of Muni routes resurrected on July 9. We focus here on one of those routes, the 2-line, with a long history and possibly cloudy future. (We’ve also covered two other resurrected historic routes: the 6-line and the 21-line in other posts.)
NOTE: In late June 2022, a pandemic-delayed memorial service was held for Art Curtis, retired Muni Chief Inspector, long-time Market Street Railway Secretary and Board Member, and stalwart volunteer for many nonprofit groups. Art, who passed away in 2020 just after reaching his goal of his 80th birthday, was a great storyteller, and he had some good ones! A number of years ago, we asked him to share this one in our member magazine, “Inside Track”.
The wait was worth it. Thirty months of pandemic, service shutdowns, and struggles to get F-line and cable car service going again. After all that, it was time for a celebration. Thousands of San Franciscans and visitors agreed, coming out on June 4 to ride or watch vintage streetcars, unique cable cars, and Muni buses spanning 60 years of service.
Ride Muni’s very first streetcar, built in 1912. Ride an even older streetcar that looks like a cable car, built in 1896. Ride two unique cable cars, from lines that disappeared in 1942 and 1954. Ride Muni’s brand-newest cable car, an incredible piece of the carpenter’s art. Ride a 1928 tram from Melbourne, the 88-year old open-top “boat tram” from England, a 1950s “EuroPCC”. And, for the first time since the pandemic started, a popular tram from Milan will operate. All on Muni’s own tracks.
San Francisco has been a magnet for travelers for 170 years. The beauty of its setting on one of the world’s great natural harbors is unquestioned. Yet San Francisco’s front door once was ugly.
For 149 years, San Francisco’s cable cars have been exemplars of craft, sculptures in wood and metal reflecting the talents of carpenters, metal workers, painters, electricians, and others. They absorb the jolts and lurches inherent in their daily operation, carrying millions of passengers over decades of daily service before their joints finally loosen and rot and rust take a big enough toll to require rebuilding.
