Muni didn’t build the first trolley coach line in San Francisco. That honor went to competitor Market Street Railway (our namesake), which converted its 33-line streetcar over Twin Peaks in 1935 to use trolley coaches (Brills, of which none survives). But Muni was aware of the advantages of trolley coaches, especially their hill climbing ability and their need for only a single driver, instead of a crew of two, as streetcars retired.
The GM “Fishbowl” buses Muni bought in 1969 and 1970 did the job all right, but their loud V8 engines and even louder “Jake brakes”, which sounded like machine guns when applied downhill, ticked off people along their routes, especially in quieter residential areas. So, Muni decided to finish replacing its venerable fleet of Macks with a smaller, quieter bus.
As a rule, American transit buses looked pedestrian until the late 1950s. Most resembled rolling loaves of bread, functional but not attractive.
When Muni converted two dozen streetcar lines to buses at the end of the 1940s, it bought 255 trolley coaches from three manufacturers (Marmon-Herrington, Twin Coach, and St. Louis Car Company). By the mid-1970s, these buses were at the end of their lives. They were all replaced by a new fleet of trolley coaches from Canada’s Flyer Co. The front ends of the Flyers resembled the GM “New Look” diesel coaches Muni was then using, but the sides appeared different, with squared-off windows. They arrived in the iconic livery of “California Poppy Gold,” “Sunset Glow,” and white created for Muni by famed San Francisco industrial designer Walter Landor.
First of six installments in our history of Muni’s birth and first century
As the photo makes plain, that was one wild first ride on Muni. Emblematic, we think, of the past 20 months, with constant adjustments made to Muni’s network during the pandemic to meet unprecedented challenges.
This type of bus is iconic to San Franciscans of a certain age, for it carried them to school, to work, to shop, and to play for well over a decade.
The idea of a transit subway under Market Street goes back to the first years of the 20th century, but it took more than 70 fitful years to become reality. That’s a complex and fascinating story we tell in this companion post, which explains the compromises that harmed Muni’s subway operation from the get-go.
This image honors Philadelphia Suburban Red Arrow PCCs that ran in service from 1949-1982. Pin measures 1.625″ across and attaches with post & rubber clasp. Larry Hodson design. Read More……
Not only does San Francisco’s transit agency, Muni, have the world’s only multi-line system of street running cable cars AND one of the world’s most popular and varied daily vintage streetcar operations, it also preserves important pieces of its rubber-tire heritage in the form of vintage trolley buses and motor buses. (In San Francisco, transit companies have traditionally referred to buses as “coaches”, though the public calls them buses.)
