Sail the Boat Starting May 28

May 3, 2019May 20, 2019 Rick Laubscher Fleet Updates, Muni News, Posts with Photos

As a Summer gift to San Francisco, Muni will be operating the fabulous Blackpool Boat Tram in regular service on Tuesdays and Wednesdays starting May 28. The special service will last at least through Labor Day, perhaps longer, running from the Ferry Building to Pier 39, adjacent to Fisherman’s Wharf along The Embarcadero. (The Pier 39 terminal will allow more trips per day, avoiding the long queue of E- and F-line regular service streetcars taking their layover at Jones Street.)

The E is Back!

April 22, 2019April 22, 2019 Rick Laubscher Fort Mason Extension, Muni News, Posts with Photos E-Embarcadero, E-line

After a hiatus caused by project work on two of Muni’s light rail lines, the E-Embarcadero line has returned to service. Nice writeup in the SFMTA blog.

Best Version Yet of Iconic 1906 Movie

April 16, 2019April 16, 2019 Rick Laubscher History Spotlight, Video 1906 earthquake, 1906 Trip Down Market Street, Market Street, Market Street cable cars, Market Street movie, Trip Down Market Street

In 1906, it didn’t get more high tech than this iconic 12-minute movie, filmed from the front of a cable car headed down Market Street. If you’re a San Francisco history buff (or transit buff), you’ve probably seen it before, but not like this. A new digital transfer by the noted film archivist Rick Prelinger breathes more life into it, sharper and wider-screen. (Back then, the image was captured to the edges of the film, even between the sprocket holes; this version includes that.)

Welcome to our new site!

April 5, 2019April 5, 2019 Rick Laubscher SFMSR

Led by our great volunteers Chris Arvin and Kat Siegal, we’ve revamped streetcar.org to have a fresh look and much more utility, especially for mobile users.

Thank a Muni Operator Today

March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 Rick Laubscher Features, Muni News Mike Delia, Transit Drivers Appreciation Day

Today is Transit Drivers’ Appreciation Day. It’s a hard job, and it has gotten harder over the past decade with the increase in traffic on our streets. Muni has painted more “red carpet” lanes for their vehicles’ (and taxis’) exclusive use, but many automobile drivers ignore them.

Hear Mayor Art Agnos’ Inside Stories of Embarcadero Transformation March 21

March 5, 2019March 5, 2019 Rick Laubscher Features, Policy & Planning, Posts with Photos Art Agnos, E'line, Embarcadero Freeway, F-line, Inside Track Live, san francisco railway museum

Nothing has improved San Francisco more in the past 30 years than the transformation of its waterfront boulevard, The Embarcadero. The city’s mayor at the time, Art Agnos, bucked some strong special interests to achieve the removal of the double-deck Embarcadero Freeway in front of the Ferry Building, replacing it with a surface roadway, pedestrian promenade, and — of course — streetcar tracks.

Homeward Bound Bumblebee

February 19, 2019February 19, 2019 Rick Laubscher Fleet Updates, Posts with Photos 1057, 1058, Bumblebee streetcar, Cincinnati

This newly renovated Muni PCC streetcar is bringing sunshine on cloudy days as it makes its way back to San Francisco. Car 1057, painted in the eye-popping yellow of Cincinnati Street Railway Company, should arrive in San Francisco on Wednesday, February 20, based on its reported location in Tehachapi on Highway 58 in southern California on the morning of February 19. These photos were posted by Dustin Mosher to our Facebook group.

Broad “Daylight”

February 15, 2019February 15, 2019 Rick Laubscher Fleet Updates, Posts with Photos Car 1061, Daylight train, Pacific Electric, PCC, Southern Pacific

What a perfect Valentine’s Day gift to San Francisco. The return of a PCC whose livery has stolen a lot of hearts with its appropriate-for-the-day red coloring. Car 1061 is painted in tribute to Pacific Electric, the legendary Southern California system that once stretched from San Bernardino to Santa Monica, and from the San Fernando Valley to Newport Beach. P-E only had a handful of streamlined PCCs in its enormous fleet, and they were unique: double-ended, with front and center doors on each side, like no other PCCs built. They had no standee windows. They ran almost exclusively on the Glendale-Burbank line. When P-E was closing its operations, they were sold to Argentina. None survives today.

London Buses in SF: 1952

February 6, 2019February 8, 2019 Rick Laubscher Features, History Spotlight, SFMSR 1952, London Double-deck bus, Market Street, san francisco railway museum

The librarian for the San Francisco Chronicle, Bill Van Niekerken, comes up with some dandy articles by digging through the newspaper’s voluminous archives. Somehow, we missed this great story and photos, showing three double-deck London Transport buses coming to, and driving through, San Francisco on a cross-country British tourism promotion in 1952. The photo above shows one of the RTL-type buses (predecessor to London Transport’s famed Routemasters) on Market Street at Eighth, sharing the street with three “Iron Monster” Muni streetcars. The Whitcomb Hotel is on the left behind the bus, with the Fox Theater farther up the street on the right.

Remembering Cam Beach

January 26, 2019January 25, 2019 Rick Laubscher SFMSR

Cameron Beach would have turned 70 today. San Francisco’s transit system would be better if he were still with us. But that wasn’t to be. On March 19, 2011, he died suddenly of a heart attack. At the time of his death, he was a member of SFMTA’s Board of Directors, having been appointed by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2007, following his retirement as Chief Operating Officer of Sacramento Regional Transit.