Market Street Railway is a non-profit organization with 1000 members, founded in 1976. Our mission: Preserving Historic Transit in San Francisco.
We receive no government money whatever. We rely instead on private donations and membership dues to help keep San Francisco’s past present in the future. Please click here to learn how to help.
We advocate for historic streetcar and cable car service improvements and expansion, educate people about the importance of attractive transit in creating vibrant, livable cities, and celebrate the wonderful historic streetcars, cable cars, and buses owned and operated by Muni, a service of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA).
We also operate the free San Francisco Railway Museum across from the Ferry Building at 77 Steuart Street, open Tuesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Our group’s leaders were the driving force in making vintage streetcars a full-time part of the San Francisco scene in the 1980s and 1990s.
This website, our quarterly member magazine, Inside Track, our monthly electronic newsletter, and our social media outlets bring you the latest news and information about San Francisco’s historic streetcars and cable cars.
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The Milans don’t have brake problems, do they? Just wondering…
No. The Milans pass the same CPUC (state public utilities commission) braking tests as all the other streetcars. In my personal opinion, there is virtually never a valid excuse for a collision between two streetcars on level ground, especially since Muni has a half-block minimum following distance rule. But we should wait for the official investigation to learn how close the Milan tram was following the PCC.
People need to understand that operating a streetcar ( on any public transit vehicle for that matter) for eight hours or more tends to get boring for a while. A pilot told me that flying is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer panic. The same applies here. Someone’s attention wandered for a moment and the 1807-1061 incident occured! People have accidents with cars all the time. We should not be surprised when it happens with other vehicles.
All due respect, Mr. Huckaby, but there are no actual rules in driving an automobile that you have to stay half a block back of the preceding car. And I’m sure you don’t mean to imply that it would be excusable for a professional vehicle operator, whether a pilot, a big rig driver, or a streetcar operator, to use wandering attention as a justification for an accident that hurt more than a dozen people. So I think people SHOULD be surprised when something like this happens…and really angry when it happens twice within a month (counting the LRV accident on King Street).