There is nothing like San Francisco’s famed F-line heritage streetcar service, beloved by residents and a facet of Muni’s operations in which the transit agency rightfully takes great pride. But how did it come to be decades ago, and how is it sustained today?
Thanks to Market Street Railway Board member and transit activist Kat Siegal, with help from Chris Arvin, you can now see where every cable car is on the street — in REAL TIME!
Noted Bay Area journalist Joe Fonzi’s 30-minute on the history and operation of the F-line is now online. Watch it here. (If for any reason the link doesn’t work, URL is www.ktvu.com/video/1736822. The doc has some great historic footage, including the 1980s Trolley Festivals, engaging interviews with F-line operators, maintainers, and riders…including Mayor Daniel Lurie, who tells what he thinks about the F-line.
UPDATE: Joe Fonzi’s great 30-minute documentary on the F-line will indeed be repeated on Channel 2 on SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, at 12:30 pm, just before NFL football on Fox. If you haven’t seen it yet, either watch or record it; it’s well worth your time, with great interviews featuring operators and maintainers of the streetcars, wonderful historical and current footage of both PCCs and vintage cars, and an interview with Mayor Lurie.
“Special Guest Streetcar” service has been operating on Fridays and Saturdays this summer. As it wraps up for the season, the very popular 91-year old Blackpool “Boat Tram” is most frequently operated, and is scheduled to be out on the Friday and Saturday of Fleet Week (October 10-11) Its first trip leaves Castro and Market around 12:30 p.m. and operates through about 6:30. You can see exactly where it is on our live streetcar map.
Muni Heritage Weekend, jointly sponsored by us and Muni’s parent, SFMTA, is ON again this year.
…that the F-Market streetcar line became the F-Market & Wharves streetcar line, with the opening of the extension from First and Market Streets to Jones and Beach, connecting Downtown to the Ferry Building, The Embarcadero, and Fisherman’s Wharf. On March 4, 2000, the extension created what we call the “Steel Triangle” of rail: the two Powell cable lines and the F-line.
With San Francisco’s historic streetcars still shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we can’t take an actual ride to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the permanent F-Market line, but we can get some virtual thrills with these two new merchandise items, designed by Chris Arvin. Above, a poster with Chris’s iconic, er, icons that playfully visualize some of Muni’s historic streetcar fleet. Below, a pin featuring a PCC in original Muni livery.
On September 1, 1995, a parade of vintage streetcars rumbled westward on Market Street, led by the wildly popular Boat Tram 228, to officially inaugurate the permanent F-Market streetcar line (extended in 2000 to become the F-Market & Wharves).
The short answer is: we don’t know; it’s up to the virus and what we all do together to shorten its grip on our society. But Muni can be ready for that day, and we’re encouraging them to do so.
