We’ve been hearing a lot this week about the scene above. First was Jeremy, who captured the scene of a Muni Metro towing an old Boeing LRV from Mint Yard behind Safeway on Market. See Jeremy’s video here.
We asked Jeremy if he knew the story behind this move.
Yes it was towed by a 2car breda train up the J line to Metro Yard… I don’t know the reason….yet :)
Written by: jeff
Last November, we posted a nice video we found from 1980 showing our fair transit system in action.
Then, a few weeks ago, the videographer in question, Wouter van der Brugghen, sent us a few more videos, including the one above. Wouter says:
I visited San Francisco for the first time in 1980. We filmed a lot including the impressive public transport system. I like especialy the enormous trolleybus system with 343 trolleybuses. Compare that with the 29 trolleybus fleet in Arnhem (netherlands) where I lived at that time! Also the PCC looked impressive compared to the small ones running in Europe.
Here’s another:
In 1980 I visited San Francisco for the second time. I enjoyed the rides with the MAN artic’s, the flyer E900 buses and the Orion midi buses and was able to videotape them. Fortunately you can also hear the engine sound on this tape.
Great stuff. Thanks, Wouter!
Written by: jeff
Old SF is this week’s “everyone is sharing/sending/talking about it via their keyboards” website, and for good reason.
Dan Vanderkam and Raven Keller put the site together presumably out of love of San Francisco history and with a fair amount of tech prowess. If you haven’t already allowed yourself to get sucked into its addictive timesink wasteland, go for it.
We of course tried to zero in on as many Muni photo as we could. Above is one of our favorites. Its caption reads, “Municipal Railway trackless trolley car number 742 being christened on 20th and Mission Street
1950 Mar. 15.”
The collection is so vast, we surely missed some. If you find other great historical Muni photos here or anywhere, share them with Muni Time Capsule, please.
Written by: jeff
“MRT” or “Mart” just don’t have the same ring to them as “BART,” I suppose. But that didn’t stop 1960s planners from imagining an extensive underground rapid-transit system spidering its way all around San Francisco. Eric Fischer has a series of concept drawings like the ones here, along with maps of the proposed system. Go to his Flickr set and spend the next several minutes geeking out, imagining zipping down below Geary on your way to Burma Superstar, or wherever.
Market Street Railway discusses the proposed subway, but says voters defeated it in 1966.
Muni Rapid (1966/1967) set on Flickr.
Muni Rapid Concept Vehicle — look familiar?
Written by: jeff
Image: Cable Car Guy
Friend of Muni Time Capsule Dexter Wong tipped us off a few months ago to the Fillmore Hill Counterbalance. Here’s what Dexter had to say about it:
The Fillmore Hill Counterbalance was one of the more interesting in the city. It was built to extend the 22-Fillmore streetcar line into the Marina District. An un-powered cable was used to allow the tiny streetcars to climb the hill. You see, the weight of the descending car pulled the ascending car up the hill after both cars were attached to the cable. A device called “the wishbone” worked like a cable car grip on these cars. At the end of the day a weighted dummy car was let down the hill to allow the last car to come up. The first car down next morning brought the dummy back up. The entire service was converted to buses in 1941 (and the buses used less steep Steiner Street to climb the hill).
Reading about past engineering solutions often reminds me of being a kid. The 19th century problem-solvers who build the counterbalance on Fillmore Hill had a young city as their toy, and set about making things (and people) move up and down the intimidating hills of San Francisco.
Market Street Railway (which built the Fillmore Hill Counterbalance in 1895) talks a little more about the counterbalance in this post about the 1915 Panama-Pacific Expedition:
Additionally, the 35-Haight-Exposition line operated from Carl and Stanyan via Carl, Clayton, Frederick, Masonic, and Page to Fillmore, returning via Oak Street. It allowed transfer to the URR Fillmore lines 22 and 23, which in turn connected with the Fillmore Hill counterbalance line to reach the Fair.
Cable Car Guy has more on this and other counterbalances around the country, including a couple of mishaps on Fillmore Street:
The score or more of passengers who were tossed about when the car came to a sudden halt at Green street accounted themselves fortunate when they picked themselves up and found their injuries to comprise a few bruises and a bad jarring. (August 8, 1906)
The Fillmore Hill Counterbalance was replaced by diesel bus routes in the early 1940s.
Written by: jeff
Eric Fischer posts this rendering of an imagined elevated bus line above the sidewalks of San Francisco.
Fischer notes, “A plan for elevated trolleybus lanes above sidewalk arcades on Market Street. This is from the San Francisco Examiner archives, but I wasn’t able to find any reference to it in papers from around the date (December 12, 1937).”
All too often, past visions of the future (a future that has now past us by) are really fun to look at.
Written by: jeff
Photo courtesy Bernal History Project
Over at Bernalwood today, Todd posts photos of streetcars climbing and descending Bernal Hill. Amazing relic photos, and a nice writeup by Todd. Check it out at Bernalwood.
That reminds us of other streetcars and cable cars that used to ferry passengers up, down, and around our hilly city by the Bay. The Fillmore cable car is one of our favorites.
Photo courtesy Cable Car Guy
Did you get a chance to ride any of these now-extinct lines? Tell us about your experience.
Written by: jeff
Inspired by Dexter’s Muni Time Capsule post of old Muni tokens, reader Mike sends his tokens and token dispenser. Mike says:
“I used to use the tokens in the mid 1990s on the bus. You could buy the roll of tokens: I can’t remember if it was 10 or 20 per roll, but the tokens were discounted to 80 cents each, when the standard Muni rate was $1. I used the antique token dispenser in the photo to carry them. Sometime in the late ’90s, the machine that rolled the tokens broke and they started issuing the sealed plastic bags. I recently found the old roll in the picture at the Alameda flea market. This roll is much older than the ones I used to buy, but the tokens look the same. On this roll it says “S.F. MUNI. RY.” and “20 TOKENS 20″ and “Standard-Johnson Co., Inc. Brooklyn, N.Y.” There was a Johnson Fare Box Co in Chicago that made coin dispensers. Not sure if they’re related in any way.”
Thanks, Mike. We’ve got more capsule items from Mike coming in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
Written by: jeff
Following this Muni Time Capsule post on Muni tokens, friend of the time capsule, Dexter, sent us a few photos (front above, back below) of the tokens he’s got at home. These look different from the ones we posted in December. The “holes” in those were in the shapes of the letters S and F. And check out how on the front of these tokens, it’s got MSR President Samuel Kahn‘s name emblazoned. Kahn left MSR in 1946, best we can tell. That’s quite a long time ago, eh?
If you’ve got tokens or other Muni memorabilia, share it here on Muni Time Capsule.
Thanks for sharing, Dexter!
Written by: jeff
Flickr user Muni Better Late Than Never posted this photo to the Muni Photos group. What an adorable little vehicle.
But I’ve never heard of the 1-Sutter, and I can’t find any information on it. Was it a real route? Or was it a one-off fluke? It certainly wasn’t the dearly departed 4-Sutter.
Do any of you have insight into this mystery bus?
Written by: jeff
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