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San Francisco cable car system The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually operated cable car system, and is now an icon of the city of San Francisco in California. The cable car system forms part of the intermodal urban transport network operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway, or Muni as it is better known.
HistoryBeginningsIn 1870 Benjamin Brooks was granted a franchise for a cable line through San Francisco. He and his partners worked out most of the design, but found they did not have the time or money needed to build it, and sold the francise to cable manufacturer Andrew Smith Hallidie . Hallidie had William Eppelsheimer design the Clay Street Hill Railroad , a street railway system with grip cars each pulling a trailer, though it is unclear how much of the earlier design was adopted. The design, the first to use grips, was tested in San Francisco at four o'clock in the morning on August 2, 1873 and it was such a success that it became the model for other cable car transit systems. GrowthThe next cable car line to open was the Sutter Street Railway which converted from horse operation in 1877. This line introduced the side grip, and the lever operation, both designed by Asa Hovey . Subsequent experience showed that the bottom grip was preferrable because of the relative ease of dropping and picking up the cable. In 1878, Leland Stanford opened his California Street Cable Railroad . This company's first line was on California Street and is the oldest cable car line still in operation. In 1880, the Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railway began operation. The Presidio & Ferries Railway followed two years later, and was the first cable company to include curves on its routes. The curves were let-go curves, where the car drops the cable and coasts around the curve on its own momentum. In 1883, the Market Street Cable Railway opened its first line. This company was controlled by the Southern Pacific Railroad and was to grow to become San Francisco's largest cable car operator. At its peak, it operated five lines all of which converged into Market Street to a common terminus at the Ferry Building; during rush hours a cable car left that terminus every 15 seconds. In 1888, the Ferries and Cliff House Railway opened its initial two line system. One of these lines was the Powell-Mason line, still operated on exactly the same route today. The other line was the Washington-Jackson line, stretches of which are still used by today's Powell-Hyde line. The Presidio & Ferries Railway was also responsible for the building of a carbarn and powerhouse at Washington and Mason, and this site is still in use today. In the same year, it also purchased the original Clay Street Hill Railway, which it incorporated into a new Sacramento-Clay line. In 1889, the Omnibus Railroad & Cable Company became the last new cable car operator in San Francisco. The following year the California Street Cable Railroad opened two new lines, these being the last entirely new cable car lines built in the city. One of these was the O'Farrell, Jones and Hyde line, the Hyde section of which still remains in operation as part of todays Powell-Hyde line. DeclineThe first electric streetcars in San Francisco began operation in 1892. At that time, it was estimated that electric streetcar lines could be built for one sixth the cost of a cablecar line, and that operating costs of an electric streetcar were half those of a cablecar. Not surprisingly, San Francisco's cable car lines soon came under pressure. By the beginning of 1906, many of San Francisco's remaining cable cars were under the control of the United Railroads company (URR), although the California Street Cable Railway (Cal Cable) and the Geary Street company remained independent. URR was pressing to convert many of its cable lines to overhead electric traction, but this was being resisted by opponents who objected to what they saw as ugly overhead lines on the major thoroughfares of the city center. At 5.12am on April 18, 1906, those objections were swept away as the San Francisco earthquake struck. The earthquake and resulting fire destroyed the power houses and car barns of both the Cal Cable and the URR's Powell Street lines, together with the 117 cable cars stored within them. The race to rebuild the city also allowed the URR to replace most of its cablecar lines with electric streetcar lines. At the same time the independent Geary Street line was replaced by a municipally owned electric streetcar line, the first line of the San Francisco Municipal Railway. By 1912, only eight cable car lines remained, all with steep gradients impassable to electric streetcars. In the 1920s and 1930s these lines came under pressure from the much improved buses of the era, which could climb steeper hills than the electric streetcar. By 1944, the only lines remaining were the two Powell Street lines, by then in municipal ownership, and the three lines owned by the, still independent, Cal Cable. Fight backIn 1947, Mayor Roger Lapham proposed the closure of the two municipally owned lines. In response a joint meeting of 27 women's civic groups, led by Friedel Klussmann , formed the Citizens' Committee to Save the Cable Cars. In a famous battle of wills, the citizen's committee eventually forced a referendum on an amendment to the city charter, compelling the city to continue operating the Powell Street lines. This passed overwhelmingly with 166,989 yes votes to 51,457 no votes. In 1951, the three Cal Cable lines were shut down when the company was unable to afford insurance. The city purchased and re-opened the lines in 1952, but the amendment to the city charter did not protect these lines, and the city proceded with plans to replace them with buses. Again Friedel Klussmann came to the rescue, but with less success this time. The result was a compromise protected system made up of the California Street line from Cal Cable, the Powell-Mason line already in municipal ownership, and a third hybrid line made up by grafting the Hyde Street section of Cal Cable's O'Farrell, Jones & Hyde line onto a truncated Powell-Washington-Jackson line (now know as the Powell-Hyde line). Although this compromise solution required some rebuilding, both to suite the Hyde Street trackage and terminus to operation by Powell line single ended cars and to allow the whole system to be operated from a single car barn and power house, much of the infrastructure remained unchanged from the time of the earthquake. RebuildBy 1979 the cable car system had become unsafe, and it needed to be urgently closed for 7 months for repairs. Even after this, it was clear that the system still needed a lot of work and in 1982 the system was closed for a complete rebuild. This rebuild involved the complete rebuild of 69 city blocks worth of tracks and cable channels, the demolition and rebuilding of the car barn and powerhouse, new propulsion equipment and the repair or rebuild of 37 cable cars. The system finally re-opened on June 21, 1984. Since 1984, Muni has continued to upgrade the system. Work has included rebuilding a further car, the building of a further 9 brand new replacement cars, the building of a new terminal and turntable at the Hyde and Beach terminus and a new turntable at the Powell and Market terminus. OperationNetwork
There is also a set of non-revenue tracks from the California Street line along Hyde street to join the Powell-Hyde line at Hyde and Washington. This is used by cars from the California Street line to reach the car barn. There are turntables at the three terminals served by the Powell-Hyde and Powell-Mason lines, and these two lines are served by a common fleet of single-ended cable cars. The California Street line, on the other hand, is served by a separate fleet of double-ended cars and its two terminals are simple stubs. The cable car system connects with the F Market heritage streetcar line at both the Market and Powell Street terminal, and the Market and California Street terminal. The Taylor and Bay terminal, and the Hyde and Beach terminal, are both short walks from the F Market line. CarsAs previously mentioned, there are two fleets of cable cars in San Francisco:
Both fleets of cars ride on a pair of four-wheel trucks. The term California Street car, as in a car running on the California Street line, should not be confused with the term California Car. The latter term applies to all the cars currently operating in San Francisco, and is a historical term distinguishing this style of car from an earlier style where the open grip section and the enclosed section were separate four-wheel cars (known as the grip car and trailer). Car barn, power house and museum The car barn is located between Washington and Jackson streets just uphill of where Mason street crosses those two streets. Cars reverse into the barn off Jackson street and run out into Washington street; both moves being undertaken by gravity. In order to ensure that single-ended cars leave facing in the correct direction, the car barn contains a fourth turntable. Cars are moved around the car barn with the assistance of a rubber tyred tractor. The car barn is situated directly above the power house and cable car museum. The museum is entered from an entrance at Washington and Mason. The museum contains several examples of old cable cars, together with smaller exhibits and a shop. Perhaps of more interest are two overlook galleries which allow the visitor to overlook both the main power house, and also to descend below the junction of Washington and Mason streets in order to view the large cavern where the haulage cables are routed out to the street. There are four separate haulage cable loops: one for the California Street line, one for the Powell-Hyde line, one for the Powell-Mason line and one for the common section between the latter two lines. Each haulage cable is 1 inch in diameter, running at a constant speed of 9.5 mph (15.3 km/h) and driven by a 510 horsepower (380 kW) electric motor via a set of self-adjusting sheaves. Grip men and conductorsThe driver of a cable car is known as the grip man. This is a highly skilled job, requiring the grip man to release the grip at certain points in order to coast the vehicle over the pulleys or another line, and to anticipate well in order to avoid collisions with other traffic that may not understand the limitations of a cable car. Only a small proportion of people who attempt the training course actually pass it. Besides the grip man, each cable car carries a conductor whose job is to collect fares and manage the boarding and exiting of passengers. With the common practice of carrying standing passengers on the running boards of cable cars, passenger management is an important task. Prospective cable car crews are screened to ensure that they have a good personality and are suitable for dealing with large numbers of tourists and leaving a good impression of the city, and some crew members are locally well-known personalities. On the third Thursday of every July in Union Square, a cable car bell ringing contest is traditionally held between cable car crews. External links
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