Trolley Thursday 4/15/21 - The San Francisco Municipal Railway

Today, San Francisco boasts one of the most sophisticated and multi-faceted rapid transit systems in the United States in all its different modes. From trolleybuses to light rail vehicles, underground rapid transits to antiquated cable cars, the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni for short) really does cover everything under the sun. But, 120 years ago, one of the first city-owned street railways in America not only had a hard time getting established, but also meeting the modern-day demands of the City by the Bay's growing population. On today's Trolley Thursday, we look at how Muni became such a juggernaut in San Franciscan mass transit and how they've remained one of the most famous street railways in the world to this day. Now grab your ClipperCard and let's get riding!

A Cable Car For the People, By the People

On the first streetcar line to return following the devastating
1906 San Francisco Earthquake, Mayor Eugene Schmitz (center, leaning out
with impressive beard) motors in a URR car.
(FoundSF)

A 1905-era photo of a Powell St. Cable car, under the
"United Railroads" banner. Happily, the Powell & Mason
Sts. Line outlasted the URR into the modern day.
(SFMTA)

The birth of what became Muni occurred just one day before the worst day in San Franciscan history, April 17, 1906, as a response to the injustices being wrought by the United Railroads of San Francisco (URR) and their owner and president, Patrick Calhoun. This most unholy union of street and cable railways left wealthy San Franciscan residents, normal citizens, and streetcar workers alike rather helpless as they were beholden to the system's spotty service and almost cavalier attitude towards where and how they could string up trolley wire, something San Francisco had banned in 1891 for fear of being ugly. In response, Rudolph and Claus Spreckels of the prominent Spreckels family (who dealt in the refined sugar business) and former mayor James Phelan incorporated the "Municipal Street Railways" to compete and hopefully undercut Calhoun's United Railroads and force him into submission. Unfortunately, due to the events that happened the morning after, the "Municipal Street Railways" only ever existed on paper.

Packed to the gills with eager riders, Mayor "Sunny Jim"
Rolph pilots Muni Car No. 1, a "Wooden Monster" down
Geary Street and crossing the O'Farrell-Jones-Hyde cable line
on Muni's opening day, December 28, 1912.
(San Francisco Public Library)

After the Great Earthquake, the URR was given the lucrative task of rebuilding the city's destroyed transit network. This further consolidated Calhoun's ownership even after the failure of the disastrous 1907 streetcar riots. Public opinion against the URR was so great that, in December 1909, the city put it to a vote whether or not to set up bonds for their own municipal streetcar line on Geary Street. Despite the existence of the still-independent Geary, Park Street, & Ocean Railway (GPS&O, a cable car line opened in 1880 by "Big Four" member Charles Crocker), the city overwhelmingly voted to put a municipal railway line on Geary Street as a spit in the eye to the URR. In 1912, the Geary Street Franchise was denied renewal and work to electrify the former cable car line began in earnest. The new, city-owned lines (the first in the world) even came with a brand-new name: the San Francisco Municipal Railway. (As an aside, the name "Muni" is just a shortened version of "Municipal". San Franciscan citizens usually refer to the system as "The Train/The Streetcar" when just talking about the rail network.) The Muni began operating on December 28, 1912, three years since the first city bonds to create the system were voted upon.

Muni's first electric cars (with No. 3 in the foreground left) are crowded
with riders and spectators during the opening festivities on the A Geary line.
(SFMTA Photo Archive)

Lettered Lines

The Muni logo, also known as the "Shaughnessy Logo", which was used from 1912 to 1968.
(Muni)

Backlit by marvelous lights, "Iron Monster" No. 77 works
the final run on the B Geary-Ocean line on December 29, 1956.
(Market Street Railway)

Unlike most street railways, Muni's route system was able to form in a very rigid fashion and, thus, letters weren't skipped over as with most street railways like the Los Angeles Railways. At its peak, Muni maintained sixteen routes lettered A through O, with lines A-B-C forming the original Geary Street hub. Lines A Geary-Park and B Geary-Ocean formed the original GPS&O system, and the street's extensive reach from Market Street in the east to Golden Gate Park in the west via Union Square and the Richmond District made it an important transit artery for any commuter within the city. The C Geary & California was the first and (at the time) only line to connect with an existing cable car line, that being the California Street Railway or "Cal Cable". Of the three lines, the A Geary-Park was short lived, as it closed in 1913 and replaced by extensions of the B Geary-Ocean to the Embarcadero and Golden Gate Park. This is how Muni, today, has tracks on the outer sides of Market Street.

An enormous "1915" crowns the new Ferry Terminal
in time for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
Trolleys for Muni (left) and URR (right/center) crowd
the terminal for the biggest bayside party in history.
(Market Street Railway)

The F Stockton Street line was one of the four lines
proposed for and serving the 1915 Panama-Pacific
International Exposition. Exiting the Stockton Street
tunnel, Wooden Monster No. 9 emerges into a sunny
day in 1945, en route to Market and Stockton.
(Market Street Railway)

The biggest expansion of Muni came in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition that not only celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, but also showed the world that San Francisco was back to being a world-class city after being wrecked by a massive earthquake. Not only did Muni invest in new steel streetcars (dubbed "Iron Monsters") for the grand event, but new lines were inaugurated to help get passengers to the fairgrounds in droves. Lines D-J were created in short order with the D Geary-Van Ness being the last to use Geary Street as a direct artery and the H Potrero-Van Ness building off of the new Van Ness Street lines between Potrero Avenue and Bay Street. Lines G and I were all labeled "Exposition" lines and only lasted the length of the exposition, connecting Market Street to the Presidio (G) and Union Square to Geary Street (I), with the latter being a three-day-only shuttle line. 

Trolley Tunnels

Adorable little center-entrance car No. 357
(commonly known as "Dinkies") is seen on the
F Stockton line in an undated photo. Note the 
Huntington Standard-esque corner windows.
(Market Street Railway) 

The other lines not mentioned (E, F, H, and J-O) did not come about until 1918, when the two of Muni's three major tunnels opened for service. The first tunnel was built to help ease the grades coming down Stockton Street, west of the city's busy financial district, and encompassed not just automobiles but also streetcars. The F Stockton Street line made itself at home in the Stockton Street tunnel, running from the Marina District to the Powell Street cable car at Market/Stockton via Chinatown. The tunnel first opened in 1909 and the streetcars began running on December 29, 1914. Thanks to the tunnel, the trip down Stockton Street only took 17 minutes. This line was later extended to the Southern Pacific Railroad Terminal on 3rd and Townsend, connecting passengers on the "Peninsula Commute" with the rest of the city's public transit.

A grand map of the planned line under the "Twin Peaks" of San Francisco, 1913.
(Jacquie Proctor)

Twin Peaks tunnel in service after 1918, with a grand
archway crowning the West Portal.
(SFMTA Photo Archive)

The Twin Peaks Tunnel had been a long-gestating idea since May 1909 at the suggestion of SF Merchant's Association member A.W. Scott, who proposed that southwestern development of San Francisco and its streetcars all but halted at the northeastern face of the Twin Peaks, two prominent (and still undeveloped today) hills at the geographical center of the San Francisco peninsula. The idea was such a good one that plans for a tunnel connecting Twin Peaks to Market Street were immediately drawn up by July 1910 to assess the viability of such a massive undertaking. After taking five different proposals into consideration, tunnel expert Bion J. Arnold chose a modified version of the Twin Peaks Tunnel Association's proposal (connecting Market and Valencia in the east with Corbett and Dewey Streets in the west) combined with one of the last proposals that made a new mid-tunnel station (Laguna Honda, later Forest Hill). Due to the new station, residents of Western San Francisco wanted Laguna Honda to be the west portal instead of the Castro District, but calls for this were rejected as the new station would be "too steep to access". 

The "soft ground" tunnel profile used by
the West Portal of the Twin Peaks tunnel.
(Mliu92)

Then-Mayor James Rolph signed the Twin Peaks Tunnel Act in November 1913 that canonized the official length of the tunnel (11,675 feet) and rejected any and all requests for a shorter tunnel. Construction began on November 2, 1914 under the auspices of City Engineer M.M. O'Shaughnessy and comprised of two different teams working in two different areas with two different styles of trolley tunnel design. The eastern end at Market Street had it easy, building a 1,665-foot "double tube flat top" tunnel with 15 feet of vertical clearance. The other sections of tunnel were built using a "soft ground" arched profile, due to the relatively undeveloped western end having nothing but soft soil around. The construction wasn't easy, unfortunately, as several accidents (at least two that were lethal) hampered construction and resulted in cave-ins and blasting incidents that killed four people between 1915 and 1917. Hilariously, the Riverside Daily Press in 1917 reported that a house belonging to "Mrs. A. Sheehan" was "almost blown off its foundation by a blasting charge" during construction. When Muni and its contractor both desired to compensate her for her troubles, Mrs. Sheehan only stipulated to be the first woman to ride through the completed tunnel. She didn't have to wait long anyway, as one year after this incident, the Twin Peaks Tunnel opened to trolley cars on the K Ingleside service in 1918, the L Taraval line in 1919, and and the M Ocean View in 1925.

A look inside the Twin Peaks tunnel shows its spaciousness
in the late Muni era, photo undated but possibly mid-1950s.
(SFMTA Photo Archive)

A peek at the eastern end of the Twin Peaks Tunnel
in the Castro district, showing off its steep descent and
squared-off portal profile.
(SFMTA Photo Archive)

It's a party in the Sunset Tunnel as Mayor Rolph
pilots Muni Car No. 2 through on October 21, 1928.
(Market Street Railway)

The tunnels had already been inaugurated by then-Mayor Rolph and former mayor P. H. McCarthy at the East End on July 14, 1917, with a silver spike ceremony occurring on the West End at the same day. When the tunnel opened, it was the longest non-subway street railway tunnel in the world at the time and the first services were rendered by acting-motorman Mayor Rolph, with City Supervisors, wives, and invited guests like Mrs. A. Sheehan enjoying the seven-minute voyage through the center of the Bay. As soon as the Twin Peaks tunnel was opened, the Duboce Tunnel connecting the Duboce Triangle with Cole Valley (just a bit north of the Twin Peaks' east portal) got underway. Due to politics behind the scenes and arguments over plans and costs, the tunnel was not approved until April 6, 1925 and not completed until October 21, 1928, when still-mayor James Rolph inaugurated the tunnel and the first train on the N Judah line ran through to open up service. 

Dinky little No. 352, a steel single-truck center-entrance car,
works on the E Union line at Masonic and Geary, May 4, 1942.
(SFMTA Photo Archive)

A Muni "Iron Monster No. 133 cruises past Dolores Park
inbound to Church and Market, early September 1955.
(Henry Petermann) 

The only other trolley lines still worth mentioning here are the E Union line from the Ferry Building to the Presidio via Market and Washington/Jackson, the O Van Ness line from Van Ness to Union and the Ferry Building, and the J Church line. The latter was a temporary extension of the E Union from June 1 to July 15, 1932 as the E line terminated at Market Street instead of the Ferry Building and the O merely made up the difference. Unlike the other lines here that ran in a tunnel or on city streets, the J Church line is the only Muni line with extensive private right-of-way running through Dolores Heights. Running between Church/Market and 30th Street, the line climbs a steep 9% grade running through Dolores Park before looping at Balboa Park. When this line opened in 1916, it was considered one of the most picturesque lines to run in San Francisco, and a later extension to Balboa Park added in a new light rail loop in the 1970s.

  

Oh God, It's Those Accursed Trolleybuses Again

A Fageol Twin Coach that was standard of Muni's trolleybus fleet.
(Unknown Author)

Audley Cole, Muni's first
African-American motorman.
(Market Street Railway)

However, all was not well for the streetcars. After the inauguration of the J Church line in August 11, 1917, Muni also inaugurated its first "motor coach" services to Golden Gate Park in September that same year. This bus boom eventually led to the company adding more bus lines around the city (all numbered compared to the trolleys' letter system) as they competed with the still-privately owned Market Street Railway (MSR, the successor to the URR) for better service coverage. This is also when the "Roar of the Four" was at its peak down Market Street, with trolleys and trolleybuses crowding the streets to let the free market choose which transit system reigned supreme. In 1935, the MSR invested in its first "Twin Coaches" and Muni followed suit in 1941 with the opening of the R Howard from Beale and Howard to Army Street (now Cesar Chavez Street). One year later, the company hired its first African-American worker through the hiring of Audley Cole, who also became the system's first African-American motorman. Due to the overcrowding on Market Street and the proliferation of service redundancies, along with MSR's shaky finances, Muni officially purchased the entire lot in the summer of 1944 and became the only public transit system in San Francisco.

Modernizing Miss Muni

Embattled Mayor Roger Lapham, enemy of the cable car.
(Cable Car Guy)

Contrary to popular belief, the wrath of National City Lines (NCL) harassing the Oakland Key System across the bay never reached San Francisco as many were led to believe. The cessation of much of the city's trolley lines was all due to the need to modernize under new Mayor Roger Lapham. From 1944 to 1948, he spearheaded campaigns to modernize the city's public transit and directed Muni to invest in new programs to eliminate redundant streetcar lines and add trolleybuses or buses where available. Trolleybuses were used on the steepest lines once served by cable cars and streetcar cars, where diesel buses of the time lacked the available torque to tread. 

This meant all but the J, K, L, M, and N lines were left behind as it was too costly to replace the private right-of-way on the J Church, nor was it cost-effective to bustitute the poorly-ventilated Twin Peaks lines of the K-L-M or the Sunset Tunnel on the N Judah. Lines such as the E Union were folded into existing lines like the N Judah, giving it ample reach to the Embarcadero without a transfer, while lines like the B Geary-Ocean and the F Stockton gave way to trolleybuses on what is still considered the busiest line on the entire Muni system by 1956. Mayor Lapham also led a crusade in 1947 to effectively delete the remaining cable car lines (the Powell-Washington-Jackson Line in Nob Hill, the Powell-Taylor Line, and the O'Farrell-Jones-Hyde line in Russian Hill) from existence, but this terrifying prospect was halted thanks to the efforts of Mrs. Friedel Klussmann, a local socialite and founder of the "Citizens' Committee to Save the Cable Cars", but that's a story for another time...

Definitely a long and frightfully entertaining story for another time...
(FoundSF)

  

"Transit First"

Muni's new corporate logo, popularly called the "Worm", which debuted in February 1975.
(Muni)

Muni General Manager (L) presents the first "Fast Pass"
to then-Supervisor Harvey Milk in front of a Boeing-Vertol
LRV car in 1974. The "Fast Past" was basically a frequent-riders card.
(SFMTA Photo Archive)

The San Francisco Muni was able to support itself through the 1950s and 1960s by continuing to run a combination of old streetcar lines, trolleybus and diesel bus lines, and even three cable car lines. Even with the debut of the Embarcadero Freeway becoming a blight on the waterfront, the city was still intent on focusing their efforts on mass-transit construction instead of road construction. After all, they still had five viable streetcar lines, a new subway being built from across the Bay, and cable cars entertaining tourists the world over. Why squander that? On March 19, 1973, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted the "Transit First" policy that canonized plenty of what the city had built before. There would be no emphasis on road construction or private automobiles; instead, all city planning was to be built around public transit, flying in the face of many other cities that had almost-entirely bustituted themselves like Los Angeles. The ethos of the plan was simple: undo the work done by car-centric urban planning. It sounds very hopeful, almost like something you'd see on Walt Disney's Tomorrowland on Saturday nights, doesn't it? Well...

The Muni Meltdown

Another Boeing-Vertol car is seen in Forest Hill Station
within the Twin Peak Tunnel. Not much has changed apart
from better lighting and modern rolling stock.
(Doug Grotjahn)

Unlike Mr. Disney's Experimental City of Tomorrow, San Francisco's own plans to make their city the beacon of mass transit it should have been was met with a resounding shrug. Much of the 1970s and 1980s were spent in a bus shortage crisis that temporarily brought back trolley buses on South Van Ness Avenue. The modern light rail lines began receiving some help in the form of the Market Street Subway, a 7-station "Muni Metro" extension under Market and Castro Streets and over the BART trains that helped alleviate most of the light rail traffic on Market Street, connecting with the Twin Peaks Tunnel and removing the Eastern Portal completely. To accommodate this new culture of "Muni Metro", the M Ocean View line received a loop and extension out to Balboa Park. Not much thought was considered for the cable cars until September 1981, when the entire system (the Powell-Hyde Hybrid line, the Powell-Market, and the California Street Line) was all closed for rebuilding of what was, at that point, 100-year-old infrastructure. In order to placate the tourists flocking to ride the cable cars but finding none of them, Muni collaborated with the Market Street Railway historical foundation to create the San Francisco Historic Trolley Festival in 1983, where original Muni cars rubbed safety fenders with imported European trams for parades up and down Market Street. This later formed the bases of the F Market heritage streetcar (which I learned is not shore for "Fisherman's Market". Shows what I know!)

Two worlds collide as ex-Blackpool Tram No. 228 follows
Muni No. 1 down Market Street during the 1983 Historic Trolley Festival.
(Peter Erlich)

The enormous Breda LRVs in their current livery.
(Kevin Lo)

However, even with its historical goals in check, Muni as a whole began suffering. In what was dubbed the "Muni Meltdown", the transit operator became too overwhelmed by San Francisco's booming population in the wake of the dot-com boom. The system became strained with overcrowded trains, erratic schedules, and clogged Market Street packed with historic PCCs and Iron Monsters along with modern light rail vehicles (LRVs) from Boeing and Breda. The latter cars were a particularly regretful purchase, as they ended up being too loud, too long and wide, and too heavy to run in the first place, to the point that some homeowners along the trolley lines outright sued the city as they alleged the heavy cars had ruined their home foundations. This led to Muni investing in a ton of money to accommodate the system to its new cars and to modify the new Bredas for service. Even their Automatic Train Control system (ATC) began glitching out including sending trains down the wrong tracks and often applying the emergency brakes. By 1998, the peak year of the "Muni Meltdown" the San Francisco Chronicle proved it was faster to walk than it was to take the train after staging a race between a walking journalist and one taking the Market Street Tunnel. 

Busy Market Street in the modern day.
(Curbed SF)

A Breda LRV operates a T Third Street service towards
SBC Park on April 15, 2018. Wait, that's today! (when this posted)
(Pi.1415926535)

On April 13, 2018 (wait, that's two days ago), a Seimens
LRV-4 is spotted at the Church station on the S Shuttle.
(Pi.1415926535) 

Nevertheless, there was still come cause to celebrate as the 21st Century rolled into the bay under the new ownership of the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA). Not only did Muni's get (mostly) fixed after the meltdown, but two new lines opened in 2001 and 2007 to better provide more spread-out service coverage all over the city. The first light rail service to open in the new millennium was the S Shuttle, a nine-station service between the Embarcadero in the North and Castro Station in the south to spread out overcrowding along the busy Market Street corridor. The other to open, the T Third Street was the first true light-rail line to open in the city from the new Caltrain depot on 4th and King Streets (replacing the Southern Pacific's 3rd and Townsend Station). Despite being a light rail line, built to modern standards, the T still interchanges and becomes the K Ingleside between the Embarcadero and West Portal. Effectively, both trains swap identities briefly coming into Twin Peaks tunnel, with the T rebranded as the K Outbound at the Embarcadero and the K  as the T Inbound at West Portal, with the "inbound/outbound" origin being the Embarcadero. Even some of the older lines have gotten some love, with extensions of the N Judah reaching farther out to the Caltrain depot.

 

A Modern System of Antique Anachronisms

A 1950 Marmon-Herrington trolley coach and a 1938 White motor coach
flank Muni No. 1 during the 2013 Muni Heritage Weekend.
Muni is now almost 110 years old.
(Market Street Railway)

Ex-Blackpool Boat Tram No. 238 joins PCC No. 1008
for the opening of the E Embarcadero Line on July 13, 2015.
(Sfbay.ca)

Today, the SFMTA runs Muni as its main identity and hub of rail and bus operations. It still remains a problematic system, boasting both the slowest fleet average speed (8.1mph) and the most expensive operating costs ($19.21 per bus mile and $24.37 per train mile), but it also boasts a year-round service and more boardings and miles per vehicle than any other transit agency in the country. Is Muni perfect? No it isn't, and neither is the system free from poor decision making or righteous indignation like any other transit system. But, as it is, there's no other transit system like it in the world, with three heritage cable car lines that function as its own moving museum along with two heritage streetcar lines (the F Market and the E Embarcadero, which took over from the N Judah in 2016 out to 4th and King and (eventually) Fort Mason) and an extensive trolley bus system. It sure feels like a lot on one's plate, doesn't it? Nonetheless, despite coming more off as a mere "suggestion", the Muni's "transit first" mentality is at least in a good place, and who knows? With the forthcoming extensions to the T Third Street and the E Embarcadero, perhaps trolleys can rule San Francisco again after all.

Long live the trolley.
Vivat gloria metro.
(Los Angeles Times)

  

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included the SFMTA website's Muni history, an SF Streetsblog page on the "Transit First" plan, the archives of the San Francisco Cable Car Museum, the SFMTA Photo Archives, the Market Street Railway, and of course the current SFMTA/Muni organization. As an aside, I am also not sponsored or paid for my views on any current transit system, my words merely come from my own views as an enthusiast looking from the outside in. I deeply apologize if my views are in error. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Tuesday, we slow down and take a look at the different streetcar types you can still find running in San Francisco! For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!