19-05-21 VIDEOS: Cal Cables

As an interactive living history museum, the San Francisco cable cab system is pretty conducive to shooting full line videos.  However the last time I had been inclined to shoot cable car line videos was before I had purchased my mountable GoPro and it getting a second set of videos, including a first set of the somewhat underwhelming California Line.  The weather wasn't entirely cooperative so the videos on the Bay-Taylor line had to be taken in a slight rain, but the Hyde-Beach line turned out much better. If you missed the static photography from this trip you can find that here.

We start with the MUNI California Line running from Market to Van Ness and back.  It actually took me two takes to get this due to an outbound camera malfunction and you can see the rather backlit first take returning from Van Ness, here.




Here we have the rainy morning trip on the Bay-Taylor (Mason) line from Market to the Bay St terminal near Fisherman's Wharf and back.




Finally, to complete the trifecta of MUNI Cable Car lines, here we have a round trip on the Hyde Line under markedly better early morning conditions. This route is the most popular with the tourists as it stops at the top of Lombard St.




Hope you enjoyed the ride.  Next time join my for an inside look at the disused PRR GWYNN tower.

19-05-20 PHOTOS: T Third Bis

Back in 2008 I rode the MUNI's new T-Third light rail line when it was new.  Fast forward 11 years and numerous San Francisco trips later I realized I did not really have a good photo survey of the T-Third line and made it my objective of my 2019 stay.  Of course when one is in San Francisco for a week there are many different transit oppurtunities to take advantage of and therefore this set will also include trips along all three cable car lines, the L Taraval to the Pacific ocean and walks along the E Embarcadero.

The full set of photos can be found here (mirror) and stay tuned for a second video post covering the Cable Car lines.

On the first day of my trip, traveling from San Jose Airport I got off Caltrain at Bayshore and transfered to the T Third at the Arleta station.  Breda LRV #1464 was on hand to take me downtown.

Passing Breda LRV #1529 at Armstrong Ave.

Passing by a New Flier XT40 Oakdale-Palou station.  All stops on the T-Third provide for level boarding.

There is a level crossing with the San Francisco Belt Railway immediately before the Islais Creek Brawbridge.

Breda LRV #1457 at the southern Metro East yard lead junction.

New crossovers and platforms were being constructed to support additional traffic to the equally new Chase Center area, future home of the Golden State Philadelphia Warriors.

Arriving at the Embarcadero terminal station I caught new Siemens LRV #2022 running behind my Breda LRV #1464.  These are scheduled to replace the Breda LRVs by 2027.

MUNI California Line Cable car #57 sitting at the Market Street terminal.

To collect my Three Day tourist pass of shame, I had to travel to the ticket kiosk at Powell.  Since my times MUNI ticket was still good, I caught the St. Louis heritage PCC #1050 running on the F market.   Note any PCCs with the "school bus" style drop windows are former SEPTA cars.

The operator of Breda LRV #1433 is getting a quick job briefing at the Embarcadaro terminal.

On Day 2 I set out to shoot video on both directions of the MUNI California Line.  The video mount was hands free so I was also able to get some stills like MUNI #58 sitting about a block east of the Anglican cathedral. 

MUNI California Line cable car #49 sitting at the Van Ness terminal.

15-05-23 VIDEOS: Caltrain Morning Express

For years I had been trying to get a good railfan video of a Northbound Caltrain Baby Bullet express. Usually I catch the 4:45 train departing San Jose as it consistently runs with gallery car equipment instead of the railfan un-friendly Bombardier coffin cars. However, on two previous occasions my video attempts were less than successful. Between 2006 and 2012 I was limited by my standard def camera. When I upgraded that I was thwarted by dirty front windows that made for generally poor videos.

This time I was catching a flight out of Oakland which provided me with an opportunity to catch a morning express run. However, as I mentioned before, I had no idea which of the trains would run with Gallery Car stock. For two mornings I staked out the San Jose Diridon Station, watching the morning rush and each time I encountered only Bomber trainsets. On the day of my departure I was down to the last run of the morning and I had to make a choice between catching a limited stop semi-express train or rolling the dice on the lst Baby Bullet. Failure would mean no railfan window (and a wasted trip) or an all-stops local. Still, Caltrain only has so many Baby Bullet trainsets so my luck had to improve.

Desperate for some degree of inside information I asked the conductor of the fimal semi-express train if the next Baby Bullet would have Gallery car or Bombardier equipment. He didn't know, but went ahead and made a call, informing me that the last train of the morning would indeed have Gallery Cars. So nearly 7 years after I first started trying to make a quality Caltrain RFW video I finally succeeded. Enjoy.



After transferring to BART I rode across the bay to the Coliseum station where instead of transferring to the AirBART bus, I would complete my journey on the $400 million AirBART...cable car? That's right, it looks like that someone in the capitol planning department used the April 1st version of the RPF because instead of building some sort of monorail or people mover to connect the rail transit station and the Oakland Airport, AirBART is a modern day cable car built by a European ski lift maker. Here is a video of the complex switch mechanism throwing over at the Coliseum terminal.



The AirBART cable cars work just like most other airport people movers, just instead of using electric motors, it uses a cable running between the rails. Cars automatically change cables at each end of the terminal and then again at the power house in the middle of the run. You can see how it works in this 8 minute video that captures a westbound run.



Well, that's it for my supplemental video post.

14-06-18 PHOTOS: Bay Area Capitol Corridor

Once again it is time for my annual cross country Amtrak trip. This year was a big different because instead of moving on to the final Transcon route, the Sunset Limited, I instead went back to re-ride the California Zephyr, this time with a father in tow as a combined Father's Day / Birthday present. The method of travel worked as before, flying out via Southwest, spending a day in San Francisco, staying over at my Cousin's house and then setting off the next day from Emeryville.

Despite covering the same ground as my 2012 trip I managed to fill most of the gaps in coverage my first survey of the line suffered from due to my need to eat and sleep. I also have a better handle on the tendency for Cannon cameras to have a disastrously cool automatic white balance and I was able to shoot most of this year's run with the "flash" setting that brought the warm tones back.

Anyway you can see the first set of photos right here!

We begin on San Francisco's Powell St hill where, due to the MASSIVE line of tourists waiting to board the cable car my dad and I felt we should just walk to the place I had identified for lunch. Here cable car #19 passes us on the steep upgrade, however we still would have been waiting in line.

Inbound #18 car at California Ave.

After lunch we managed to squeeze onto a cable car and continued onto the end of the Hyde Line where cars 18 and 3 were waiting their return to service.

Car #28 waiting down by the turntable. 

Alcatraz island as seen from the Municipal Pier.

East coast style sea gull.

It appears as if the Route 15 has been extended across the country somehow. Ex-SEPTA MUNI PCC #1055 in PTC colors.

PCC #1050 on the other hand is painted in the local colors of the SF Municipal Railway.

Seen here at the Embarcadaro with double ended PCC #1009.

Coming down the pike was Minneapolis-St. Paul painted PCC #1071.

Time was getting short so it was down to the Caltrain terminal where we caught a limited stops train to San Carlos. Here is a rear view from the railfan window showing the express portion of the run to San Bruno.


Gallery cab car #4006 departing San Carlos.

Cutting to the next morning here is the southbound Amtrak Train 14, the Coast Starlight, making a brief station stop at Emeryville with an odd mix of power including P40DC #809 and P32-8WH #505.

13-05-22 PHOTOS: California Sunset

San Francisco has a lot more to offer than just Caltrain and while I didn't have a lot of free time on this trip I did manage to get away for a trip down the F market to the Castro terminal, an early morning ride on the California Cable Car Line and finally a trip out the L Travel to the pacific Ocean to catch a California sunset.

You can find the complete set of photos here.

We begin at the Powell Line >Market St turntable, where MUNI has decided to install a dwarf signal to help the cable car operators know when the turntable track is spotted in the correct location. Here we see MUNI cable car #10 taking a spin on the turntable and showing the operation of the signal.


Here we see former NJT NCS PCC, now MUNI #1076 in a DC Transit paint scheme approaching the Powell St stop on the F market heritage streetcar line. Unlike the former SEPTA cars, the NJT PCC's still have openable rear windows with allowed me an unobstructed view out the back.

Eventually I realized that taking still out the back was sort of pointless so I switched to video for the ride between Gough St and Castro.


MUNI #1076 at Castro.

Wide view of the Castro station with potted plants. Castro St was renamed after the Cuban revolutionary by local counter-culture sympathizers in the early 1960's and I am sure that 50 years later he would be honored by everything the area now stands for.

The dark side to the new Urbanism...the trolley tracks connecting the F Market to the Twin Peaks tunnel have been paved over by a pop-up park!! Note all the wire diamonds where the single trolley wire crosses several lines of trolleybus wire. BTW a trolleybus line was also cut by the park.

Both the diamonds and frogs were able to support both pantograph and trolley pole operations. 

Old meets new. LED street lamp mounted on a trolley wire support pole.

12-02-27 PHOTOS: Caltran Caltrain V

Ah yes, it is time again for yet another trip out to the Bay Area and what is shaping up to be the most competent and railfan friendly commuter rail system in the country. Frankly its pretty bullshit that I have to travel 3000 miles just to find a descent express run with a railfan window, but what's worse is that some people actually complain about the service and want to replace it with something far less enjoyable. Anyway this being the 5th set of photos to document the Caltrain system there's not a lot of new territory to cover so this time around I'll just stick to pictures of locomotives.

This set actually combines both the Caltrain portion of the trip and the San Francisco portion of the trip. However I was a bit busier on this trip than previous ones so I didn't have much opportunity to get out and ride the cable cars and F Market, but I've taken photos of those things before and they don't tend to change much.

You can find the entire set of photos here.

We begin once again at the Millbrae BART/Caltrain transfer station where despite my employer's contracted carrier on this route changing from United to Air Tran, my flight still arrived just in time for me to just miss a BART train which then causes me to just miss a Caltrain connection. I find it baffling when you have something with hour headways that the schedulers of the rapid transit system will allow their trains to miss said connection by 2 minutes.

Anyway, the scent of diesel exhaust still in the air I went down to the Caltrain platform where I discovered that the extended portion that covers the siding track was actually open that day (more likely had forgotten to have been closed). That gave me a much better vantage point where from I could get a photo of the next scheduled northbound Caltrain, which was still scheduled to use a Baby Bullet trainset with Cab Car #119 on point.

Caltrain MP36PH-3C #926 passing under the signal gantry at CP-BART.

#926 discharging and recharging at the station.

I was also able to get a good photo of one of the BART signal units which make use of the SafeTran Unilens signal fitted with a special goose-neck extension for close clearances and other odd fitting locations.

An hour after arrived my southbound train finally showed up with F40PH #914 in the lead.

11-08-12 PHOTOS: San Francisco Mornings

San Francisco basically consists of two thing...Caltrain and MUNI light rail and since last week our theme was Caltrain it's time we move onto the the MUNI section of this trip. This year I was a bit too busy to go out on an official MUNI field trip on one of their more far flung lines, however I was able to get some pretty good coverage of both the Cable Car system and the Heritage F Market Trolley line.

So for those of you who like such things this set of photos is going to be packed with them instead of the normal droves of railroad signals. So I urge you to all check out the entire collection of photos here because the selection below is not going to feature all pictures of such.

We start on Powell St showing cable car #21 heading southbound through a "pop out park" installed where street parking used to be. Ironically the company that made this destruction of car habitat possible was Audi.

Trio of cable cars including #14 at the Powell St terminal.

A packed Peter Witt Milan car #1859 attempts to add on more passenger on a bright sunny August day at the Ferry Terminal station.

Melbourne car #496 passing by the Ferry Terminal station.

California Ave cable car #58 hanging out at the Market Street terminal.

Cable car #6 approaching Union Square on Powell St.

Here I caught one of the single ended cars having trouble with it grip resulting it a replacement having to be installed outside the cable carhouse. The car had previously failed out on the road and had to be towed to the carhouse for a running repair. Still, sure beats an AC traction motor and a bank of IGBT's.

Despite the city's wet weather I encountered an original Austin Mini that hadn't turned into a large pile of rust. Of course it didn't look any way near as cool as another British import I came across.

A few of the cable cars had been given a new green paint job like #13 here shown crossing the California Ave diamonds.

11-08-09: PHOTOS: Caltran Caltrain IV

I get out to the Bay Area once a year or so on work related trips and each time I always make sure to include a ride on the Caltran Caltrain that runs between San Jose and San Francisco. Like I have said before it is easily the best commuter operation west of the Mississippi that was rebuilt in 2005 with new track, signals and a peak period express service that cuts 30 minutes off the normal trip time and completed the 50 mile journey with only 3 or 4 intermediate stops. Furthermore, the use of gallery cars provides a superb railfan view, although it is now quite frequently marred by bug splat.

Anyway this would be by 4th "survey" style photo set of the Caltrain system starting out from the Milbrae Station, which connects with the San Francisco International Airport, heading to San Jose then taking the train all the way back to San Francisco. Since I had already completed my standard def video compilation of the line I opted for only a few short clips on the return trip which is generally too backlit for standard photography at 4:30 in the afternoon.

New this year was an extended wait at the Millbrae station because BART eliminated the direct SFO to Millbrae connection during the day instead forcing people to connect with a Red Line train at San Bruno that in turn caused me to miss the hourly headway southbound Caltrain by 2 or 3 minutes. Yup, it seems like even out west public transit agencies can't seem to co-ordinate their schedules.

Anyway, you can view the entire set of photos here. What differentiates this set from those that came before is that I FINALLY got sunny weather for the initial southbound trip.

We begin at San Francisco International Airport where I get to sit around while a poorly scheduled BART service is screwing me out of my Caltrain connection. Here we see a 'C' car #430 sitting at the outbound end of the stub terminal.

After getting off BART, which is practically useless to railfan we see the still newish Millbrae intermodal transportation center, which was constructed in conjunction with the Caltrain rebuild and BART extension to the airport. 

The granite benches were pretty cool with various images of rail transportation etched into them.

While burning through my small-large lateness penalty I managed to photograph Rohr 'A' car #1263, which are rather uncommon outside of peak periods. The streamlined nosecone of the 'A' cars are a BART trademark which have been increasingly marginalized since the delivery of the flat cabbed 'C' cars, that are preferred due to their ability to be used in the middle of a consist. This car was originally numbered 263, but had a 1 added when it was rebuilt with AC traction in the 1990s.

Being extremely bored I wandered over to the old Southern Pacific train station which is now a local transportation museum. 

On display was some old signaling equipment and some locomotive controls...you know...for kids.

After about 40 minutes a "Baby Bullet" trainset finally showed up with Bombardier split-level #115 leading and MP36PH-3C #923 providing power on the rear.



Here is a photo of #923.

Finally after nearly an hour a southsound set of Gallery cars arrived with F40PH-2CAT #904 providing power.

Once on the road my train encountered #919 pushing another local northbound south of San Carlos.

Finally got a nice sunny picture of the truss bridge at Palo Alto.

Here we see some VTA LRV's at the Mountain View Station.

Another Baby Bullet trainset with #924 at Sunnyvale.