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.

Here we see #59 crossing the diamonds in the other direction.

Out on the California Line we pass #56 at the Grace Episcopal Cathedral.

Always a car in sight at the California Line's Market St terminal.

Yellow painted car #15 about to cross the California Diamonds.

The California Ave interlocking cabin.

Skipping ahead to some other morning we take a zoom view down Market Street showing off the web of trolley and trolleybus wire.

Another Milan car #1893 at the Ferry Terminal.

Damit SEPTA, how did you screw up the Rt 15 routing this badly!!

For those of you who like drawbridges here we have the Third Street bridge open for a sailboat. To help with the Caltrain connection the T Third line uses the 4th St bridge in the background.

 MUNI PCC #1060 on Market St.

MUNI Breda LRV at the 2nd St station out in front of the Giant's Stadium.

Oops, I guess I lied about the Caltrain section being all last week. Here we have F40PH's #917 and 920 hanging out at the 4th and King St station.

Baby Bullet trainset inbound with Cab Car #113 on point.

MP36PH-3C's #924 and 928 side by side. Click here for a winder angle view.

 US&S model A-5 pneumatic point machine at the King St terminal.

Track and trolley wire craziness at the half-grand junction on the T Third at the entrance to the line's maintenance yard.

Some sort of bridge they had going on there. I forget its name.

Ever wonder what exactly is under that steel slot in the street? Well here you go.

Lombard Street at night.

And in the daytime. You know, if living on Lombard wasn't hard enough with just trying to maneuver your car into your driveway, the nearly 24/7 parade of cars driving down what as become a massive tourist trip could drive anyone insane.

Cable cars #18 and 28 at the Bay and Taylor terminal.

So cute!!

I hope the new DC light rail cars will be painted like #1076 here as seen at Fisherman's Wharf.

Cable car #24 at the Beach terminal, loaded up and ready to depart.

Last ride of the day passing Cable car #21 at Union on the Hyde Line.

Descending the steep incline on Powell Street. I swear, coming to the crest of the hill feels like you're on some sort of wooden roller coaster. I'm surprised nobody has built their own little alpine slide type vehicle and ridden it down the cable car tracks yet.



Hopping off old #27 before checking out of the Hotel.

At San Francisco International we find a China Airways 747 coming in for a landing. Unlike this Air Socialist A380, the B747 did not need a 400 million dollar runway improvement paid for by US taxpayers just to be able to land. Wait..why are we subsidizing the fucking French again???

Anyway next week we return again to our normal programming with a trip to Boston and its downeastern neighbors.