The Story Of…The Cable Car Museum in San Francisco

Exclusive Interview by Karen Beishuizen
Photos courtesy of The San Francisco Cable Car Museum

When Tony Bennett sings his signature song and expresses his love for San Francisco, he also mentions those cute little wooden cars which go up and down the hills: “To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars”. The first one started operating in 1873. The Cable Car Museum opened in 1974 and has many interesting items on display. The jewel is an original 1873 Clay St. Hill dummy car (the one that pulled the trailer), as well as an 1875 Sutter St. Cable RR dummy and trailer. The man on the cable car is called the gripman. The machinery powers an endless looped cable under the street. The gripman lowers the grip into the slot with levers and grabs the cable underneath the street. This sets the car in motion at 9.5 miles an hour, on the level, up hills and down as well. The car can go no faster than the cable speed. Currently there are three lines: Powell – Mason Line, Powell – Hyde Line and California Line. A bell ringing contest is held in July every year in Union Square. If you are going to San Francisco, be sure to visit the cable care museum and have an experience of a lifetime!

KB: Tell me how the cable car museum was founded.

Power houses in the old days were closed to the public—for obvious safety reasons. Although, if you knew someone on the “inside” you could get a look. In 1974, the museum was opened in the powerhouse and operated until 1982, when the whole system shut down for rehabilitation. A viewing platform was added at that time and is a big hit with visitors as they can directly see the winding machinery driving the cables. Another viewing area was constructed downstairs under the street, where visitors can watch the cables being directed in and out of the powerhouse to the street. The Friends of the Cable Car Museum continue to operate the museum and provide free admission all through the year, being closed only on Mondays (since covid) and a few holidays like Christmas.

KB: Who came up with the idea of cable cars in San Francisco? When did the first come into operation?

The invention of the cable car is often credited to Andrew Hallidie, but ideas for cable transit had been around since at least 1812; they were not successful. Hallidie was able to take elements from his ore trams in the mines of Gold Rush California and adapt it to a street railway. It is said he witnessed an accident on Jackson St. in San Francisco on a cold, wet day in 1869 when the brake on a horse car snapped and it went down the hill, dragging the horses with it. They were so badly injured that they had to be destroyed. Hallidie gave this story himself as a reason to be determined to build a working street railway that would spare the horses such cruelty. He was a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but also operated a huge wire works factory on North Point St. that manufactured wire rope (cable) and clearly would benefit from a demand for it. He and his chief engineer, William Epplesheimer, developed the plans for the Clay St. Hill Cable RR between 1871-73, and he secured financing from friends and people living along the Clay St route. The hills of SF are very steep, and development had lagged along them behind the flatter portions. The cable would—and did—open the hills to development of housing and businesses by providing an efficient method of ascending them.

Hallidie held his experimental run on the early morning of Aug 2, 1873 (his franchise expired on the 1st, so he held his trial early in the morning so no one would notice he was late!). It was a success, though there were kinks to be ironed out in the system. The public display was held later in the day on Aug. 2, with all the luminaries and press present. It was only a .4-mile route on Clay St. from Leavenworth to Kearny St, but it quickly caught on among San Franciscans. He gave free rides to the public for support, the line officially opening on Sept 1. The fare was five cents, cars ran at five-minute intervals and the entire trip took 11 minutes. By 1876, 150,000 San Franciscans rode the cars monthly, and it was a financial success for Hallidie. Other transit operators took note, and from 1877-1891 8 private companies had cable lines in San Francisco. Many American cities (Chicago, LA, New York, Kansas City, etc.) and foreign ones (London, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Sydney, Wellington, Dunedin, etc.) built cable lines during the heyday of cable transit, 1873-1893.

KB: What do you have on display in the museum?

We have a variety of displays on periods in SF cable car history-original lines: 1947 battle to save the cable cars from being scrapped, Earthquake & Fire of 1906; artifacts and objects like braking systems, cables, pulleys and other aspects of a cable car’s working system; cable maintenance tools and casting molds. Our jewel is an original 1873 Clay St. Hill dummy car (the one that pulled the trailer), as well as an 1875 Sutter St. Cable RR dummy and trailer. The most popular aspect on display so to speak is the direct view of the cable winding machinery form our platform in the powerhouse, showing the four cables being powered by electric motors (1873-1912 coal and steam boilers were used to power machinery). The four cables are the Powell, Mason, Hyde, and California.

KB: How many lines are there today in San Francisco and which ones?

The three lines are in existence:

The Powell Street cable cars; both Mason & Hyde Streets: These lines use the Powell St. Combination car design with turntables at termini.

The California Street cable car which uses the California combination car style with grips at each end, using a turnout to reverse direction at termini.

KB: How do the cable cars work?

The machinery powers an endless looped cable under the street by use of sheaves and pulleys that direct it down streets and around corners to the termini, where a large sheave reverses the direction of the cable. Depression pulleys keep the cable in the slot at the top and bottoms of hills, and at the cable crossing at Powell & California, where two lines cross each other. The gripman lowers the grip into the slot with levers and grabs the cable. This sets the car in motion at 9.5 miles an hour, on the level, up hills and down as well. The car can go no faster than the cable speed.

This is the link between car and cable system. Three brakes are used:

The track brake which is a piece of wood pushed onto the track to slow the car.

The shoe brake which operates on the wheels like a typical train brake.

The slot brake used only in emergencies; the gripman pulls the red coloured lever, and a wedge is forced down tightly into the slot to instantly stop the car. It often has to be torched out as it is stuck so tight. The bell is rung to warn pedestrians and other vehicles that the cable car is coming at intersections and anywhere traffic impedes its progress. Cable cars by law have the right of way over all traffic in the City. It was added in the 1880s since cars ran so “fast” that people needed to get out of the way! Two types of curves are used: The “let-go” or drift curve-where the gripman lets go of the grip and makes the turn on gravity—this only works where two streets come together at a decline. The “pull” curve when the car has to make a turn uphill. The cable is deflected away from the pulleys underground and the grip maintains hold of it throughout the curve and onto the street. A system of pulleys and sheaves are located under the streets to keep the grip moving, steer it around corners, and reverse it at terminals. Metal plates along the street indicate where they are located, and where maintenance can service them. The grip holds the cable in three positions:

Open where the cable travels freely and he grip is not in contact, as in let go.

Partial open where the grip allows the cable to travel in it, as when cars stop to let off passengers.

Closed when the grip is holding the cable and traveling at 9.5 mph on the street.

KB: Tell me about the bell ringing contest.

In 1949, Western Pacific RR sponsored sending Powell cable car #54 to the Chicago Railroad Fair, where it was a huge hit carrying 416,000 passengers. The first bell-ringing contest was held in Union Square to select the gripman who would represent the city. Thereafter it became an annual event held in Union Square and sponsored by Municipal Railway. It is still held in July in Union Square and is a big attraction for tourists and locals during the summer. A “preliminary” contest is held first nowadays, and local celebrities take part to raise money for the winner’s favorite charity. For years the museums provided the winner with a genuine cable car bell as first prize.

KB: The whole system was rebuilt in the early 1980. Tell me the story.

It’s a long story, but in a nutshell the system was in bad shape by the late 1970s. The system was totally rebuilt after 1906, and some work was done in 1957-58 to the system when the California line was incorporated into the Powell line Mason Street powerhouse. Little was done after that and the whole system was very worn out. Tracks were worn, cars wobbled on the routes, and the whole system was generally finished. The whole system is protected in the City Charter, so there was no thought of scrapping it as had been earlier in 1947-54. Private and public entities worked together to rehabilitate the entire system of cables, machinery, cars, and powerhouse. US contributed 46.5 million dollars to the project, roughly 80% of the 60 million it would take to do the job. The remaining 20% had to be raised through private donations and state funds. Caltrans (The California Department of Transportation) gave 3.6 million dollars to the project leaving $10 million for the private sector to fund. Then Mayor Diane Feinstein was instrumental in directing this effort to save the cable cars and quickly raised the needed funds through organized efforts by private citizens and businesses in and out of the City.

By Fall, the necessary money was available for the project—this was a massive undertaking by the public and a tremendous example of civic support for and love of the cable cars. The cable cars shut down in Sept of 1982 and reopened on schedule in time for the Democratic National Convention in June of 1984. The entire system was rehabilitated with conduits, tracks, sheaves, pulleys and turntables replaced. The powerhouse was gutted, leaving only the brick walls reinforced for history. New maintenance work areas, car storage, viewing platform were all added, and everything brought up to code. Cars were restored (some of them dated back to 1887) completely. Mayor Feinstein kicked off a big party on June 21,1984 with cable car service returning to the streets. It went on all weekend, in many venues around the city. People were ecstatic that the cable car system had returned. The work done was so thorough that only a few years later, in 1989, it came through the Loma Prieta Earthquake with nearly a scratch. An interesting side note is that, while coal/steam was abandoned in 1910, the smokestack was maintained and reinforced during the rehabilitation, solely for sentimental and aesthetic reasons. It was restored on April 18, 1983, 77 years to the day the great 1906 Earthquake truncated it.

KB: How did the museum survive the Covid pandemic? A lot of places went out of business.

Like everyone during the pandemic, the museum suffered losses. We closed only when the cable cars stopped running, because without people not coming to the museum or indeed even to San Francisco, tourist trade was non-existent, and being free of charge we couldn’t make expenses. We reopened the summer of 2021 on a limited basis and have steadily managed to remain operating, though the effects of the pandemic have still not abated entirely. We managed to keep our staff on payroll throughout the whole closure. We have been working in the last few months to introduce some new exhibits for the first time since covid and will be visible in the big civic celebrations this year in honor of the 150th Anniversary of the first cable car in San Francisco. We opened a Twitter account during the pandemic and posted historical items, photographs, and even films, when possible, of cable machinery to keep a presence in the community—and have, in fact, made friends around the country and world through the site. Recently we have sponsored events like a clean-up day around the cable car routes and are hoping to be involved in other civic events in the community. Like everywhere the pandemic was a rough period but we are still open, still free of charge, and hoping to go forward with projects and events.

KB: Why should people visit the cable car museum?

There are many reasons for both tourists and local to come visit us. On a very practical note, we are free of charge. San Francisco is an expensive place to live and visit, and it isn’t easy, especially with children, to do much without spending lots of money. The kids love it here, especially the younger ones, with all the machinery and noise of a real working cable powerhouse-the only one left in the world. Also, younger people raised in a virtual electronic world are often fascinated by seeing a genuine 19th Century mechanical system at work, relatively unchanged since the 1870s. We are also a repository of City history, as the cable cars have been synonymous with that history since the 19th Century. SF cable cars are the last vestige of a once worldwide “modern” mode of transportation—and the history of transit is both the history of cities and of people.

It built neighborhoods, expanded city housing and real estate values, providing a commuter system for citizens, and heralded the growth of suburbs through later transit developments like streetcars, buses, automobiles and rapid transit systems. All that is chronicled in our museum as well as how San Francisco alone managed to keep and maintain a working cable system long after other cities in the US and world abandoned them. The cable car is intimately intertwined with civic identity in San Francisco and is beloved around the world. Seeing how it operates, what its history has been, and most of all catching a ride in front of the museum/powerhouse is an experience people remember fondly for a lifetime. And, you can have the opportunity to see an original first cable car only here, our Clay St Hill dummy, 1873. People always tell us that the museum was a highlight of their trips to San Francisco, and we have visitors who come back for a repeat visit to see new exhibits, but mostly view the machinery and see a working cable system in operation. Our cars are not relics, they are on the streets of San Francisco daily, transporting riders, both locals and tourists, through time and space, being part of the landscape instead of just moving through it.

Check out the museum’s website: HERE

Find them on Twitter: HERE

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