San Francisco’s treasured cable cars have been off their rails, sleeping in their barn since the city went into a COVID-induced shutdown last March.
Officials from Muni said last month that they had to prioritize essential services amid limited resources, which cast doubt on a cable car return anytime soon.
Earlier this month, though, Mayor London Breed promised we’d see them before the end of the year.
Many people, not least of which business owners who rely on the tourist trade, have been ringing the bell for a comeback. There aren’t a ton of tourists lining up to ride them, but the thinking goes that a restart could provide a beacon to visitors — not to mention a shot of local pride and optimism.
There’s a bigger story behind the fight. However beloved, the cable car system is a money-losing relic, a sliver of what it once was. From a peak of 53 miles of track in 1891, it’s been downhill ever since, with electric streetcars, diesel buses, earthquakes, fire, and conniving politicians all playing a part.
But what’s left of them — three lines that cover five miles — will prove hard to kill, like Monty Python’s Black Knight, because of their protection in the city charter.
Last month, The Frisc recounted all the times the cable cars faced an existential threat, yet came clanging through the other side.
Now we’re telling the story in a different way: These models and toys and souvenirs tell their own tales — not just of SF history, but also of how people around the world have seen us and tried to cash in on the idea, the delight, and the myth of San Francisco.
All the following models are from my collection. Many thanks to Don Holmgren and Mike Phipps, board members of Friends of the Cable Car Museum and coauthors of Watermusic in the Track, a history of SF cable cars, for their insights and interpretations.
Car No. 4, made by Tops All Toys, United States, 1930s
You know that feeling when you actually meet someone from San Francisco? (And you say something like “Wow, you’re actually from San Francisco?”) Here’s something even rarer: a toy cable car that was made in San Francisco, and made of lead to boot. (Don’t lick it.) We’re not sure if “Tops All Toys” at 102 Clay Street, stamped on the bottom, was a shop or a factory or both. The Embarcadero Center is there now.
This model is a faithful rendition of a “California car,” larger and open at both ends, which ran on a couple lines before 1906 and still runs on California Street.
The California line was the last private line in SF to become part of Muni, in 1951, after the California Street Cable Car Co. (aka Cal Cable), already in financial trouble, had its Lloyd’s of London insurance canceled. The cars once clanged all the way to Presidio Avenue, where the Jewish Community Center is now, but Muni cut the line to end at the current terminus of Van Ness Avenue.
Car No. 11, made by Bachmann, China, 1996
This is the other type of car still in use: the Powell car, shorter than the California car, its sides half open, half covered. The design hasn’t changed since 1906. “This is classic Powell, a pretty accurate model,” Don Holmgren tells us, except for the light blue stripe. (Muni used dark blue in the 1930s and ’40s.)
Holmgren is also skeptical of the Grolsch ad. Dutch beer? A classic SF ad would more likely be Acme Brewery, a local 20th-century mainstay. (Its onetime office is now the African American Art and Culture Complex on Fulton Street.)
Car No. 11, made by Tomica, Japan, 1980
Readers of a certain age know that cable car advertising became synonymous with Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat, in the 1950s and ’60s. But ads on cars first appeared a few decades earlier when Cal Cable needed cash to stave off bankruptcy. They were $100 a pop, according to Phipps.
Tomica of Japan is famous for its 1/64 scale Matchbox-style die-cast toy cars, but not its proofreaders. As for this 1970s product? “The picture on the box is better than the model,” says Holmgren.
Bonus! Pictured on the box there’s an ad for another famous local brand … wait a second. Mog Root Beer? That must have been the refreshing quaff made in Sun Francisco, as the box says.https://sfghostsigns.com/blog/2019/10/6/off-the-map-signs-belfast-old-fashioned-mug-root-beer-in-fruitvale
One thing they got right: The “Muni green” color, which you’ll also see everywhere on city Park and Rec signs. Fun and very nerdy fact: It was called “Brewster green” under the United Railroads conglomerate, aka The Octopus, which owned nearly all SF cable car lines after 1902.
San Francisco Streetcar, made by Alps, Japan, 1953
This model is beautiful, but it isn’t from San Francisco. Based on the flip-up seats, it’s probably from Chicago, which had the biggest system in the world. But it goes to show how much San Francisco became synonymous with fanciful street transport. Would “Chicago Street Car” on the box have sold as well? Doubt it!
SF did have open cars like this for a few years before they were destroyed in the 1906 quake and fire, but not matching these details.
This model also sports lithography on tin, an involved design process that’s now a lost art. We’ll see a lot more of this coming up …
Car No. 51, made by KCI, Japan, 1960
This post-World War II Japanese-made tin toy emulates a California line car after Muni took over in the 1950s. The lithography depicts typical San Franciscans. As we all know, men back then favored bow ties, and the ladies had nice gams. History!
Ah, but the makers fall short in their depiction of the two car operators (the conductor and grip) and the handles they’re holding, according to Phipps: “They’re mixing cars and mechanics incorrectly.”
Also note the two bells, one at each end of the roof. The grip and conductor communicate in code to say “stop immediately” or “back up slowly” or “I could really go for a burrito right now.” (OK, we made that last one up.)
Car No. 509, made by Nomura, Japan, 1950s
Car No. 514, made by F.E. Walts, Japan, 1950s
Whoever produced the detailing on these Powell-style cars did a little more homework, but the mostly white ridership made us wonder: Was SF transport ever segregated? Yes, but the tenacity of Charlotte Brown, a San Francisco Black woman in the mid-19th century, paved the way to a statewide ban on segregated transport in 1893.
On car № 514, The Market Street Railway logo refers to a private company whose cars traveled up Market then branched out along Hayes, Haight, Fulton, Valencia, and Castro Streets. Muni bought them out in 1944. The faces might not match SF’s diversity, but at least someone’s reading Herb Caen.
Then there’s that one guy, lighting another guy’s cigarette. (Both seated, just off center.) Smoking has never been allowed on cable cars, so either the artists confused SF for Europe, or they were giving a wink and nod to the ridership that, back then, dared not speak its name.
Car No. 61, made by TYCO, United States, 1970s
Nope, not a cable car. But this electric streetcar might have once been a cable car; note what’s called a “Bombay roof.” In the final years of the 19th century and leading up to the big quake, the switch to electric was happening so fast, companies simply dropped an electric motor (invented by this guy) into the cable car body and made other quick changes. This one is likely a reproduction of a 1903 street car, says Phipps.
Car No. 504 , imported by Smith News, made in Hong Kong, 1970s
Just as inevitable as the real-world shift from cable cars to street cars, buses, and automobiles was this shift from tin toys to plastic. We’re including this one mainly to show the groovy ’60s typeface on the box, baby, and to note how the souvenir industry had evolved. The box has space for an address so you, dear visitor, could jot someone’s name and drop this beauty in the mail.
Smith News is no longer on 460 9th Street, but it’s not too far afield. It’s now the Smith Novelty Co. of South San Francisco, and they still do cable cars.
Car No. 504, made by Hishimo Co. / Hisimo Sangyou, Japan, 1950s
Toy zealots will recognize this one as a quintessential model made in Japan to prop up the country’s postwar economy. It’s the only one with metal people as well, split rather disturbingly down the middle. The color scheme is a bit puzzling. The green is Muni green, but the unfortunate orange could be an attempt at the “green and cream” color scheme from the 1960s.
Car No. 505, imported by EFFCO, made in Hong Kong, 1970s
The model here isn’t interesting, but the sign is. “Fisherman’s Wharf 4 blocks from terminal” is still hanging from Powell line cars because they don’t go all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf.
The idea of an extension to the wharf floated around for years, probably boosted by wharf merchants but also opposed by those who might lose the foot traffic, according to Phipps. But after the Cable Car Wars of the 1940s and ’50s, which included a duplicitous ballot measure that promised to save the cable cars but actually reduced the network by half, messing with the system became verboten.
Car No. 13, made by Anthony J. Campagna, Richmond (Calif.), 1969
What better way to end our tour than a cable car made by a guy who operated them for 37 years? Anthony J. Campagna was a conductor and 1956 champion bell ringer who couldn’t get enough. When he retired, he built models like this one at his home across the Bay in Richmond, and he kept a cable car bell in his garage “to keep in practice,” according to the April 1969 issue of AC Transit’s Transit-Times magazine.
That’s the end of the line, folks. Feel free to stay on board for the return trip.
Editor in chief Alex Lash contributed to this post.