San Fran Transportation

At last some time to post a report on some of the observations during our few days in San Francisco - a great city suffering the same variations in the weather as Great Yarmouth! It can be quite cool in early June, especially when the fog rolls in

San Francisco is one of the few places in the world you can ride on cable cars. They are manually operated and are pulled along by cables embedded in the street.

A fully loaded Powell and Hyde cable car about to head off for Fisherman's Wharf

Named a national historic landmark in 1964, they have been refurbished and equipped with new tracks, cables, turnarounds and cable propulsion machinery. They operate as much as they did on August 2, 1873 when Andrew S. Hallidie guided the first car down the Clay Street grade.

Our return to the hotel on the F Line was this 1948 streetcar painted in honour of the Market Street Railway Company

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) runs three cable car lines. These historic vehicles are not self-powered; they move using a mechanism that grips cables that run beneath San Francisco's streets. The three cable lines are Powell-Hyde, Powell-Mason and California Street

SFMTA (MUNI) trolleybus ETI Skoda 5574 making its way to Stockton Caltrain Depot

SFMTA also runs a fleet of buses and historic streetcars including an example from Blackpool although I saw no evidence of it in service

City Sightseeing 1987 built MCW Metrobus open topper complete with its British registration E767JAR

City Sightseeing is the original Open-Top Double-Decker bus company in San Francisco. It provides  a wide variety of San Francisco Tours with the most comprehensive coverage in San Francisco with many hop on hop off stops

Big Bus Tours also offer an open top double decker hop-on/hop-off service, stopping at 20 major sites and attractions around the city, including crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. The company additionally provides panoramic night tours.