San Francisco Street Railroading In 1909! (Film.)

This is really cool!
A seven-minute film shot from the front end of a San Francisco Market Street cable car, showing everyday life -and urban street railroading-
as it was 100 years ago
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i c_1259288206
Note the lack of any traffic controls whatsoever, or even any commonly- agreed-upon rules of the road. Note also the old original Ferry building at the east end of Market Street.
This film was shot only three years after the great San Francisco earthquake.
~Pete
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Twibil wrote:

People and other vehicles didn't have much fear of cutting right in front of the cable cars, did they? Maybe that helps to explain the high incidence of trolley-vehicle accidents that continues today here in Houston. Another thing that it brings to mind that I have pondered recently - When did men stop wearing hats regularly? We see in movies of the '30s, '40s and perhaps even of the '50s that men regularly wore hats as part of their standard business attire, but at some point hats have nearly completely fallen out of favor, other than for cowboys. What sort of event was the impetus for that to occur?
--

Rick Jones
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On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:03:52 -0800 (PST), Twibil wrote:

Note also the cyclist playing with his life (about 1:10) - after crossing one rail at an angle, avoiding the risk of catching a wheel in hte slot, he rides right down the cable slot - must have been a real fat tire bike to survive that!
--
Steve

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snipped-for-privacy@commoncast.net writes:

Not as crazy at it looks. Assuming this is the cablecar system, and it works like it does in SF today, that's the cableway, and there's a gadget under the trolley that flips open these metal plate covers in the street as the tow cable gripper thing passes over that part of the road. I can say from direct experience that it's totally safe to ride on. The rail sections on the other hand, are a little carnivorious and I don't think I'd so casually flip my bike over one in front of a moving trolley like that.
The thing that gets you is how this is all really slow (I would guess no more than 10mph and often less), but there's somebody doing something stupid every few seconds. Pretty entertaining, thanks to the person who posted it. *
--
* PV Something like badgers, something like lizards, and something
like corkscrews.
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On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:54:11 -0600, pv+ snipped-for-privacy@pobox.com (PV) wrote:

Once upom a time they had stud contacts for tramcars in a few places in Britain - and possibly on the other side of the ocean. These were spring loaded so the weight of a pedestrian wouldn't operate them, but horses got electrocuted.
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snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net writes:

It's been 20 years since I visited their trolley museum, but I'm pretty sure the covers go UP, not down. And this is a continuous cable system - the cars simply grabbed the cable and were pulled along by it - nothing to get electocuted by, but plenty too dangerous to be accessible to people on the street. *
--
* PV Something like badgers, something like lizards, and something
like corkscrews.
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writes:

Gee, I don't recall those. Must not have had them in Glasgow or the lot I ran with would have been buggering with them constantly ...
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Another thing that it brings to mind that I have pondered recently -

As I was going through my MR's, any issue from 1934 till about 1954 or so, that had a man on the cover, he had a hat of some kind on. Many also had either a cigarette or pipe in his mouth as well.
--
Frank Rosenbaum
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On 11/28/2009 9:34 AM Rick Jones spake thus:

That's easy; blame the early '60s, and the onset of the rebellion against conformity (remember "nonconformism"?), authoritarianism and other hangovers of the earlier era.
Those scenes showing dozens of men all wearing more or less the same headgear were pretty striking, though.
--
I am a Canadian who was born and raised in The Netherlands. I live on
Planet Earth on a spot of land called Canada. We have noisy neighbours.
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(A) Global warming.
(B) Natural fashion evolution.
(C) The advent of climate control.
(D) So many movies being made from the late '30s on that featured leading men who liked to show off their wavy locks, and women deciding that they *liked* that look.
All things considered, I suspect it was that last one that really turned the tide.
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Twibil wrote:

Dunno about that. Do women like naseball caps worn backwards?
;-)
wolf k.
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Ask yourself "Do I see those guys who wear backwards baseball caps fighting off hordes of beautiful women?" and you'll have your answer.
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wrote:

Ask yourself "Do I see those guys who wear backwards baseball caps fighting off hordes of beautiful women?" and you'll have your answer.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's an IQ meter. Full back is close to Zero. Full back plus waist of pants at knee level is less than Zero.
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Another thing that it brings to mind that I have pondered recently - When did men stop wearing hats regularly? We see in movies of the '30s, '40s and perhaps even of the '50s that men regularly wore hats as part of their standard business attire, but at some point hats have nearly completely fallen out of favor, other than for cowboys. What sort of event was the impetus for that to occur?
--

JFK



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Dang, beat me to it! Precisely!!
Though four years in the USAF was enough hat wearing for me ...
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John F. Kennedy
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On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:03:52 -0800 (PST), Twibil

Some wonderful footage. Thanks Pete.

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says...

    I rode on the Melbourne cable tram system as a kid, and there were no covers over the cable slot there. If you had a bike, you just took care, and if you got your wheel caught in the slot, well, too bad, you ended up on your arse!     By the way, the Melbourne sysyem was the largest in the world under one management. The S.F. network was larger by mileage, but was under several comapanies.                 Regards,                     Bill.

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On 29 Nov 2009 00:46:49 GMT, ben snipped-for-privacy@optusnet.com.au (Bill Pearce) wrote:

How many are there left anywhere?
The Great Orme Tramway is similar but the cars are fixed to the cable so it operates as a balanced funicular but the street section had the cable running in a slot.
http://www.simplygroups.co.uk/images/Llandudno%20Great%20Orme%20Tramway%201.jpg
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_cable_car_system
Dunno about any others.
~Pete
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