Cable Car Museum movie clip

Peter,

Interesting but noisy, hope you and Rita had ear defenders on :-))

Martin P

It's not too bad, and the museum staff have to live with it all day long....

Just back at the factory and on the way home, been awake 28hours and looking forward to some decent sleep!

They had a very interesting reprint on cable cars in the USA in the shop, they were only really popular for a very short time, until electric trams took over.

The SFO cable cars are the only operational ones remaining out of the whole of the USA.

We ended up having a lot of trips on the cars as we had a 7-day Passport with unlimited use on the SF Muni buses, cable cars and trams, so we parked the hire car in Golden Gate Park, caught the No5 trolleybus into town, drops you at Market St right by Powell St where the cable car terminus is, off you go...

We reckon we had about $48 each out of a $24 ticket, and that was about 4 days out of seven. Well worth buying.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

It wasn't until I went there that I realised the cables move all the time & the cars simply clamp themselves to the cable to go.

Regards,

J. Kim Siddorn,

I think I mentioned in an earlier reply that we got a very nice reprinted volume on the cable cars in the USA. The grip and the way it evolved is particularly interesting, plus the mechanics of crossing other cables, going round curves and cross-overs.

"The Cable Car In America" George W Hilton, Stanford University Press, ISBN:

0804730520. Plenty of copies on the net.

The cables on the SFO cars are dropped and picked up a couple of times on the trip between Powell and Hyde.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

When we were there just over 2 years ago I bought a reprinted book called "A Treatise Upon Cable Or Rope Traction" by J Bucknall Smith and George W Hilton. This is a reprint of a book first published in 1887 by an English man on Rope traction for street railways, it goes it to detail of mainly American cable cars but covers the Highgate Hill Cable Tramway in London. An interesting read if you can find a copy. We too got full use of our Muni Pass using a cable car whenever possible, great fun hanging on the side when its going round a corner. Did they still have the Trams from around the world down near Pier 39? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a Blackpool tram approaching with its alleged destination Blackpool Tower.

Paul.

I think that is the F-line, a separate entity but still within the Muni (San Francisco Municipal Railway - abbreviated everywhere to 'Muni' -

They have all sorts of trams on there, one we saw had a most unusual hooter, more like a ships foghorn! Didn't see anything English this trip though.

It's a great experience if you are remotely interested in trains and trams.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web: