There’s a long tradition in San Francisco of celebrating the holiday season with streetcars and cable cars.
In the 1930’s, our namesake, Market Street Railway Company (Muni’s privately owned competitor) decorated its all-white private car (named the “San Francisco”, normally used to take school kids on field trips) for Christmas and New Year’s and ran it around town as a goodwill billboard.
In the 1950’s, the Emporium department store, on Market opposite Powell (where Bloomingdales is today) would charter a cable car with a specially strengthened roof to bring Santa to the store. The “Santacade” always drew big crowds, including a generation of kids who believed that the REAL Santa was at the “Big E” because of course Santa would take the cable car! (That cable car, by the way, is the one now on the centerfield arcade at AT&T Park.)
Also in the 1950s, West Portal merchants turned the portal of the Twin Peaks Tunnel into a fireplace (another proof that Santa rode Muni!!). The streetcar shown, 1010, is one of the ones saved from destruction thanks in large measure to the advocacy of our non-profit, and runs today on the E-Embarcadero line (another of our advocacy successes).
In recent years, Market Street Railway volunteers have decorated one or more F-line historic streetcars. We look to resume this next year when the streetcars have returned to Cameron Beach Yard (shown here) from their temporary quarters at Muni Metro East off Third Street. This year, as always, we’ve decorated the F-line and E-line streetcars with wreaths.
For sheer enthusiasm and beauty, nothing beats the cable cars decorated every year by gripman and cable car historian Val Lupiz. This year’s prize is Powell Car number 1, in the original 1888 livery of the Powell cable lines with wonderful decorations inside and out. Our volunteers assisted Val and friends in bringing this joy to the streets of San Francisco this season. (Val took the shot below; the others come from our archives.)
As 2016 ends, we at Market Street Railway thanks our 1,000 members and our friends for their ongoing support. We invite everyone who loves the cable cars, streetcars, and San Francisco history in general to join us or support us, to make 2017 a year of preservation and celebration of historic transit.
