Our dual vintage streetcar popularity contests have yielded two ‘winners’, though in fact every one of the 32 streetcars in the polls put together by our board member, Chris Arvin, drew love from fans of historic transit from around the world.
The same “brackets” of 32 streetcars were set up on our Twitter account and on our Facebook group. The winner of each first-round matchup advanced to the second round, until we had two finalists. In both polls, the finals were between the 1934 Blackpool, England “boat tram” and the 1896 San Francisco “dinky”, but voters in the two polls selected different winners.
In the Twitter poll, 64% of voters chose the Boat vs. 36% for the Dinky. In the Facebook poll, the Dinky garnered 68% of the vote to the Boat’s 32%. Overall, because more people voted on Twitter than on Facebook, the Boat came out on top by a margin of 57%-43%.
So we hail both of these venerable streetcars, the 87-year old Boat and the 115-year old Dinky. That’s more than 200 years of streetcar beauty combined.
Here are the finished brackets for both the Twitter and Facebook polls. You’ll see some differences in the outcome of the rounds leading up to the finals. For example, the “Mint Milano” (green paint scheme on the popular 1928 Italian trams) faced off against the Boat in the Twitter semi-finals, while the last PCC built in North America, Muni’s own Car 1040, earned that spot in the Facebook poll (and was just barely beaten in that round by the Boat). In both polls, the other semi-final matchup was the Dinky against the very first streetcar Muni owned, Car 1, built in 1912. Many fans commented it was just too hard for them to choose between these most historic symbols of our city. Click to enlarge the brackets.
Thanks to all who participated, and if you missed this first contest, stay tuned. We’ll have additional ones down ther road!
