While we tend to talk most about streetcars and cable cars at Market Street Railway (because they’re operated daily by Muni), we’re interested in historic transit of all kinds, including buses.
Our volunteers have done restoration work on both vintage trolley buses (including one of Muni’s first ten, built in 1941) and motor buses (including one of the gasoline buses Muni bought in 1947 for its aborted attempt to kill off the Powell Street cable cars). We have advocated with Muni that they operate these rubber-tired historic vehicles on occasion, as they used to do with one of the trolley buses. We haven’t been successful recently, but we’ve proposed it again as part of Muni’s centennial activities in 2012 and 2013.
Pacific Bus Museum’s vintage GM "Old Look" coach stands sentinel at Grace Cathedral earlier this year during the memorial service for SFMTA Director (and former MSR vice president) Cam Beach. The bus is painted in our namesake’s "zip stripe" livery, but lettered for "Niles Canyon Lines," the route it runs carrying people to the rail museum there.
Meantime, our friends across the Bay at the Pacific Bus Museum stay busy in their laudable efforts to preserve rubber-tired transit history. They’re holding an open house this Sunday, August 28, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at their facility, 37974 Shinn Street, in Fremont. They’re including a hamburger/hot dog barbecue, display of their buses, and a flea market. Admission (a donation to the museum) is $5 for adults, $2 for kids 12 and under.
Sounds like a fun outing for any bus fan.
Well wouldn’t you know it! After all these years I finally have an excuse to go to Fremont!
I wonder if it’s open mid-week?