Cable cars have clattered along Powell Street since 1888. The Powell cable lines have had five different owners, including, for the past 72 years, the City and County of San Francisco’s Municipal Railway. These five owners painted the “halfway to the stars” cars in ten significantly different liveries (paint schemes) over their 128-year history.
Yet only since June 2016 have all the historic Powell liveries been on the street at once, thanks to the culmination of a productive partnership between Muni and our nonprofit. Our research and assistance, coupled with the skills of Muni maintenance crafts workers—carpenters and painters in particular—have created a cable car kaleidoscope on the Powell lines: a palette of color spanning a century and a quarter, adding an additional dimension to this National Historic Landmark.
The June 15 return to service of Powell Car 12 served to complete the set. The car itself, originally built by Carter Brothers in 1893 and extensively rebuilt in 1959, received a total renovation at Muni’s Woods Carpentry Shop on 22nd Street in Dogpatch. This included an entire repainting, providing the opportunity to apply the famed ‘White Front’ livery of our namesake, Market Street Railway Co. (MSRy), which that company’s streetcars and cable cars wore from around 1937 until its acquisition by Muni in 1944.
Car 12’s paint scheme is very austere. It was devised by MSRy during the Great Depression to minimize labor costs of painting vehicles at a time when expenses were rising far faster than revenues. The sides are solid green, the ends solid white. This was a simplification of the first ‘White Front’ paint scheme, patented by MSRy in 1927 as a safety feature and applied to all its cable cars and streetcars with the added color of red front and side window sash (this earlier version is modeled on Powell Car 9).
But even this modest red trim was deemed too expensive for the private MSRy, and the liveries transitioned to Car 12’s design between 1936 and 1938.
A centennial car
Cable cars on a single line traditionally were all painted the same, except during periods of transition between owners or livery types. Such a transition took place when Muni took over the Powell cable cars in 1944. Muni initially just took off the MSRy shields, but soon painted three Powell cars into the blue and yellow that then dominated Muni’s streetcar fleet and buses. This brief livery is modeled on Powell car 16.
In that same period, though, Muni leadership decided to change its overall paint scheme to green and cream, close to what MSRy had used. The Powell cars transitioned to green and cream in 1946-47, with “MUNICIPAL RAILWAY” in large letters on the sides of the car near the bottom (an area known as the ‘owner’s panel’ because that’s where the operating company traditionally put its name). Car 26 is painted in this scheme. In the 1960s, a variation of this scheme with “San Francisco Municipal Railway” on the sides took over. The Powell cable cars were all painted the same again.
Then, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the world’s first cable car line, which opened on Clay Street in 1873, Charles Smallwood, then the cable car maintenance superintendent (and a noted railfan and photographer) took the roof of decrepit Powell Car 506 and built a new body under it. Using his own considerable research skills, Smallwood painted the almost-new car into the first livery used on Powell Street when service started in 1888: maroon and sky blue, with signs on the ends of the roof and very ornate scrollwork trim. He numbered the new car 1 and called it the centennial car.
The striking appearance of Powell Car 1 was not lost on Muni leadership. While the rest of the Powell cars stayed in green and cream into the 1980s (albeit renumbered, dropping the first digit (5) that they had carried since the 1890s), all but one of the Powell cars were painted into a simplified version of Powell Car 1’s livery (again, labor costs were a consideration) during the rebuilding of the entire cable car system between late 1982 and mid 1984. The lone holdout was Powell Car 3, which remained in its green and cream as a tribute to Friedel Klussmann, whose civic activism saved the Powell lines from conversion to buses in 1947. (The tribute was later transferred to Powell Car 1, which is now dedicated to her.)
More diversity
So by the mid 1980s there were actually three liveries worn by Powell cable cars: the heritage liveries of 1 and 3, and what is now the standard simplified maroon and sky blue on the remainder of the Powell fleet. This got us thinking: why just three? So we encouraged Muni to bring back other historic Powell liveries as cable cars were rebuilt or (in the case of really worn out equipment) replaced with new ones.
Powell Car 16 was next, appearing after rebuilding in 1990 in the experimental post-merger blue and gold livery of 1944-46 that only three cars received back in that time. The following year, new Car 13 appeared, painted in the 1910s green and red of United Railroads (though subsequent research identified both the green and red as too bright in tone, which we hope will be corrected in the next repainting).
The year 1997 saw the next Powell tribute car debut: new Car 9, painted in the successor livery to Car 13’s. When United Railroads gave way to MSRy in 1921, the Powell cars were left unchanged, except for the owner’s name, for several years. Then, around 1927, the ends of the cars were painted white (with the red sash retained), creating that first ‘White Front’ livery.
In 2008 and 2009, two more Powell Heritage liveries appeared, which many consider the most eye-popping of all. Car 25, a thorough rebuild of an original 1888 cable car (which was constructed by workers of the Ferries & Cliff House Railway), appeared in a somewhat brighter version of the red that United Railroads employed from 1902 until after the earthquake of 1906. Then all-new Powell 15 debuted in the canary yellow with red trim that Powell-Mason cable cars wore during the ownership of an earlier Market Street Railway Company from 1893 until the United Railroads takeover of 1902. Two of its very first passengers were Malia and Sasha Obama, the First Family’s daughters.
It should be noted that during the reign of the Market Street Railway of 1893, San Francisco’s rail scene was perhaps the most colorful ever (at least until the F-line streetcars came on the scene). That company color-coded its many rail lines. Powell-Mason was yellow, a color it shared with its larger cable car cousins that ran on Market and McAllister Streets (today’s 5-line). (Market itself was quite colorful; with the cars of its other cable lines being painted red (Haight St.), white (Castro), blue (Valencia) and green (Hayes) during most of the 1890s.) But color-coding rail vehicles by line limited operational flexibility and United Railroads ended this practice when it took over in 1902.
With the introduction of Powell Cars 25 and 15, the collection of historic liveries was almost complete. But there were two major omissions remaining. The first was the livery the Powell cars wore in 1947 when Friedel Klussmann saved them. Car 26 filled this gap in 2011. Pure ‘White Front’ Car 12 has now completed the set.
One other finishing touch: since its spectacular debut in 1973, Centennial Car 1 had gradually had distinctive features stripped away. These included the unique destination signs on the front and rear roof, the original metal screens at the bottom of the side panels (which were replaced by standard wooden slabs) and the ornate scrollwork. Last year, Market Street Railway worked with Muni to restore all of these original details, so Powell Car 1 is now back to the look of 1888.
Supporting history
Market Street Railway has worked with many different Muni cable car leaders, including the current one, Ed Cobean, to create this diverse set of Powell cable car liveries over the past four decades, all without any significant extra costs to the city (because the cars were in the renovation process already). We provided research, drawings, and designed and prepared decals to replicate the hand lettering on the original liveries. Perhaps more important, through the many changes in Muni management and craftspeople over the period, we kept orienting new people to the value of the historic livery program and kept offering our help. By providing continuity, we played a role in keeping this marathon project on track.
We have now offered Muni leadership our help in making sure all of the Powell cable cars in historic liveries have updated signage in the interior to help crews and riders know what era the car represents.
At this writing, we are also working with Muni to plan an event this fall, probably close to Muni Heritage Weekend to celebrate completion of the project and the “SFMade” origin of the continuously rejuvenated cable car fleet.
