Powell Cable Car 14 was built in 1963 by Muni crafts workers at the old Elkton Shops at Ocean and San Jose Avenues. Then numbered 514, it replaced an original 1887 cable car built by contractors for Mahoney Brothers, who installed the Powell Street cable operation on a turnkey basis.

Muni had little experience in building cable cars, and most of the crafts workers from the previous owner, our nonprofit’s namesake Market Street Railway Company, had retired by the time the first of the original cable cars reached a point beyond repair. This new Car 514 featured a simplified roof, sheathed in plywood instead of the tongue-and-groove strips originally used. The new roof was also of the simpler design used on the 1893 cable cars built by Carter Brothers, with only one row of side windows in the raised ceiling area, called a clerestory. The original Car 514 had the 1887-style double row of clerestory windows with eyebrow-shaped end windows on the roof, a style known as the “Bombay Roof”. The arched side window frames of the original Car 514 were replaced with square window frames, which were easier to make.

Renumbered as Car 14 in the 1970s, this car has received a recent refresh from the carpenters and painters at the cable car barn. It is worth studying as an example of the learning process Muni went through after taking over the Powell Street cable cars in 1944. The cable cars Muni has built since the 1980s reflect a quality of materials and craftsmanship equal if not superior to that of the original 19th century builders.