…that the F-Market streetcar line became the F-Market & Wharves streetcar line, with the opening of the extension from First and Market Streets to Jones and Beach, connecting Downtown to the Ferry Building, The Embarcadero, and Fisherman’s Wharf. On March 4, 2000, the extension created what we call the “Steel Triangle” of rail: the two Powell cable lines and the F-line.
The F-line extension was the final step in the revitalization of San Francisco’s waterfront boulevard, The Embarcadero, the central portion of which had been cut off from the Ferry Building and cast into shadow in the late 1950s by a double-deck concrete freeway. The surface boulevard beyond the freeway was a tangle of disused freight railroad spurs serving the all-but abandoned finger piers after containerization of shipping caused the industry to move to Oakland.
Led by Doug Wright, a top transportation advisor to both Mayors Dianne Feinstein and Art Agnos (and later, our nonprofit’s Board Chair), a beautiful boulevard was designed to encourage recreation along The Embarcadero, festooned with palm trees and a broad pedestrian promenade, with streetcar tracks in the middle reaching Fisherman’s Wharf, one of the City’s top visitor destinations. Under the half-mile central section between Broadway and Howard Street, covered by the freeway, the streetcar tracks were designed to weave around the freeway’s piers. That design was anything but beautiful…and as it turned out, never had to be built.
For the Embarcadero Freeway was severely damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and, after a bitter fight, was torn down, allowing the new expansive streetscape to replace that elevated freeway. This delayed the completion of the F-line extension several years after the portion north of Broadway was finished (but unconnected to any other Muni trackage).
Transit historian Peter Ehrlich, a longtime Market Street Railway member and retired F-line operator, has literally written the book on this, San Francisco’s F-line (available at our museum or our online store . He headlines the section on the March 2000 extension opening, “Riders Quickly Overwhelm the Trolleys”. And did they ever. MSR President Rick Laubscher remembers riding the inaugural VIP car, Melbourne 496 (still faithfully plying the waterfront in summer) and hearing a reporter asking a top Muni official, “Will this car carry regular passengers?” The response: “No, we’re not going to use the old cars in service”. No sooner had the car gotten to the Wharf when line manager Ken Rodriguez ordered it into regular passenger service, to handle the crowds, which it did very well with its ample standing room and open design.
The extension opening also brought San Francisco its fleet of Milan trams. Market Street Railway had been advising Muni officials over and over that they didn’t have enough streetcars for Wharf service, given the huge popularity of the first phase of the permanent F-line, which opened from Castro to First Street on Market in 1995 (terminating at the old East Bay Terminal at Fremont and Mission, now the Salesforce Transit Center). If Muni brass of the day had listened, there would have been time to restore some of Muni’s retired PCCs to augment the 17 PCCs that opened the F-line. But they waited too long to act.
As Ehrlich’s book points out, Rodriguez, then a 27-year Muni veteran who worked his way up from operator to lead Muni’s rail service, was intrigued by the 1928 Milan tram that had been acquired for the Trolley Festivals of the 1980s, and which had proved very reliable and popular in service. He took the initiative and acquired 10 more that Milan was retiring (even though they had been upgraded just a decade before).
The “new” Milan trams were rushed into service as the extension opened. Several of the vintage streetcars from Trolley Festival days made regular appearances on the F-line after the extension opened as well, including Muni’s own Car 1 and Car 130 from its original 1910s streetcar fleet, the aforementioned Melbourne 496, and New Orleans “Streetcar Named Desire” 952.
The Milan trams and vintage cars held the fort until Muni could acquire 11 well-maintained PCCs from Newark, New Jersey in 2002 and modify them for San Francisco service. Market Street Railway closely followed the impending retirement of the Newark PCCs and repeatedly advocated with Muni for their acquisition. Originally, Muni was to receive 18 of these sturdy cars, but a bureaucratic oversight inside Muni gave Newark the opportunity to divert several to a proposed vintage streetcar operation in Bayonne, NJ, which was never built.
The extended F-line went on to become the most popular traditional streetcar line in America, surpassing even New Orleans’ storied St. Charles line before the pandemic. F-line ridership has come back strong after the pandemic shutdown, and Muni leadership plans to add a few additional runs for the summer. That “steel triangle” of the F-line and cable cars is still essential to attract visitors to San Francisco at a time tourism is more important economically than ever. As has been proven umpteen times in the last quarter-century, when buses have to substitute for either type of vintage vehicle, visitors don’t ride them.
Of course, the pandemic has had many lingering impacts on waterfront streetcar service, just as it has had on all Bay Area transit service. Our nonprofit is working hard to keep the streetcars operating against the threat of suspension in the summer of 2026, triggered by an impending Muni budget crisis.
We will have a comprehensive report on what’s happened with Muni’s heritage streetcar fleet and waterfront service in the next issue of our member newsletter, Inside Track, due out in June. Click here to join us and get the exclusive inside track on what’s going on.
