1941 Muni trolley coach No. 506 is already on display for Muni Heritage Weekend, across the F-line tracks from our San Francisco Railway Museum on Steuart Street between Market and Mission.
Market Street Railway has added a special members-only event for Muni Heritage Weekend. On Saturday, November 1, from 5:00-6:30 p.m., our Members will be welcomed for libations at our San Francisco Railway Museum, in conjunction with Muni Heritage Weekend. MSR President Rick Laubscher will provide an update on the organization’s accomplishments in 2014 and on the status of its current initiatives. MSR’s Board Chair, Bruce Agid, will outline overall organizational priorities for 2015. If you’re not currently a Market Street Railway member, you can join right here and now, or at the museum tomorrow!
We’ve scheduled this reception to tie into Muni Heritage Weekend to make it easy to join us. We especially welcome Members who would like to volunteer for our committees or other activities. We remain a volunteer-driven organization, and would love to find more active volunteers, so don’t be shy about offering your services at the reception.
As for Muni Heritage Weekend itself, November 1-2, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., preparations are complete. As reported in the last Inside Track, a variety of vintage equipment is scheduled to carry passengers. On all or part of the F-line, you can ride streetcars Nos. 1 (Muni, 1912) and 130 (Muni 1914), 578 (Market Street Railway, 1896), 1006 ,1008, and 1010 (Muni, 1948) and 1040 (Muni, 1952). Muni’s oldest motor coach, No. 042 (1938) and trolley coaches No. 776 (1950) and 5300 (1976) are all slated to carry passengers on a loop via Market, Sutter, Mason, Market, Spear, Mission, and Steuart, terminating next to our San Francisco Railway Museum.
In the plaza opposite our museum, 1941 Muni trolley coach No. 506 (pictured above) is already on display, to be joined by 1969 GMC motor coach No. 3287 (which may make a passenger trip or two) and Muni’s motorized cable car (retired Jones Street Shuttle No. 62, offering the chance for kids of all ages to ring its bell.
A block away, O’Farrell, Jones & Hyde cable car No. 42 (1906) will be out on the California Street line, while over on the Powell lines, as many of the vintage-liveried cable cars as possible will be on the line for photographers and riders alike.
At 1:15 both days in the plaza opposite our museum, the late Maya Angelou, one of San Francisco’s first African-American female streetcar conductors, will be honored. Johnnae Sanders, a high school senior at St. Ignatius, will read from Angelou’s writings about how she gained, and performed, her pioneering transit role.
We will have an extensive sale of hard-to-find and/or out-of-print railway and transit books and an array of vintage memorabilia both days in the plaza.
Our new displays, “Car vs. Car” and “Fair, Please” will be available for viewing at the Museum. “Car vs. Car” tells the story of the decades-long battle between automobiles and streetcars for San Francisco’s precious street space, while “Fair, Please,” describes how Muni came of age through effective infrastructure investment made to serve the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in what’s now the Marina District.
MSR President Rick Laubscher will sign and inscribe copies of his guidebook, On Track, both days at 3 p.m. (These and other merchandise in our store make great holiday gifts and it’s not too soon to start shopping!)
Come join the fun!
(By the way, the new edition of our Member newsletter, Inside Track, contains a story on the Member reception, but our printing vendor let us down, and it is only now in the mail. We apologize for the late delivery and are are taking steps to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.)
