Muni Heritage Weekend September 26-27 was a big success, with thousands of riders sampling the vintage streetcars, buses, and cable cars Muni rolled out this year. We noticed more families and kids this year, including young Reed Bell, in the window above, who already has an encyclopedic knowledge of San Francisco transit.
Buses ran every 15 minutes from our San Francisco Railway Museum to Union Square and back, each carrying a great display of vintage photographs from the SFMTA Archives put together by Jeremy Menzies.
A vintage streetcar shuttle service connecting the museum and Pier 39 every 20 minutes or so. The two Blackpool, England boat trams (No. 233, above) ran together in passenger service for the first time, joined by the oldest vehicle in Muni’s heritage fleet, 1896 single-truck San Francisco streetcar No. 578 (top photo). Meanwhile, vintage Muni streetcars Nos. 1 and 130 ran as part of regular E-Embarcadero service, along with Melbourne tram No. 496. Market Street Railway is advocating for vintage double-end cars such as these to be a regular part of E-line service.
One-of-a-kind O’Farrell, Jones & Hyde cable car No. 42 also packed them in on the California Street line.
Market Street Railway and SFMTA representatives will evaluate the event in the next few weeks and look at how future events might be even better. Thanks to all the Muni operators, maintainers, and managers and the Market Street Railway volunteers who helped make this the big success it was.
