The “Hyde Ride”- which we’ve started describing as “the perfect cable car cocktail” – will feature the two most historic cable cars in coming days. On Friday, July 5, Sacramento-Clay Cable Car “Big 19” will do the honors. It’s 8 feet longer than the single-end Powell cars that serve Hyde every day, and older than any of them as well. originally built to run on Market and Haight streets in 1883.
Saturday, July 6, O’Farrell, Jones & Hyde Cable Car 42, makes its only July appearance on a portion of the line it served from 1907 to 1954 (when the cable car system was hugely downsized). Check out Car 42’s beautiful hand-painted lettering and detailing, applied by our volunteer, the late Fred Bennett, when we cosmetically restored the car after acquiring it back for Muni.
The weather will be great, so come out for the Hyde Ride those days. Besides the extra special cars, we call the Hyde Ryde the “perfect cable car cocktail” because a single 30-minute roundtrip from the Powell-Hyde line terminal at Aquatic Park treats riders to the steepest hill in the system-in both directions-with stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz, Coit Tower, the Lombard “Crooked” street (not “Crookedest”, IYKYK), the tree-lined section of Hyde through Russian Hill, and narrow residential Washington and Jackson Streets (“pull yourselves in; watch out for that truck’s mirror”) with streetscapes virtually identical to those “Big 19” ran every day from 1907 to 1942 just uphill along Sacramento and Clay.
All this plus Chinatown, where the car turns back at Powell and Washington. Stay on the car and pay just one $8 fare. Or, better yet, buy Muni’s great 1-day passport at Hyde and Beach for just $13, and take as many Muni rides as you like all day: cable cars, F-line historic streetcars, the 39-Coit bus up Telegraph Hill, the N-line to Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach, the 25-line to Treasure Island (hint: take the 10-minute ferry ride back to the Ferry Building); the list goes on.
Vintage Streetcar Sunday with Museum Open
Sunday and Monday, treat yourself to a vintage streetcar ride from the Ferry Building to the Wharf Area. It won’t be Blackpool Boat Tram 233, not yet, though Muni assures us its debut will be very soon. Each day, a 1928 tram from a city starting with “M” will be on the northern Embarcadero from 10:30-5.
Yes, M for mystery, but it’ll be either Melbourne 496 or a Milan tram. And on Sunday, our Museum will be open, as our summer schedule kicks in. If you stop by and ask for it, we’ll give you a FREE fine art poster by the noted artist John Wullbrandt, created for us 30 years ago to celebrate the second Trolley Festival. It features a Boatload of famous San Franciscans, with a key to who’s who on the back. We’ll be open Sunday 12-5, with our summer schedule now having the museum open Tuesdays-Sundays 12-5.
Take advantage of this weather; come to town and enjoy everything the City has to offer!
Thanks for the information.
Visitors travel to the city for many reasons, Fireworks, sure, assuming the fog stays west of the GG bridge. Tourists like seeing the city, streetcars, cable cars, museums. They could have run the streetcars until the evening and then put busses on. WHO would Go Anywhere to ride a BUS? Maybe if they ran “old Busses. Used to be the City that knew how, these days, .. Yes, and everyone is a critic. Enjoy the fourth, rumbling down the Embarkedero on the cobblestones, “Clean Diesel Fumes” LOL. It could be worse, they could just stop having fun.
great to see, we keep it real and moving thanks Rick for the spirit of our moving history.