Purgatory Station: Inside San Francisco's Vintage Streetcar Boneyard

[Bruce Wayne]

Amazing.

 

[Guttersnipe]

The F line and the J line both run historic streetcars of various types, painted in liveries from different eras and cities.

I like the streamlined PCC streetcars the best. Being that No. 1040 was specifically built for the San Francisco Municipal Railway ("MUNI") and is painted in vintage MUNI livery, it's my favorite!

Here's some others:

No. 1009

No. 1080 (Los Angeles livery)

No. 1062 (Louisville, KY livery}

The also run these 1920s Italian street cars on the F line:

 

[TomS]

Thanks for sharing... cool.

 

[p51]

My wife and I went to SF a few years back and we rode the PCC cars along the waterfront up to the mint downtown just for the heck of it. I wanted to ride the one painted for the Pacific Electric RR but never managed to hop a ride when that one was around.

 

[David Conwill]

I'd love to ride on any PCC, but especially a DSR liveried one. Too bad all of Detroit's originals were destroyed in an earthquake, otherwise I'll bet at least one would be plying the lines of Frisco.

 

[Swing Motorman]

Since David brought up other cities' streetcars and preservation/lack thereof, I'd like to share a fascinating (for street railway preservationists, at least) link. This is a database of ALL* preserved, lingering-under-a-barn, restored, or rusting-in-a-field electric railway cars in North America. Just select Detroit's transit companies from the second list to find...

there ARE* two preserved Detroit PCCs, including this one in Michigan!

http://www.bera.org/pnaerc.html

* Of course, we're limited by not looking everywhere, and by preserved or lingering cars going to scrap more often than diehard fans are comfortable with.


But back on topic, words don't suffice for how much San Fransisco MUNI's efforts mean to my friends around the trolley museums. If those run-down pieces in the "boneyard" could be in any city in the world hoping to get restored, they ended up in arguably the best one!


-Steven

 

[David Conwill]

Wow, that's great news, SM! Thanks for pointing that out to me.

 

[Swing Motorman]

Was news to me, too, I'd never looked into Detroit PCCs. You've got a healthy selection of Detroit's pre-PCC types to go visit, too. History is everywhere!


-Steven

 

[Enough]

That's neat. I'll have to put that on my list to see along with the vintage neon bone yard in Las Vegas.