Check out these amazing photos of Muni ruins
Todd Lappin of Bernalwood photographed an amazing series of transit ruins at Muni’s Marin Division Yard. These defunct streetcars are either waiting for restoration or to be taken apart piecemeal to restore other vehicles active in the fleet, Todd writes in his Medium story. The images are spooky and stunning, and you should definitely venture over to his photo story to see more.
t/t: the ever-wonderful CurbedSF.
The top picture has Car 1039 (last ran in 1982) and some old cable car wheels. The bottom pictures looks like a pair of 1100s and Hamburg 3357 (the first Trolley Festival car). All awaiting either restoration or salvaging for parts.
The pictures remind me of a Youtube video by AbandonedSteve who visited a property with many decaying streetcars, bought by a man with dreams of restoring them, but, it seems no money or time to do it. At least here, the cars have a chance at new life.
At least Marin Yard is protected by a fence and guards, the old Pier 70 facility wasn’t protected and many cars were vandalized.
If anything, Muni should allocate $ within the next few years to restore as many of the trolleys in Marin Yard as they can(such as the red Hamburg tram made in 1954, the Osaka tram made in 1927 which wasn’t pictured along with a good amount of the old Muni PCCs). That way, the F line will finally have more consistent trolley service and Muni won’t have to use diesel buses on the F line anymore.
@kieren the reason for busses on the F-line is that SFMTA is short staffed and if there aren’t enough streetcar operators available they have pull in busses.
@kieren your wish has already been granted; the SFMTA has spent many years and several million dollars building up the historic fleet for the crowds and the start of E-Embarcadero service next spring. In the last several years there’s been:
– 16 PCCs (including no. 1040 which Todd featured in his post)
– Muni’s first streetcar (No. 1 was rebuilt in time for it’s 100th in 2012)
– A second gen Muni’s streetcar (no. 162, which is out for repair after an accident)
– Victoria, Australia paid for the restoration of the existing Melbourne tram and donated a second (there wasn’t money set aside anywhere to convert it to US standards, so it’s going slowly as they find the time, the Austrialians also donated a “parts car” to be stripped for whatever’s needed as pieces break and wear out)\
– Market Street donated a second boat tram in working order that will be out next summer.
If folks really want to help get these streetcars restored, you can donate to the Market Street Railway. They do a lot of the details – like buying paint – that let Muni go above and beyond. They also keep a roster of the entire fleet, including some details about what’s in good enough shape to be restored and what’s not:
http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/roster.html