Muni Diaries

Photo: Courtesy Richard Brandi, Bernal Cut Southbound 1907. S-P Trainline, official publication of the Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society, Winter 2005. No. 82

This feels like some far-off land to me, but it’s San Francisco circa 1907.

At a recent Glen Park Neighborhood Association meeting, architectural historian and native San Franciscan Richard Brandi enlightened the group about this old train route on the south side of town. This Southern Pacific Railroad line connected San Francisco and San Jose. Part of the route went through Glen Park and the Mission District around Dolores and 28th. In the photo, this very prototypical train is zipping through the Bernal Cut: today’s San Jose Avenue.

From the neighborhood association write-up:

Brandi traced a fascinating journey along the old route, finding remnants and reminders of the tracks, with houses and other structures placed strategically and sometimes awkwardly to make way for the trains to pass.

With the rise of the auto and truck and the decline of the train, there were large lots of land vacated by the train car barns. This is where many of our present-day supermarkets are located, such as the Safeway on Mission near 30th Street.

Thanks, Beth, for sending this nifty glimpse of transit in the southeast parts of town.

Friend of Muni Diaries Nicole sent us this photo. We asked Flora Grubb for deets. Here’s what they slung:

Dave Marcoullier is the man behind the LRV carving. We have some in stock here at the store, available on request.

So there you have it. One more way to show your love of Muni and San Francisco, this time — home decor!

Photo by blarfiejandro

Market Street Railway is a favorite of ours — they help Muni restore and preserve its fleet of historic streetcars, they run a streetcar museum near the Ferry Building, and they publish a calendar each year with great images of those streetcars, among other things.

Recently elected MSR board member Jeremy asked us to pass this along: They’re looking for photos from the Muni-riding and -loving community for their 2013 calendar. Jeremy says:

2013 marks the beginning of Muni’s second century. The Market Street Railway’s annual Museum in Motion calendar is a very important part of our yearly activities. We would like to emphasize both its past and its future with fresh photographs of the vintage streetcars and cable cars in action. We’d like your help putting together our 2013 calendar.

Some specs to keep in mind if you’d like to contribute:

• Photos should be landscape (horizontally) oriented, in color, and at least 3,000 x 2,000 pixels.
• The calendar is in a “widescreen” format, so a traditional 35mm framing of a tight shot of a streetcar would be problematic.
• The format requires cropping top and/or bottom from a standard 4×3 format.
• Many people don’t post high-resolution versions to Flickr, but any photos submitted for publication should be available as camera original JPEG or RAW files without watermarks.

Head over to Market Street Railways’s blog for more information. And happy shooting!