SAN FRANCISCO

INSET: THE BAY AREA (ONLY BART ROUTES ARE SHOWN)

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ROUTES

Operator: San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA)

STREETCAR ROUTES

CABLE CAR ROUTES

Operator: San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District

BART (SUBWAY) ROUTES

NB:(1) The letter codes B, G etc. used above for BART route designations are for convenience only, and are not used by the operator. (2) The H-Line running between Coliseum - Oakland International Airport is a fully-automated cable-driven line that operates on fixed guideways. (3) The Antioch - Pittsburg / Bay Point segment of the Y line, known as eBART, is diesel-operated and has no through-running with the rest of the Y line.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SYSTEM

NETWORK LENGTH

• Streetcar lines: 50 km.
• Cable car lines: 8 km.
• BART (Subway) lines: 175 km.; H-Line: 5.1 km.; eBART: 16.3 km.

HISTORY

• San Francisco streetcars: (horse-drawn) 4 July 1860 - 1882; (electric) 1892 - today.
• San Francisco cable-cars: 1 Sept. 1873 - today.
• BART (Subway): 11 Sept. 1972 - today; H-Line: 22 Nov. 1914 - today
• Key System (Interurbans): 26 Oct. 1903 - (Into San Francisco only from 15 Jan. 1939, following the opening of the Bay Street Bridge on 12 Nov. 1936) - 20 Apr. 1958.
• East Bay Electric Lines (Interurbans) (from Dec. 1938 Interurban Electric Railway (IER)): 1911 - July 1941
• Northern Electric Railroad (Interurbans) (from 1925 Sacramento Northern Railway): 1905 - 1941
• San Mateo Interurban: 27 Apr. 1892 - 15 Jan. 1949
• Oakland-Berkeley streetcars: (horse-drawn) 1869 - 1893; (electric) 1891 - 28 Nov. 1948
• Oakland cable-cars: 1886 - ?

GAUGE

• Streetcars: 1435 mm. (some early streetcar lines of the predecessors of the Key System in Oakland were 1067 mm. [3 1/2"])
• Cable-cars: 1067 mm.
• BART (Subway): 1676 mm.
• Interurbans: 1435 mm.

TRAM PRESERVATION

The San Francisco Railway Museum displays many relics of the streetcar and cable car history of the city. The Market Street Railway operates many historic streetcars over actual line F of the San Francisco streetcar system (Muni). The cable car system has its own museum at the Cable Car Museum at Washington and Mason.

The Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista Junction, Suisun City, about 40 miles (65 km.) north-east of San Francisco, has both restored heritage streetcars and interurbans in its collection, running them on museum tracks for visitors.

SOURCES

PRINT

• "Around San Francisco Bay", The Bulletin - National Railway Historical Society, 1970 (35: 2), p.10-52.
• "Balancing act on Fillmore", Inside Track, 2014 (No.1), p.7-10.
• Currington, B. "San Francisco Municipal Railway modernisation (Part 1)", Modern Tramway & Light Rail Transit, Oct. 1984 (47: 565), p.339-347.
• Currington, B. "San Francisco Municipal Railway modernisation (Part 3: Completion)", Modern Tramway & Light Rail Transit, Jan. 1985 (48: 568), p.16-24.
• Demoro, H.W. "A documented account of the conversion from rail service to motor bus bv the Key System", National Railway Bulletin, 1979 (44: 6), p.4 - 44.
• Dodge, J.W. et al. "Key System interurban lines", The Western Railroader, date ?, p.3-14.
• From shore to shore: The Key Route [San Francisco (?)]: Peralta Associates, 1948.
• "East Bay transit: Oakland-Berkeley streetcars, 1937-1948", The Western Railroader, May 1973 (36: issue 397), p.2-8.
• Laflin, A.H. (Jr) "A chronology of changes in San Francisco Street RY routes since 1944", Timepoints Special Reference Supplement No. 7, June 1953.
• Laubscher, R. On track - A field guide to San Francisco's historic streetcars & cable cars. Berkeley: Heyday, 2014.
• "Los Angeles and San Francisco", The Modern Tramway, Nov. 1949 (12: 143), p.221-224.
• Market Street Railway Co. [Timetable and route map]. San Francisco, May 1941.
• "Municipal Railway of San Francisco", The Western Railroader, Aug. 1961 (24: 8), p.2-12.
• Rice, W. "Andrew Smith Hallidie's cable legacy", Tramways & Urban Transit, Apr. 1999 (67: 736), p.136-139.
• Rice, W. "San Francisco rail is moving forward", Tramways & Urban Transit, Sept. 1998 (61: 729), p.336-339.
• Rice, W. & Echeverria, E. The Key System: San Francisco and the Eastshore Empire. Charleston (NC): Arcadia Publishing, 2007.
• "Richmond Shipyard Railway", The Western Railroader / The Western Railfan, Sept. 1981 (44: 491), p.1-8.
• Russell, M. "San Francisco's decade of achievement", Tramways & Urban Transit, Apr. 2010 (73: 868), p.156-157.
• Russell, M. "Waterfront torpedoes", Tramways & Urban Transit, Feb. 2017 (80: 950), p.76-77.
• "San Francisco Municipal Railway, 1950-1964", The Western Railroader, Jan. 1965 (28: 1), p.2-16.
• "San Francisco Municipal Railway - Merger of 1944", The Western Railroader, 1963 (26: ?), p.2-24.
• Sappers, V. Key System streetcars Berkeley: Signature Press, 2007.
• Simons, V. "San Francisco: Are Muni and BART running out of cash?", Tramways & Urban Transit, July 2023 (86: 1027), p.268-272.
• Smallwood, C. The White Front cars of San Francisco Glendale (CA): Interurbans, 1978
• Townley, R.P. San Francisco transit milestones Manuscript, 2005.
• Vielbaum, W., Hoffman, P., Ute, G. & Townley, R. San Francisco's Market Street Railway. Charleston (NC): Arcadia Publishing, 2004.
• Vielbaum, W., Townley, R., Rice, W., Echeverria, E. & Holmgren, D. San Francisco's interurban to San Mateo. Charleston (NC): Arcadia Publishing, 2005.

WIKIS

• BayArea Rapid Transit (BART)
• East Bay Electric Lines
• History of Bay Area Rapid Transit
• Key System
• List of defunct San Francisco Municipal Railway lines
• List of San Francisco Municipal Railway lines
• Market Street Railway (transit operator)
• Market Street Subway
• Muni Metro
• Sacramento Northern Railway
• San Francisco cable car system
• San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni)
• San Francisco Railway Museum
• Shipyard Railway
• Third Street Light Rail Project

WEB SITES

• AC Transit
• BART (San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit)
• Bay Area Rails: Then and now
• The Cable Car Home Page (by Joe Thompson)
• Market Street Railway
• Metropolitan Transportation Commission
• OB&E (Oakland Berkeley & Eastern)
• San Francisco Cable Car Website
• San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA)
• San Francisco Railway Museum

Special thanks to Bob Townley of Fairfield CA and to Alexander Rapp of Boston MA for their kind help in preparing these maps.

Copyright Gabor Sandi 1998-2024

Disclaimer: Everything on this site was written and/or prepared at the author's discretion. The author has tried to be accurate where facts are presented, but this does not mean that these facts are necessarily accurate. People needing more reliable information should refer to appropriate sources presented, on the Internet or elsewhere, by authoritative professional or academic bodies.

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