 Okay, welcome to the San Francisco cable car a conversation with Taryn Edwards, and Rick lobster. My name is miles Cooper, I'm one of the librarians at mechanics Institute. And for those of you who are not familiar with mechanics, we're an independent membership organization. We have a beautiful library with great books, and we're the oldest library in California designed to serve the public. We also have many events author talks, we are a cultural event center, and we have a world renowned chess club. We have virtual events you're attending one now thank you for joining us. If you're live or watching this on YouTube. We also have in person events right now we have a Tuesday night marathon for all of you chess players you can join us wearing a mask and play a rated game. So membership of mechanics is only $120 you get a lot of for your money. So please join or renew your membership we appreciate that. Okay. Without further ado, I'm going to pass the mic over to Matthew Felix who's an author, podcaster and speaker, and the host of the San Francisco writers conference podcast and actually before I do that if you have questions. You can type them in the chat, and we will try to get to those at the end of our presentation. So welcome and Matthew. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, everyone for being here tonight so we're really excited today obviously it's a big day for the cable car. So thanks for being with us tonight to celebrate that. And I'm going to be in conversation with two people who know a lot more about the cable car than I do. Starting with Taryn Edwards, Taryn you probably already know if you've attended other mechanics Institute events. Taryn is a historian and librarian here at the mechanics Institute. The research interests include San Francisco's early libraries, industrial exhibitions and fairs mechanics institutes worldwide, and the technology technological innovations that were born here and continue to be born here in the Bay Area. She also happens to be very interested in the life of Andrew Smith, Hallity, and she shares her research on him on her blog, which you can find at Tara, Taryn Edwin's Tara. And Taryn Edwards calm. Big lobster is a fourth generation San Franciscan, a former journalist and a civic leader who currently serves as board chair of the Union Square Foundation, and as president and CEO of the Market Street Railway, which is an independent nonprofit group, focused on preserving transit in San Francisco. He's also author of on track, a field guide to San Francisco's historic streetcars and cable cars. Welcome, Taryn and Rick. Thank you. Let's start off with the man behind the cable car the man to whom the cable car is attributed I'm going to start with you Taryn since that again as I mentioned in the bio is an area of particular interest to you, Andrew Smith, Hallity. So without getting into his role related to the cable car which obviously we're going to talk about at length momentarily. Can you just give us an idea of who he was who the man was. Absolutely. Andrew Smith holiday, Mr holiday as I call him at Mechanics Institute. He was one of the most extraordinary people that I have never met his life. His life was crammed with invention, near death experiences, selfless service to civic causes that he cared about. He was a tireless supporter of San Francisco's industrial and educational interests. He was a firm believer in women's educational rights and a champion of working class children. And on top of that, he was until the end of his life in 1900 he was California's premier wire rope manufacturer. And thus, he was the, some people say he was the inventor I like to say he was the father of San Francisco's game changing means of transportation. Okay, but more importantly, hold on, more importantly, he was involved with San Francisco's libraries with the University of California with the Mechanics Institute was a really well rounded person. Sounds like it. And he wasn't born in the States, if I'm not mistaken. No, he was born in London in 1834. And how did he end up coming to the States and end up specifically in San Francisco. Well, his father who was an inventor himself suffered some bankruptcies during the gold rush, and in 1852 decided to take advantage of some opportunities that came his way and bring himself and his two sons to California. And they ended up in the Mariposa mining area. And how did that go for them. Not very well things did not pan out. Unintended pun intended pun intended. Okay, so things didn't pan out. And then what happened to father and son at that point. Father decided to go back home and, and publish a book. So many of us do, but he left his teenage son, Andrew alone in the, in the mining area in the in the Sierras and Andrew bounced around for a few different years, a few years doing various things before landing in San Francisco and starting his own wire rope manufacturing business in 1857. Okay. And so we're going to talk about the wire rope manufacturing obviously because that was fundamental or is fundamental to the cable car. But you mentioned he was very, very involved at the civic level and in society. How was he involved specifically I don't think you mentioned this just now specific to the mechanics Institute he had a very close relationship with the mechanics Institute. Can you tell us a little bit more about that if you didn't already I don't think you mentioned this. Well, he was involved with mechanics for about 40 years of his life, 14 of which he served as president. And it's not why you call him Mr. Hallity. Out of respect for his, for his service or does that come from someplace else. You know, in the 19th century, you hardly ever referred to someone by their first name. See, even if you are married. Mrs. Halliday would always say, well, Mr. Halliday will be home soon. Interesting. And so you just kind of you just kind of carried that forth as you've developed your research to him and learn more about him. Exactly. You almost never see him referred to as Andrew. It's always Mr. Halliday so I just. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Interesting. What are some other positions because he I think he ran for mayor. Can you just give us an example or a few more examples of how involved he was in society because it was it was very impressive. He was on several boards and commissions, he ran for mayor, he ran for Senate, he founded the San Francisco Public Library. More importantly, he was the, the impetus and the vision behind garnering public funding for libraries at the state level. He also draft the actual law that provided public funding for libraries in 1878. It's called the Rogers Free Library Act. But believe me, Mr. Halliday was dreaming it three, four or five years earlier. And it's named for his partner in crime, Senator George Rogers. Okay. So he really he was really a supporter of learning and public learning learning learning for the public it sounds like throughout his life. He was actually useful knowledge, he was very concerned about people learning a skill that would help them succeed in life. So he wasn't so much interested in a, I mean he was interested in a broad liberal arts education, but he, his main interest was industrial vocational and mechanical training. Okay, interesting. So, so let's go back to some mechanical training or some mechanical skills that he had that again, you mentioned the wire rope, the cable. Can you, and that came of his experience while he was actually involved in mining. So can you tell us a little bit more about how him being a minor led to development of that, of that wire rope. Well wire rope came to him since birth. I mean his father was the first person in the English speaking world to patent the concept of wire rope. And he did that in, in January of 1835. And so, how it is father would spend, you know the next 20 years perfecting this technology, as would holiday's older brothers, and holiday himself in the United States. So, so yes, holiday started a wire rope manufacturing business in 1857 but really he learned it his father's knee how to make it. Interesting. Now Rick, can you tell us a little bit about, I don't know I'm curious is the wire rope or the cable that we use today is that the same as what we started with when Andrew holiday. We started the cable car and developed the cable car has it changed and what, and what do we mean by wire rope, a little more specifically. Well, wire rope is the same thing as cable. Okay. And how they use wire rope as as Sharon pointed out he was the leading manufacturer of it. And it was used in had a lot of application in mining work to carry aerial buckets of or or tailings above the ground. How he saw an opportunity to extend his brand, if you will, or extend the use of his product. It's pretty much made the same way. If I remember correctly, there's a core of sizel or other very durable fiber plant fiber that is surrounded by strands of little wires that are bundled into braided wire. The whole thing is is very strong and it's very heavy. Go ahead. Yeah, no I was just going to say that it was just really interesting to me when I was preparing for today and that's why I asked the question and you got it right by the way sorry if I threw you a trick question there but you got it right. And so far as how the wire or the cable rather is actually pretty complicated it's not just a piece of, you know, a couple pieces of metal kind of twisted together which was really interesting to me. I'm going to cheat and defer to that infallible source that we know as Wikipedia. So we had to take this with a little bit of grain assault but this seems in you can correct me if if what I read sounds up sounds off but it seems legit. Quote, each cable is 1.25 inches or 3.2 centimeters in diameter, running at a constant speed of 9.5 miles per hour and driven by a 510 horsepower electric motor located in the central powerhouse. Each cable and this is what you were just talking about that I found so interesting. Each cable has six steel strands with each strand containing 19 wires wrapped around as you just said a size rope core to allow for easier gripping. And then it says to protect the cable, each one is coated with a tar like material which serves as a sacrificial lubricant. I love that term, much like a pencil eraser roads away rather than than paper. So, so yeah I just thought it was interesting you know we might just see this cable and just think it's a bunch of metal sort of twisted together or whatever but there's a lot there's a lot going on there each strand has 19 wires so I just thought that was that that was fascinating. Yeah, and just so you know, the cable, the cable car shops and operators and everyone else always referred to it as the rope. It's never referred to it to cable. And that's why I wasn't sure because we call it wire rope, but then I'm glad you clarified I didn't know if cable and wire rope was the same thing or why do they refer to it as such. And when you look at the pavement markings the operators. They know this by heart but on the pavement in front of the car between the rails is a series of messages in yellow paint telling the operators what to do. If, for example, there's a double X. That means mandatory stop you must stop you can't roll through that. If there is a saying that says let go. That means you must drop the cable because the cable under the streets about to turn in another direction underground to go back to the cable barn for for winding. Or when you cross the other cable line at Powell in California Street. If you don't do that. There is a, these are all 19th century devices with 20th century 21st century monitoring capabilities with alarms and things like that. There's a bumper bar they call it that forces the cable out of the grip, so that the cable so that the grip will not cut the crossing cable in half, right, or, or anything like that and and that is a very interesting, very interesting arrangement. We're going to talk more about the grip and the brakes as well because like you said the technology is is fascinating in addition to the to the wire rope that the grip and the breaking is fascinating we're going to talk about that in in a little bit. But Taryn, let's let's move away from the technology just just momentarily and let's talk about because now we've established how we got kind of the main piece which is is the wire rope or the cable. Tell us about I know that as you've been doing your research, you've you've touched on how there's there's a lot of mythology surrounding both and Mr. Mr. Halady as I'm going to try to remember to refer to him now. Mr. Halady, and, and how the cable car came to be. Now it seems as if there is one story that seems to have, we seem to have settled on as whether it's urban myth, or whether it's not, we seem to have settled on it's sort of the definitive how Halady came to sort of decide wait I need to get the idea and decide to implement the cable car. Can you tell us what that what that story is. Yes. They claimed in a, in a later statement about the, how the idea of the cable car came to him. He claimed that one winter evening, he witnessed a terrific horse car accident where a horse car basically careened down the hillside and the horses were mutilated and he said that is why I decided to do something about it and put my thinking cap on, in order to solve that problem of accidents on the transit system for San Francisco transit system. But I really think that that is a wonderful story and surely he saw horse car accidents as did everyone who was alive at that time, but the reality is that using cable using wire rope for transit purposes, had been on Halady's mind, since birth practically, because of experiments that his father was doing on the black wall railway which was an early cable drawn railroad in London. He also was involved with using cable drawn steam plows and mining elevators, and all kinds of exciting applications of wire rope with to use to move people and things basically, and how they himself had his holiday tramway, which was an elevated vehicle that moved or across the countryside. And that is very much like a modern day ski lift, but and the, the notion of it can easily translate to an underground cable system which is what the cable car is today. So not such a big jump and, and maybe the horse accident like you said he saw them but whether or not that was actually the definitive moment that the aha moment for him. We'll never know. But what we do know is that he did have the idea, whenever and however he had the idea, but then something else that I learned and preparing for today that was really interesting to me was the city didn't just pay for it, he had to come up with the money himself. Can you tell us how he went about that and how his, his, his attempts to do so were received by the public. Yes, well, holiday at that time in the 1869 1870 and earlier than that actually, when he was thinking about how to apply his, his endless wire ropeway concept to the streets of San Francisco. He was president of the Mechanics Institute at that time, and his fellow board members were friends, and more importantly bankers. That helps. Yeah, and so, you know, two gentlemen that he knew Joseph Britain, which was a lefager, he was a lefager for he made maps and other pieces of art. He and Henry Davis, who was sheriff, a sheriff of San Francisco. They, Mr Davis also happened to be the president of the National Gold Bank and trust. And together, these three guys, they got together and convinced other people. It was Moffitt, who was a paper manufacturer and also a banker to, you know, gather together gather their funds and, and help get the funding for the cable cars research and development. Of course, they couldn't, you know, it's very, very, very expensive endeavor. And so holiday had to put a great deal of his own money to front the project. And it cost over $40,000 which I don't know what that would cost today but well as luck would have it. As luck would have it, I did do a little conversion because you said in the research that you shared with me that $40,000 came from him, but that there was another $60,000 from from all those bankers and things so that it ended up being closer maybe to $100,000 which to in today's money would be over $2 million, which I thought was again, really interesting. It sounds reasonable. It sounds reasonable, right for a for a for a cable car, the first, the world's first cable car line. So it, so it started operating and that was called again the clay street hill railroad it opened today in 1873. And as we know today of course like we said in the beginning, the reason we're doing this today is because we just got to reopen our own got to reopen the cable cars. And if you have a question, I don't know. And this again is from Wikipedia, because my research is impeccable like yours, Karen. But I'm going to read a quote here, and I'm going to ask both you and Rick your opinions on this so the first successful cable car was clay street hill railroad which opened today the promoter of the line was holiday, and the engineer was William Michael Schimer accounts differ as to the precise degree of holidays involvement in the inception of the line and to the exact date on which it first ran. Now Rick, on your site. What is it street streetcar.org. No, is that right. Yeah, streetcar.org right streetcar.org. You do attribute the invention of the cable car to holiday so are you it sounds as if you're fairly confident that despite what this is kind of there's a little doubt, you feel pretty confident that he deserves the credit for the invention of the cable car. Well, yes and no. I mean I concur with Tehran that you know this this was not one person's invention. It was an iterative process that created, you know, a new technology, the cable had been used in use before for other uses and the concept was pretty simple. Apple Simmer's contribution was considerable. In fact, the grips that are used on the city's cable cars today were invented, definitely invented by apple Simmer, not by, not by hality who's, who's grips on the original clay cars were pretty, pretty primitive. I don't know whether hality engine engineered those himself. It's not clear to me. He engineered them himself but as with all inventions he was improving upon someone else's patent, namely the man named Fowler who made a steamplow in England and holiday when discussing his own grip says I am basically improving upon Fowler's grip. And like I said we're going to talk about grips in a second, but Tehran, can you tell us about there's another urban legend myths that again this one I also discovered in your in your research about that first day about that first run of the cable cars and about some hesitation that someone had it right at that that moment when they were supposed to launch can you share that story with us. Hality owned a franchise to build a railway. I won't tell you what the exact streets because it's there are so many and it's complicated and five minutes of that is very boring, but don't tell us we don't want to hear it then. Construction construction began on the line in June of 1873 with an August 1 deadline, but you know things take a long time to build, and even though everyone was pushing to get it done. Midnight past, but they were almost ready and just past midnight which is technically the next day August 2. So there's started up that they started up the steam engines and that, I believe was the Leavenworth and clay powerhouse at that time. So they're at the top of Clay Street Hill it's 5am. There's a small party of engineers ready to ride down the hill, and the grip man, the story goes. He was an old locomotive engineer so used to driving on the flat. He looked down the steep hill of Clay Street and lost his nerve. And holiday, he was completely confident in his invention he said, thanks I'll take over. He jumps in he takes hold of the grip. So using the grip he picks up the cable that was running down the slot in the street, and he took the car straight down its first descent down Clay Street through the fog. What a hero. What are you well you know the people at the top of the hill were like, we don't hear anything. So holidays meanwhile is going down. And when the car reached the bottom, it spun around on a turntable just like just like we use today, and he pulled it back up the summit of Clay Street. And of course, you know he's comes up through the fog, and everyone was delighted and of course it was a success but it was actually August 2. But the city, you know they were thrilled. And so they didn't really, you know, call him on that. Well, I'm glad they were so forgiving. So Rick something else that was really interesting to me that I did not know is so we have that first line, which again was the Clay Street Hill Railroad. If I'm saying that yeah Clay Street Hill Railroad. And so I think today if we built a line on some sort of public transportation although I guess it wasn't entirely public but we would probably just build out from that initial line but that there are many lines that were followed scattered all over the city. There was a Sutter Street Railway the California Street cable railroad and others, but they were all built independently. Can you tell us a little bit about how that happened and why that happened. Sure. In those days, all transit lines were built by private enterprise financed by bankers expecting to make profits off of the nickel fare, which is what it costs to ride. And San Francisco was no different than the eastern cities that that had horse car lines, and then later adopted cable car technology, and then later electric street cars after that. And it was all based on what I describe as renting the street. You paid the city the municipality for a, in essence, a license to operate your vehicles in their street in the public right of way, and you had an exclusive right for that, that stretch of street. And it cost you money. That was part of the cost of doing business. No municipality had the wherewithal or really the desire to operate public transit systems until early in the 20th century when a couple small cities did it. And then San Francisco started the municipal railway in 1912 in reaction largely to corruption on the part of this conglomerate called United Railroads, which had taken over many of these little private companies that you describe. In the 1860s, 70s and 80s, right. And they bribed the entire board of supervisors, for example, and the mayor to allow them to string overhead wires on Market Street immediately after the 1906 earthquake and fire, so that they could convert the operation from cable cars to much faster and larger street cars. Right. So let's, let's take a step back though, let's put the brakes on for a second. And let's I'm just curious, Rick, your thoughts on, so as this, as this, this network is expanding even though it's different lines but but there's still a network that's expanding throughout the city so how did that change the city, how did that change its character and and its development, having this this new network of transportation. No, it changed tremendously. Before Paladins cable car and then the construction, a few years later at the California Street cable railroad company by Leon Stanford and others. The big fancy part of town was South Park on Third Street, about six, five blocks south of Market Street because it was flat to get there. You know, Nob Hill was at great views and all that stuff but it was very difficult to get up. And so it really changed the direction of development in the city from North South, you know, in the immediate what we now call soma to East West out of the series of streets that carried you to what we now call Richmond District through the Western Edition. Interesting. Interesting. Taryn anything to add there I mean because I'm sure we could just spend just an hour talking about how how the cable car affected development but any sort of high level things to add about that. I don't know about high level but you know on the flats, good nuggets. You know the, as, as the city developed as industry developed and more things started to be made locally, you know factories were right next to the fancy neighborhoods or even just working class neighborhoods and the smells of, you know, smells, you know, the downtown flat area what we call downtown now south of south of Market. South of the slot as they say, you know it was full of factories and really not a place for people to live after the silver rush so 1870s 1880s, you wouldn't be caught dead loving there it was dirty and nasty. And the cable cars change that cable car that enable people to live elsewhere further further afield right right. Okay, so we've mentioned a few times the grip is obviously very important to how the cable car works so Rick, can you, can you tell those of us who don't know who are familiar. First of all, what is the grip we've like I said we've mentioned it a few times and how does it work because it is interesting technology. It's very simple technology, the cable cars you point out runs at a constant nine and a half miles an hour under the street. And it's directly below a slot in between the two rails that carry the wheels of the cable car. Everybody's seeing the way the cable car tracks look the grip slips right through the middle of that slot. And, and you, you put the grip in there when you leave the cable car bar. You have an open pit and then the grip slides right into the beginning of that slot and it stays in there for the whole day, unless it has to be removed a very few locations because it wears out or something goes wrong. Grip basically works like a giant pair of pliers. When the grip man, and they are almost all men there are now a couple of female grips in history and so I guess I should say grips. When the gripper pulls back on the lever that is the grip lever, the dies, which are big pieces of rather soft metal clothes around the cable, just like a pair of pliers would close, you know, and they hold it tight, as long as the grip is in a certain position. There are a lot of times when you don't want the cable fully gripped for example when you have to stop at each corner. So what happens then is you, you release the grip about halfway, and then the cable it's like a little hole in the pair of pliers. The cable is still encircled by the grip, but it can run freely in between. It's a very simple system. Right, but releasing the grip isn't enough to stop completely. So how does it stop? How do the cable cars stop? It sounds like there are three ways they might stop. There's three sets of brakes, and they're again, they're all mechanical. The first are the wheel brakes, which are simply pieces of metal that are used to rub up against the outside of the wheels and slow them down. And that metal also tends to be a little softer composition, because if it were too hard, it wouldn't work as well. And then you have the track brakes, which are pieces of cedar or pine. They've used both over time that are pre-cut by Muni today in their wood shop, and they're made by the thousands literally, and they are put between the wheels in a spring-loaded device so that when you either step on the foot pedal or turn the crank for, you know, you are pressing the wood against the rail. And that is something that gives you the characteristic smell when you are, you know, when the cable car is slowing down. Right. The final one is called the emergency brake, and it's just what it says over the slot brake. And that is, that's kind of a last resort thing. There's a red lever in the front of every cable car, and it simply releases a piece of metal designed and sized to go into the slot and stay there, like a guillotine. And that stops the cable car right now. And so you don't use it, except in extreme emergency, because in some cases, if the car's going downtown, downhill, and all the other brakes have failed, if you pull the slot blade, as they call it, you can actually take the car off its wheelset. Thanks. So this all sounds really physical. The grip and the brake, it sounds very physical. So is that safe to assume that the job of the grip woman or the grip man is pretty physical? It's extremely physical. Yeah. Anybody who's tried it knows, you know, that it's not something to trifle with, but it's also an art. It's not just brute strength. There are techniques involved to it, which, which grips who are really experienced and expert will, you know, know how to do to relieve the strain, specifically on your back. You know, your back and your shoulders are the two that things that, you know, really get a workout. Right, right. So let's go back to, to the history. So that's kind of how the cable car came to be and some of the technology related to the cable car, the fundamental pieces of technology. Again, according to Wikipedia, I read that we ended up with 23 cable car lines at one point, whether that's somewhere, you know, more than 20 lines, we now have three. What were some of the factors that led to the decline of the cable car? The biggest one was the electric straight car. Cable cars, when they were perfected, were not only usable on hills, but they were twice as fast on flat ground like Market Street than the horse cars they replaced. And maintaining horses was extremely expensive. Despite Halliday's story about the abuse of horses, you know, and all that sort of stuff, which inspired him. Railway companies had every incentive to take good care of their, of their horses and their service lives were not very long. And, you know, it costs a lot to feed them. So it would take something to justify this huge capital investment and it was very sizable in all this underground paraphernalia that made a cable system work with horses at least all you needed was two rails. You know, and, and so the technology because of its efficacy and its greater speed than with the dominant public transport of the time, which were horse-drawn streetcars, spread very quickly. Cable cars were soon introduced in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sydney, Australia, London, Paris. I mean, it was amazing. And just like that, they were eclipsed by the invention or perfection, I should say, in 1887 by Frank Sprague in Richmond, Virginia of the electric streetcar, which in turn was twice as fast as the cable car and did not require all the comprehensive underground installations. So most of these surface, most of these flatline cable cars in San Francisco and elsewhere disappeared very quickly as soon as their owners could convert them to electric streetcars. Makes sense. So, Taren, this might be a trick question because I don't know if there's actually if we, if it's something we can actually answer definitively. So if not, just it's okay. But can we trace, I mean, because obviously, you know, well, can we trace the point in history more or less where we went from perceiving and seeing cable cars as basically a mode of transportation to them becoming sort of an iconic part of, of our city's identity, or is it just something that maybe happened over time and, I mean, as a historian, is there any do we have a sense of kind of when and how that happened or was it just so gradual. It's kind of hard to say. Well, I would say, you know, the, the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed a lot of the cable cars and the lines and of course that was an opportunity for people to convert to electric railways. But some of the lines survived. And I think that after 1906, when the city was kind of rebuilt partially still but I think people started to become more concerned and more interested in things that make San Francisco quintessential. What is the essential thing and certainly in the 1940s and 1950s, there was kind of a revival of interest in the cable car in fact to coffee table style books came out one by Edgar Myron Khan who was a railroad enthusiast, and the other by Lucius Bebe and he was kind of a writer and a kind of humorous thinker. I'm sure he did other things I just don't recall what he did but you know they both published books about how wonderful the cable car is. So I think, and certainly when these books were published. There just was a sense of isn't San Francisco great. Isn't it wonderful, all the things that we love about San Francisco martinis and cable cars one of those things. I love that that's interesting I didn't know about those two books and how they might have played a role in that that's interesting. Rick, in more simple terms, why do we love cable cars. We love cable towers. You know, they they they fit into the set they're unique to San Francisco now. There are, you know, people say well this there's a cable car here there those are technically different things. Yeah, and there's certainly no system that's it's extensive. Sorry. Take that. If you need to take that we can wait. I turned off my phone. I don't know what happened. Technology, technology can't love it can't can't live with it can't live without it. Anyway, you were saying it's ours, the cable car. There are, there are, there are are uniquely ours and there is a mythology around them or not mythology but a nostalgic thing that a baby and his his partner Charles Clegg in their book and also Edgar con did really kind of heat up in the 1940s. And that caught the attention of Friedel Kussman, who I assume we may talk about here, a woman who was very active in garden clubs and other things at a time when women were not allowed really in society to have responsible, responsible governmental leadership positions or even civic leadership positions other than women's positions and Friedel, who I got to know very well in her later years, and her associates in the garden club of San Francisco and other places said, they were devotees of cons book they knew the romance of the cable car and the stories of a San Francisco that even then was bygone. The day when the cable car conductor would stop the and gripman would stop the cable car in the middle of the block to let you off at your home. And that you know the gentler kindlers kinder San Francisco and her cane, who was at that time a very prominent columnist with a chronicle started to amplify that you know it was it was something that was just ours. The cable cars were kept safe until 1944 because the franchise to operate them belong to a company called Market Street Railway for which our nonprofit is named. 1944 muni took over Market Street Railway and inherit these cable cars that, frankly, their management didn't want and neither did the city, because they cost the city money they were losing money at muni at the time was supposed to make a profit believe it or and so a shipping magnate son of a shipping magnate from the east coast a man named Roger Lapham, who was the mayor and coincidentally was the grandfather of loose lapham later longtime editor partners but I digress. Roger Lapham as mayor said I'm going to modernize the city these things are junk we're going to get rid of them they're they're they're relics. And Friedel said no, no, we're not going to do that. And in a ballot measure that she got put on the ballot night November 1947 she handed the mayor his head metaphorically. And so that, you know that's kind of further burnished. Yes, the image of the cable cars in San Francisco. We are running out of time. So I'm just going to ask a couple quick questions and then because I do want to leave time for Q amp a like Miles said at the beginning. And I'm sure people have lots of questions. But so let's just let's fast forward now to to now to coven the cable cars got shut down last March, they got reopened again today. Something I read in the LA Times said that Jeff Tumlin director of the San Francisco MTA cautioned that the system would still be in testing mode in August and writers should expect delays. So I was I was kind of surprised to that not that, not that we would expect delays but just this idea that I guess we can't just flip a switch I mean because we have had the cable cars and operation for more than 100 years. I'll just very briefly because like I said we are out of time. Can you just give us a high level sense of what's involved in getting them operating again because it's clearly like I said it's we're not just flipping a switch there's obviously more involved. There are people who will, I mean, we could debate about this for a long time but the short answer is, there are those inside the cable car system who think the system could have been brought back in a shorter time frame. It was, but I can certainly understand the top management's caution and you know desired to set expectations at a low level. I can tell you that this morning I rode the cable car with the mayor that inaugurated the service but even before the mayor's cable car came downtown. People were climbing on the cars at 930 this morning and having a great time and I'm not aware of any problems at all on the line today. So we'll see how that goes but I, I think they're back. So maybe it's just more about allowing for the possibility of anything since they haven't been operating for a while but it's not as if there's a necessarily a tremendous amount of testing that has to take place like you said you were on one today and other people were climbing all over them so so that's, that's good news and also good news I read that for the month of August the cable cars are free. You guys didn't know that yeah so that's that's also good news because I think what are they is that $8 $10 normally I can't remember what the eight dollars eight dollars with no discounts. Right. And that's that and no children's fairs and you know that means that a family of four, going to the wharf and back on the cable cars will have to pay $64. The same trip on the F line street cars historic street cars, but going around on waterfront will cost you $12. So that that's a very big dichotomy and we'll have to see how that impacts things. Yeah, yeah. All right, I have more questions but we are out of time, 10. Thank you very much so that we can again, like I said open it up to Q&A. Thank you, Taren for for bringing your historical perspective and your research and let me just remind people that more about your research into specifically into Andrew or Mr. Hallity can be found at Taren Edwards calm, and then also for more about Rick and his work, check out his book on track a field guide to San Francisco historic street cars and cable cars, and the market street railways site is at street car.org. And now we will open it up to questions. Thanks. Matthew, are you going to read the questions or as miles. I see I've got my chat window open I don't know miles have you been standing or so we just start going. It looks like people were interested in illustrations and pictures of any of you have those on your computer we could screen share and show those but we might have to do some research before we do something like that. Maybe we can host it if people are interested we can host a like another event with pictures about you know the backstory of the cable car and maybe Rick will come on. Also, and talk about the market street railway. Let me let me see while we take a question let me just see if I have a couple of shots on here that I that could be helpful. But by the way, I would suggest to anybody who wants to see a fabulous archive of early cable car shots and other things. Go to SFM TA that's munis parent SFM TA.com slash photo. That's their photo archive and it is fabulous. I have scanned a number of glass plates of cable car photos from the days of the old United Railroads, and they are amazing. The fidelity and the detail. I found some questions here Paul asks, why 9.5 miles per hour was a faster cable speed ever considered cable car speeds. Parts of the system farther out, like the section on Fulton Street actually operated at quicker speeds I think the fastest I know of for one stretch was 13 miles an hour. But I think the reason was safety at the time because you were operating at a bunch of among horses and wagons and other things. If you take a look at that famous movie a trip down Market Street in 1906 taken just four days before the earthquake by the Miles Brothers. The camera was actually bolted to the front of a street car, going down Market Street at 9.5 miles an hour, and you can see pedestrians horses wagons dodging to stay out of the way at that speed so my presumption is, it was a safety thing. Hmm. Great. And let's see Gray asks, Karen, was Mr. Hallity, a founder of the SFS. SPCA. Yes, he was a founding member of the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, but Mr. Hallity was also on about 10 other boards at any given time in his life. I don't think he ever went home to dinner until late, because he was must have had something going on every night of his life. So yes, he was a founder of the SPCA. I know he personally did love animals, but I know he was not on the board of that organization for very long. So sometimes people make the connection between the cable car and the SPCA. And I wish I could find a direct connection but I think it's just a coincidence because he also was on all kinds of other boards as well. Thank you. And Margaret asks, are cable cars the only national landmark that moves. No, the. That's the short answer. New Orleans. St. Charles streetcar line shares that distinction. And that line goes back to 1835. Originally with horse cars. I have a picture here. I don't know if I can share the screen. Let me see. Let me see if I can make. Yeah, there you go. There it is. Okay, that's how it is original car. Original set this, this setup was called the dummy and trailer setup, the dummy. Don't ask me why it's called that I'm not sure it's the place where the grip was you can see here. There's the little wheel grip is what they use to tighten the the grip on the cable different than the levers used now. And that's to a trailer behind it, where most of the passengers that that was an enclosed trailer. And then of course you see the outside section here. Later that was combined in the in the open and closed sections became the model for today's cable cars, which date back to about 1878 that design. The openness of the cars because you know we I talked about or I asked you guys about what makes them iconic right and why we love to cable car so much well one of the reasons that I personally love them so much. I mean, what's more thrilling than hanging on the cable car going down, you know, California street. So I'm just curious, and I, does that ever get the city into trouble because we would never allow that today. Right. I mean that's part of what's so exciting and about about it is historically. You know, we weren't as risk averse and we didn't have all the litigation and things like that. So it's really cool that we were still able to have that does that ever cause any problems for the city because I did see someone fall off one one time. He was fine, but I actually saw. I actually saw a guy try to get off too quickly and just roll and he was fine I'm just curious did we know anything about that Rick or Taren. I'm not sure. Mainly because you couldn't find anybody to, you know, to carry insurance, private insurance on, not only this but some of the other, you know, the transit operations of the city. So I know that yes there are settlements and they pay and safety is is a real important consideration, but you're right. If you tried to inaugurate this today, a service like this in a busy city, it would never happen. Helmets and knee pads and yeah, no, it's not gonna happen. Yeah, does this other this other picture come up on the screen. This is an interesting picture we just found a couple of months ago. Somebody poked it up and came out of the New York Library picture collection at some point we don't know when but this is what the cable cars on Market Street used to look like. And this is at the corner of Hayes and Stanion. You see Golden Gate Park in the background there. You see vacant land around it. And these these cable cars were very large 34 feet long, which is about eight feet longer than the Powell cable cars. And see how large, how large they were and you used to be able to sit facing forward. Right, right in front of the gripman which must have been a lot of fun. There are also no windshields on the cars until 1911 when they were required. But you can see the family resemblance it's very strong. And Rick, today we have two types of cable cars to different. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we have we have the California car which is can be operated from either end. And that was those were developed by the California Street cable railroad company, which was an independent company until 1951 when guess what they lost their insurance because somebody took a fall and sued them and they didn't have anybody to pay it. So the city bought them at that point. And then in 1954 they cut the whole system in half. This is a subject for another time there were shenanigans and misleading representations to the public and the California Street line endured. And then the Powell Street, two lines starting at Palin Market endured but what of them got a different route. And those cars are shorter single end. And you know they're both iconic. I have some more questions here one that relates directly to that picture you were just sharing. And somebody asks, what's that thing on the front of the car. This call let me see if I can share again. And then while you're sharing there's another question. Is it. Yeah, go ahead and answer. This is this is called, this is called a lifeguard. And it's scooped up pedestrians or dogs, anything that got in front of the cable car and fell. This thing had little springs on it and it would cradle the person before they could get run over by the wheels. And a different version of this called an eclipse fender was required on all street cars, until the early 1950s. But it was replaced with a different safety device. All right. There's another question. Oh yes, you can. And let me ask this question. Okay. I'm going to ask. Is it feasibly possible to extend the cable car lines, for example, California line to Fillmore or Mason line further north. Go ahead. No, you go ahead to run. Do you see, do you see my big picture of holiday space. Yes. Okay, so what I wanted to show you is actually my last slide. Now do you see the cable car. Yeah. Great. Okay, this is a this is opening day on the cable car. This is the, you know, August 2 1873. This is a press photo taken. The man in the stove pipe hat on the far left that is holiday. The man next to him is probably from Burr, who was the owner of the clay street bank, who was a big donor to the project. This, the lady sitting next to him is howdy's wife Martha, and she looks old in this picture, but she really was maybe 30. She's wearing a sheer veil over her face. So that's why she looks strange. And then next to her with the bow tie. That is Joseph Britain, who was the lithographer, one of the lithographers of Britain the firm Britain and Ray, and he also was a president of the Mechanics Institute at one time or another. I think I wanted to show you because we've referred to this a few times, but many of you might not be aware of it. This is how it is endless wire rope way, which was a progenitor of the concept for him of moving things via cable and using a grip. That is what I wanted to show you and then this picture is one of the howdy rope way and how it would traverse the mountainside. So that or could be brought to mills and to other places. Okay, that's all I wanted to show you we'll just have to host another event where we talk more specifically about stuff like that. Well, I have a question that relates to the question that the person had about extending the lines are the cables affixed length and then, you know, cables cables are affixed length and there are splicers. Who's your people whose job is to splice all those little strands we talked about earlier the 19 strands in each in each bundle and the six bundles together so you have a seamless endless cable. That's what it takes to run because they are wound on giant machines and the cable car barn. And the cables actually stretch over time. And so every and and the winding machinery is set up so that it can be the tail ship as they call it can be pushed back further and further in the cable car barn to allow for the stretch to keep the cable taught when it gets to the back wall of the cable car barn then they have to cut a piece out of the cable to start the whole process again if the cable hasn't already worn out. And just to be very quick about this extending the cable car lines is tremendously expensive because you have to construct a new terminal, which is a lot of other stuff to turn the cable around at the end of the line. So you have to get in this city's town you in this town you have to get permission, or at least a acquiescence of people who live along the extension to the extra track work and even though California street west of van s had cables cable cars until 1956. There's hardly anybody living there now that lived there then, and you know, I haven't seen a lot of enthusiasm of any kind for it. So that's the short answer that question. What one should go do is number one visit the market street railway, little mini museum there near the ferry building, but also take the California street cable car up to the cable car museum and tour that it's it's open now as well and it really is inspiring to walk cables be spun into onto the drum and just the noise the smell. It's outstanding and then you can take the power street line down the hill and grab a Irish coffee at the Buena Vista. Yeah, this is the month to do it it's free. Any other questions. Let's see. Okay, here's a question from Paul. Was the cable car barn at California and hide part of the longer California street line. Yes, that was the powerhouse. That's where Trader Joe's is now for those kale foods before that for those who needed geographical point. That was that company's sole cable car barn and lines crossed at that intersection. The California line which is still with us today, had one rope cable that went from there down to market street and in the to the east and it had a whole separate rope, going out to Procedo Avenue in the west. And both of those ropes were pretty close to maximum length for efficient operation of the rope. In north south, there was a line on hide street that went from aquatic park up the hill as the Powell hide line does today to a pine street and then it went over pine to Jones Jones down through the tenderloin to a feral street and then down a feral to market. That was a very popular line with people who lived on Russian Hill, but the city wanted to turn those streets into one way streets to accommodate more automobile traffic. And in 1954, they won acquiescence through the board of supervisors for doing just that which many of us feel was an outrage. I don't see any more questions here. If you have another question, please do type it in now. This has been fascinating. I've learned a lot. Rick, I'm just going to jump in again while, while anyone else possibly thinks of another question. Can you just tell us a little bit about how we maintain and restore the cars because I'm sure that's a major undertaking. Actually, there's a really excellent crew of city employees who do this work. There's a foreman named Arnie Hansen who is at the cable car barn that takes care of the maintenance of the cars. And there is a master carpenter named Andrew McCarron in dog patch on 22nd Street. There's a building right next to the muni bus yard down there. And there's a playground in front of it and there's always two cable cars in there going through complete rebuilding. You can go up to the window you can take a look. It is a fabulous place. It's not open to the public but you can see in. And, you know, they build these things from scratch and the craftsmanship is amazing. So they build them from scratch. Well, they, technically they can't because they're national historic landmarks but what they do is when the car starts to rot and all wood rots, right, and they are almost all wood with steel reinforcements underneath and the frame. Take the car and they'll test the wood if the wood still solid, they'll keep it. If it isn't, they'll take it out and replace it. But they do it to, you know, exact drawings that they had before now they are doing a few little improvements and they are improvements. The cable cars used to have kerosene lamps hand hanging from the roof in the ceiling to light the inside of the car. Well, you can imagine what would happen if they hit a bump and the thing fell into the wooden car. And so, and they had a dim kerosene lamp shining through the front of the car the precursor of headlights. It was very dim. And so, later they put in in the 20s 30s they put in lead acid batteries under the seats of the car so you could power rudimentary headlights and running lights and interior lights. Now what they've done is they've converted all the lighting to LEDs, warm LEDs not the cold white ones, which give much, much improved battery life. You know, it'd be nice if they could get solar on the roof but it doesn't. I don't think it would quite work. But they're thinking about improvements, little improvements that don't show. Right. Thank you. And goodness, it's the warm, the warm LEDs. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Kind of light glow. Yeah, well these guys, you know that these people are real lovers of history. As a matter of fact if you look at the Powell Street cable cars that you'll see that they're used to be all be painted the same color. In the last 20 years they've started getting painted in the authentic liveries the very car war at different points in history and our nonprofit has facilitated that with research and other things so you know the mayor for example wrote on a car today that's been painted for the period 1907 to 1921. And, you know, that's all been documented there are 10 of these cars now out there. So there's a lot more color on the street but it's for a purpose which is historical accuracy. They really want to talk they really want to talk to you really want to talk. So the cable cars, the new the new look that the colors if they're stunning. So everyone should run out tomorrow and and ride the car. Yeah, and I would just put it a little plug that our nonprofit rescued a cable car that was retired and sold off to the owner of a cattle feedlot. In the 1950s, and his family gave it back to us we restored it cosmetically it's from the old O'Farrell Jones and hide line. And we gave it to me and they put a modern running care on it and they use it on special occasions now. And we helped restore an 1883 cable car which made its debut just before the pandemic broke out from the old Sacramento play line that replaced. So more history keeps coming to the cable car lines and we think that's great. Wonderful. Well thank you for joining us everyone who tuned in or is watching this on YouTube. I want to thank Taren and Rick. And of course Matthew for asking wonderful questions and facilitating. And I do hope you become a member of Mechanics Institute, and of course, visit the San Francisco Railway Museum and gift shop. Right next to our wonderful. Very building very building. Parting thoughts or words people want to say before we have a parting thought and that is that they should take the virtual tour on August 11 of the Mechanics Institute, and I promise to mention the cable car. I'm joking. I'm not joking though. That's where I was born. I would like to think Rick imparting I would like to think Rick, well I'd like to think the Mechanics Institute for doing this so thank you Miles thank you Taren. Thank you Mechanics Institute but I also want to think Rick and the Market Street Railway for the work that they do to keep the cable cars and keep the street cars, part of our city because everybody loves it I love it. And so just thank you to you and your organization for the work that you guys do. Thank you Matthew it's a labor of love. Indeed it is thank you as well. Okay, well thank you all for joining us and thanks for chatting and asking questions and giving thanks in the comments. We're going to wrap things up here and yeah. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Everyone night. Bye bye.