Tag Archives: San Francisco Municipal Railway

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San Francisco Muni in Color.

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Endless Opportunities for Photography.

Muni PCC and Boeing LRV at 30th and Church Sts SF CA Jul 16 1995 Brian Solomon 662237
On July 1, 1995, a vintage PCC dressed in Boston’s MTA orange passes one of the Boeing-Vertol LRVs on Church Street. I’m probably in the minority, but I always liked the Boeing cars. This photo is a little ironic, because only Boston and San Francisco bought the Boeings.

Over the years, I’ve made hundreds of images of San Francisco Muni’s streetcars. There’s a great of variety of equipment from the famous cable-cars to historic and colorfully painted PCCs and other vintage equipment, plus modern European designed trams. The setting is stunning and the weather can be cosmic with wafts of Pacific fog coming over Twin Peaks.

Here’s a sample of a few favorite Muni images.

Cable cars ascend Nob Hill at sunset.
Cable cars ascend Nob Hill at sunset.
Interior of an F-line PCC exposed in May 2008.
Interior of an F-line PCC exposed in May 2008.
Cosmic light: an F-line PCC at the foot of Market Street with dense fog flowing over Twin Peaks. Exposed on Fujichrome using a Canon EOS 7D with 200mm lens.
Cosmic light: an F-line PCC at the foot of Market Street with dense fog flowing over Twin Peaks. Exposed on Fujichrome using a Canon EOS 3 with 200mm lens, September 2009.
Muni tracks at 17th and Church Streets.
Muni tracks at 17th and Church Streets.
Wild fires make for great sunrises! Cable car tracks at sunrise with the Trans America Pyramid. No filters, no photoshop. Canon EOS 7D with 100-400mm lens on Fujichrome slide film.
Wild fires make for great sunrises! Cable car tracks at sunrise with the Trans America Pyramid. No filters, no photoshop. Canon EOS 3 with 100-400mm lens on Fujichrome slide film.
California Street Cable Car at Market Street late on weekday evening. May 2008.
California Street Cable Car at Market Street late on weekday evening. May 2008.
Breda LRVs on Duboce Street, September 2, 2009.
Breda LRVs on Duboce Street, September 2, 2009.
Muni N-line service on the Embarcedero, October 2003.
Muni N-line service on the Embarcedero, October 2003.

San Francisco is among the many cities featured in my new book Streetcars of America, co-authored with John Gruber. The book is now available through Amazon and other retailers. John and I wrote this compact 64-page soft-cover volume in 2013. It is priced at under $10.

This is among the modern images feature in the book. It pictures two eras of Italian cars on the streets of San Francisco. The majority of the images in Streetcars of America are vintage photos from the 1940s to the 1970s.
This is among the modern images featured in the book. It pictures two eras of Italian cars on the streets of San Francisco. The majority of the images in Streetcars of America are vintage photos from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Tracking the Light posts new material every day!

Streetcars of America is available through Amazon.

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Powell and Mason Car on Columbus Avenue.

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San Francisco May 1994.

Cable Car on Columbus, exposed on Kodachrome in 1994.
Cable Car on Columbus, exposed on Kodachrome in 1994.

This isn’t your typical cable car image. Where photographers, myself included, have often focused on San Francisco’s exceptionally steep hills, where cars appear to cling precariously to tracks, instead I’ve tried to make the most of one of more level sections of the cable car system.

I exposed this on Kodachrome 25 this using my old Nikormat FT3 with a secondhand Tokina 400mm lens.

This exceptionally long telephoto was very sharp but had very shallow depth of field. I used this quality to set background highway traffic, include some MUNI Trolley buses, out of focus, thus helping the viewer concentrate on the main subject—the famous cable car.

Although a simple image, there’s a lot to see in it. Despite my use of selective focus, the path of the cable car track (with its trademark central conduit) leads the eye beyond the car and around the corner toward Powell Street.

Aiding my effort was the rich afternoon sun for which San Francisco is often blessed. There’s an exceptionally pleasant quality to Bay Area sunshine that is best experienced in person, but has made for a great many photographic opportunities. I miss that quality of light when I’m not there!

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San Francisco PCC in Kansas City Colors—Daily Post

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 Embarcadero May 2008

I was on the San Francisco Embarcadero in May 2008. A very thing fog was tempering the morning sun. Using my Canon EOS 3 with 24mm lens, I exposed this view of Muni PCC dressed for Kansas City Public Service working the ‘F-line.’ The similarity in the colors of the car and buildings in the background works well in the soft morning sun, while the wide angle views places the streetcar in its environment. I like the way the wires and tracks frame the car. San Francisco operates a fleet of historic streetcars, many of them PCC dressed in the liveries used by cities that had operated PCCs. Would another color car have worked as well in this scene?
San Francisco operates a fleet of historic streetcars, many of them PCC dressed in the liveries used by cities that had operated PCCs. Would another color car have worked as well in this scene?
I was on the San Francisco Embarcadero in May 2008. A very thin fog was tempering the morning sun. Using my Canon EOS 3 with 24mm lens, I exposed this view of Muni PCC dressed for Kansas City Public Service working the ‘F-line.’

The similarity in the colors of the car and buildings in the background works well in the soft morning sun, while the wide angle views places the streetcar in its environment. I like the way the wires and tracks frame the car.

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DAILY POST; San Francisco Sunrise, 1992.

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Muni Boeing-Vertol LRV’s catch the glint.

 In 1992, I was living on Haight Street in San Francisco, just a short walk from this location. One August morning, I got up early to make photos of Muni’s light rail cars exiting the Muni Metro on Duboce in the sunrise glint light.

San Francisco MUNI light rail.
Exposed on Fujichrome 100 with a Nikon F3T fitted with an f1.8 105mm Nikkor lens, scanned with an Epson V600 desktop scanner.

For this image, I’ve used the trees at the left to shade the front element from direct sun to minimize flare. Although it was a clear morning, the sun was tinted by pollution that I remember as being a common effect in the Bay Area, especially in the summer.

My goal was to catch a car taking the wye from the J-Church line heading west on the N-Judah line, which was a common way for Muni to position cars in the morning. While I did make that photo, I felt this image was actually a better picture.

It shows an inbound J-Church car turning toward the subway portal with an N-Judah car outbound.

Although, I commonly used Kodachrome at the time, for this image I used Fujichrome 100 (before the introduction of Provia), which I processed myself at the photo studio where I worked in South San Francisco. Among my studio duties was running E6 transparency film. We used a roller transport machine and mixed the chemistry on site.

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Tomorrow take a look at the former Pennsylvania Railroad’s viaduct at Crum Creek!

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BEFORE THE CRASH: Muni 162 Catches the Sun In 2009

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San Francisco Muni Car 162 on the Embarcadero.

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On January 4, 2014, historic Muni 162 was involved in a serious collision with a truck on the streets of San Francisco.

San Francisco streetcar before it was involved in a crash.
San Francisco’s historic Muni car 162 grinds along the Embarcadero in the summer of 2009. Sadly, this car was involved in a serious collision near the location of this image on Saturday January 14, 2014. Exposed on Fujichrome slide film using a Canon EOS 3 with 24mm lens.

This 100-year old car was built by the Jewitt Car Company in 1914, and is one of several authentic San Francisco streetcars working San Francisco Muni’s popular ‘F’ Line.

The car was originally retired from daily Muni service in 1958. It was completely restored by Market Street Railway volunteers between 2004 and 2008.

I made this image of 162 on San Francisco’s Embarcadero on summer evening in 2009, not far from the scene of Saturday’s unfortunate collision.

I featured Muni’s F-line in my book, Railroads of California published by Voyageur Press.

To read learn about Muni 162 see: http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/162/

For details of the accident see: http://www.streetcar.org/blog/2014/01/no-way-to-start-its-centennial-year.html

For general media accounts see:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story? section=news/local/san_francisco&id=9381895

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Muni-Trolley-Smashes-Into-Big-Rig-at-Embarcadero-Intersection-Four-Injured-238736091.html

Hopefully, the car will soon be repaired and restored to operating condition.

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San Francisco Muni Light Rail.

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Breda Light Rail Vehicles Work San Francisco Streets.

Muni Light Rail

Shortly after sunset in May 2008, a San Francisco Muni L-Taraval car takes the corner from 15th Avenue to Ulloa Street on the way toward West Portal, where the line enters the Twin Peaks Tunnel. Exposed on Fujichrome with a Canon EOS 3 with f28 200mm lens. Eighteen years earlier I made a similar view near this spot, which appeared in an issue of Passenger Train Journal in the 1990s.

Although less photographed than historic cable cars and vintage streetcars, San Francisco Muni’s light rail routes offer plenty of interesting opportunities to make urban railway images.

San Francisco Muni
The sun rises through a thick bank of Pacific fog as N-Judah cars pass on August 27, 2009. This was exposed on Fujichrome slide film with my Canon EOS 3 fitted with a 100-400mm image stabilization zoom lens.

San Francisco enjoys spectacular weather and lighting conditions. My favorite times to photograph are a sunrise and sunset. While the modern Breda-built cars lack the flair of historic PCC’s (see San Francisco Muni F-Line, May 2008), they still make for interesting subjects for the creative eye.

 

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San Francisco Muni F-Line, May 2008

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PCC Streetcar painted for Pacific Electric passes the Ferry Building.

PCC car San Francisco
Exposed on Fujichrome slide film with a Canon EOS 3 fitted with a 24mm lens.

San Francisco Muni’s F-Line route operates with a variety of vintage streetcars, including streamlined PCC cars painted in various historic liveries to represent systems that originally operated these cars.

Popular with tourists and residents alike, the vintage cars are fun to ride and photograph. Unlike most modern transit, the F-Line offers continual variety, with different cars operating from day to day.

In May 2008, I made this photograph of PCC 1061 dressed for Pacific Electric in front of the restored Ferry Building on San Francisco’s Embarcedero. Originally built for Philadelphia, this was among the cars acquired for operation in San Francisco in the early 1990s. Some restoration work for out-of-service heritage cars has been done by the Market Street Railway (volunteer support group for Muni’s historic rail lines ); these are turned over to Muni when restoration nears the point where cars are ready for revenue service.

 

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