Muni Double-Ender Update

Thanks to Olin Anderson for pointing out that Muni 1007 has finally entered service, some time after returning from a major rebuild at Brookville. (The above image is a frame from this video taken in late 2021 during testing.) The car now wears elaborate 1949-era Red Arrow colors rather than the simplified 1960s-era livery it formerly wore (visible on 1007's PNAERC page), which of course is a tremendous improvement. And with basically the same lines as actual Red Arrow 1949 "St. Louies," the car looks just right. Its status has been updated, and since it has presumably been rebuilt with Brookville standard PCC-type equipment, its former GE motor and control info has been removed.

Speaking of actual Red Arrow "St. Louies," the Market Street Railway blog post here sheds some light on the two cars of that series currently owned by Muni: Red Arrow cars 18 and 21. Both of these cars were owned by Branford from 1982 until 2017, at which time they were moved to Brookville, PA, where they remain in storage. The plan was to rebuild them - possibly with PCC trucks and equipment - as additional double-ended equipment for Muni service. However the blog post states that these plans will likely not happen because, due to differences in truck spacing compared with actual Muni PCCs, the two Red Arrow cars don't meet San Francisco clearance restrictions. There's no change to their PNAERC status, but it sounds very much like Muni may be looking to dispose of this pair at some point in the future.

Muni PCC cars removed from list

It took me long enough but finally I noticed the, er, notice at the bottom of Market Street Railway's roster page concerning the cars that Muni offered up for sale back in 2018 as described here. Sure enough, sometime in 2019 SFMR did end up scrapping ten of the cars listed on their disposal notice (there was one car, car 1140, that escaped and was donated to the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis instead, while identical car 1139 was either given a reprieve or erroneously missed on the website scrapping list). The ten cars have now been removed from the PNAERC roster, knocking the size of the Muni collection on my list from 70 cars down to 60.

The scrapped cars come from four different groups. Three are Muni "Baby Ten" cars numbered 1023, 1031, and 1038. These cars were built by St. Louis in 1951 as part of the last domestic order for PCC cars, were retired by Muni in the early 1980s, and have been in dead storage since then. There are numerous other examples of the type preserved, both on Muni rails and elsewhere. (Rather than keep repeating a version of that line, I'll just say now that none of the scrapped cars is anything like unique in preservation.)

The second group includes three 1100-series Muni PCC cars, 1106, 1108, and 1125. These three were all built by St. Louis in 1946 for St. Louis Public Service (as SLPS 1733, 1737, and 1715, respectively) and were acquired by Muni from SLPS in 1957. Car 1125 was retired by Muni in the early 1980s and stored until scrapped, while the other two passed through private ownership (1106) and something called the Western Railroaders Hall of Fame (1108) before being bought back by Muni in 2003 as potential rebuilding candidates. The photo above shows car 1108 back in 2008.

The third group includes two Pittsburgh 4000s (not to be confused with CTA 4000s), PCC cars that were very heavily rebuilt by Port Authority Transit in the late 1980s to extend their service lives. These two, PAT 4008 and 4009, used 1949-vintage PCC cars 1709 and 1700 as cores for their 1989 in-house rebuilding efforts, but as a practical matter there was more 1989 than 1949 content in them despite their PCC-esque outward appearance. They were bought by Muni in 2001 for potential rebuilding but their unique rebuilt features and sealed windows made them iffy candidates.

The final two cars scrapped were ex-SEPTA PCC cars from Philadelphia built by St. Louis in 1948. One, SEPTA 2133, was acquired by Muni back in 1990 and partly disassembled as San Francisco was considering buying Philadelphia cars for its F-Market Line heritage project. At one point this car was supposed to be car 1064, the 15th ex-Philadelphia car rebuilt for the new line, but its condition was thought to be too deteriorated at that point and it was just stored. Then there is Muni 1054, ex-SEPTA 2121, bought by SFMR in 1994 for F-Market Line service. It was rebuilt and repainted in attractive Philadelphia Rapid Transit silver-and-cream colors (a livery today worn by nearly identical car 1060). It ran in regular service in San Francisco for about 8 years but in November 2003 it was rear-ended by a speeding LRV. Fortunately nobody was killed but the PCC car was so badly damaged that it was judged irreparable.

Photo above: Peter Ehrlich, from NYCSubway.org

Branford-San Francisco swap

Thanks to Bill Wulfert, who passed along some information on a recent trade between Branford and the Market Street Railway Association in San Francisco. Branford received an out-of-service San Francisco cable car, which will help them interpret 19th-century street railway history (they already have the best collection of horse cars on the continent and several pre-1900 electric cars). In return, San Francisco has received a pair of Peckham 14B3 trucks and four GE motors (more info below). The trucks will go under Market Street Railway 798, the most modern surviving car from that system, which has been the subject of a very long-term restoration from car body status.

Car 798 originally had either Peckham 14B3 or Brill 27G1 trucks, both of which are 1890s or turn-of-the-century designs. The car was built in the company shops and was obviously fitted with equipment from an older car. The Peckhams acquired from Branford are of a type used by this series and possibly by car 798 itself at some point. Another surviving piece of equipment from MSRy, crane 0130 at Rio Vista, also has Peckham 14B3 trucks, but intriguingly there are no other cars known to exist with GE 52 motors like the ones sent to San Francisco.

UPDATE: The below message, and photos, were submitted by Bill Wall of Branford and this post has been corrected as a result. Thank you for the additional info, Bill!

Branford now has cable car 28, an 1887 Mahoney Bros. car that was used on the Powell Street lines by SF Muni. Since arrival, 28 has had quite a bit of work done to prepare it for display. As a 42 inch gauge car, it has been placed on two specially prepared track dollies which have strap rail on them set for 42 inch gauge. The car sits a bit higher than normal (as it is still on its original trucks on the dollies) but this gives Branford the ability to move it around on standard gauge track.  We did not want to bastardize the car with other trucks. The car also came with a complete grip mechanism and some cable, so we can show how a cable car operates.

What went out to Muni were 2 Peckham 14B3 trucks with GE-52 motors (one on each axle). The car series that 798 belongs to could have used Brill 27G1, Peckham 14B3 or other trucks, as that car series was equipped with a number of different types. Market Street Railway used whatever was on hand, reclaimed from older cars and had no problem swapping out different sets of trucks of a different style. So it is entirely possible that 798 did indeed have Peckham trucks at some point in its service life. That was the big attraction in sending these to Muni – right car, right trucks.  Source for this info is the book “The White Front Cars of San Francisco."

The trucks were originally under a Rhode Island Company line car that was scrapped at Branford in 1950. Silk Road delivered them to San Francisco by flatbed, with the same trailer bringing 28 back east. Photo attached of the trucks being delivered to Muni Metro East maintenance facility.

Branford has long wanted a real cable car as the missing piece in the street railway story. We have an ex-cable car from Third Avenue Railway in NYC, but it has nothing on it to show what it once was. When you mention cable car to the general public, San Francisco comes to mind and in particular the Powell Street cars, seen in all those Rice-a-Roni commercials. We expect it to be a big hit with our visitors, complete with a Rice-a-Roni ad.

Major culling of the Muni fleet

Today a link to this document, published earlier this month by the San Francisco Municipal Railway, was posted to Railway Preservation News and it contains a trove of fascinating information. SFMR, or Muni, owns no fewer than 58 PCC cars which makes them - I believe - the largest owner of PCC cars in the country. Of those, some 31 are in regular service (or currently being rebuilt, soon to reenter service) while the remaining 27 are stored. Of these 27 cars, it appears that 12 of them are to be disposed of. Part of the impetus for this is evidently that the entire collection of spare PCC cars (and other out-of-service historic vehicles of various sorts) is to be moved from Marin Yard to the Cow Palace in Daly City.

The list of twelve cars is a very interesting one. A couple of the cars are obvious candidates for disposal: two ex-Philadelphia cars that are virtually certain never to run, either in San Francisco or anywhere else. Car 1064 never actually wore that number in service; it was acquired back in 1990, the first PCC purchased from Philadelphia, and was intended to be rebuilt to supplement the original F-Market fleet of ex-Philly PCC cars but when disassembled was found to be very badly rusted. It has been stored in mostly disassembled state for some two decades. Car 1054 was part of the original F-Market PCC fleet but on November 16, 2003 it was rear-ended and suffered catastrophic frame damage. Judged irreparable, it's been in dead storage since.

Then there are the two Pittsburgh PCC cars, 4008 and 4009, which have never run in San Francisco and have been stored since acquisition 17 years ago. These were cars that were completely rebuilt in the late 1980s from 1700-series postwar PCC cars, so their body construction differs significantly from original PCC cars. They also have sealed windows, potentially a liability in California. They are, however, complete and generally undamaged cars and are being offered complete - unlike the other cars on the list, which are going to be (or already have been) stripped for parts by Muni prior to sale or donation.

The remaining eight cars on the list include three "Baby Tens," PCC cars built new for Muni in 1951, and five ex-St. Louis Public Service cars bought secondhand in 1957. The "Baby Tens" are 1023, 1031, and 1038. What intrigues me is that Muni has nine cars of this series in storage and the other six all spent many years away from San Francisco (two at Orange Empire and four in South Lake Tahoe) while the three up for disposal have been stored by Muni itself the entire time since they were retired in 1982. Apparently the other six benefited from their time away from San Francisco's salt air.

And finally there are the five ex-St. Louis Public Service cars, 1106, 1108, 1125, 1139, and 1140 (not be confused with 1040). Muni currently has no fewer than 12 of these ex-SLPS cars in storage (though one, car 1704, is restored to St. Louis colors and is considered a bit separately from the rest). Unlike with the "Baby Tens," the SLPS cars do not seem to have benefited from time away from Muni's care. Two of the cars, 1106 and 1140, were sold by Muni in 1994 (after a period of storage after retirement) to a collector in Lodi, California, from whom SFMR got the cars back in the early 2000s. A third car, 1108, was owned for a number of years by something called the Western Railroaders Hall of Fame. The other two cars being disposed of have been stored by Muni since retirement in 1982 (as have six of the seven ex-SLPS cars being retained).

One of the really interesting things about the document is that it appears that Market Street Railway Association disagreed with some of the cars being gotten rid of. Its judgment was that three PCC cars being retained by Muni - 1026, 1027, and 1028, all "Baby Tens" sold by Muni to Tahoe Valley Lines in 1994 and bought back in 2001 - were in worse condition than six of the cars on the disposal list. MSRA recommended that of those six cars - ex-SLPS 1106, 1108, 1139, and 1140, and Pittsburgh 4008 and 4009 - three be selected for retention and the three "Baby Tens" be disposed of. Muni seems to have declined to follow this suggestion.

An interesting - but understandable - aspect of this disposition is that it seems to largely disregard the difference between the Muni-original "Baby Tens" and the secondhand 1100s. Muni has rebuilt many cars in recent years but has yet to send out even a single ex-SLPS PCC for full rebuild. However in recent years Brookville, Muni's rebuilder of choice, has been fitting new-build Westinghouse-style PCC equipment to all rebuilt cars - including cars that, like the 1100s, started life with GE PCC equipment. It seems likely that Muni is viewing its remaining cars as shells, cars to be fitted with new electric equipment regardless of what they carry now.

All twelve cars marked for disposition have been noted as "for sale." The original Muni document is worth reading, as it suggests that major components will be removed from many of the cars (except for 4008 and 4009), meaning those cars are virtually certain to be scrapped. Even the remaining ex-Muni cars will be stripped of many components so they'll presumably be virtual shells.

Muni plans

This recent post on the Heritage Rail Alliance site provides an interesting look into the planning going on at the San Francisco Municipal Railway. The post suggests that Muni is preparing a proposal to restore seven pre-PCC double-ended cars in its fleet as well as five Milan Peter Witts. Of the seven double-ended cars, one - Muni 130, built in 1914 by Jewett - is to be rebuilt in kind with its original electrical and mechanical equipment. Three other American cars - Market Street Railway 798, Johnstown 351, and New Orleans 913 - are to be restored with "standardized" electrical equipment for ease of maintenance. The first two of those are currently incomplete while the last, car 913, is complete but has only two motors and is thus underpowered on San Francisco's hills. It's not clear what standard Muni will settle on but it may be equipment common to its fleet of Milan cars or it could be new-build K-35's or something similar. The seven double-enders to be rebuilt also include three foreign cars not on the PNAERC list, cars hailing from Melbourne, Hiroshima, and Oporto.

No specific mention is made of the two Red Arrow double-enders recently acquired and moved to Brookville though they may have already been put on the list for rebuilding. The article does state that about a dozen of the PCC cars in storage, those in the worst shape, will likely be given away to whoever wants them. This most likely means the 12 ex-St. Louis Public Service cars in the 1100-series that have been in dead storage for years. Most have been in outdoor storage in San Francisco since they were retired some 35 years ago though a few were actually purchased by Muni from other owners about 15 years ago not long before the Newark cars were acquired. Even if Muni gets rid of the ex-SLPS cars it still has nine of the "Baby Ten" PCC cars, built for San Francisco in 1951, that are in storage awaiting their chance at a full rebuild in case it decides more PCC cars are needed.

Good news and bad from San Francisco

Market Street Railway's excellent blog at streetcar.org is an ongoing resource for updates on the Muni fleet of preserved cars. It recently featured a couple of pieces of news on the PCC fleet, one bit of bad news followed by a bit of good. The bad news came on New Years Day when car 1063, the most recently-rebuilt car to arrive back from Brookville, got into a serious accident with a box truck that stove in its front end. For the moment it's out of service.

Then there was the good news, which came shortly thereafter. Muni car 1050 is on its way back from rebuilding (it's probably in San Francisco now) and, like 1063, it is returning in a different livery from what it had before. Unlike 1063 it's also representing a different city: while it left in Muni green and cream it's returning in St. Louis Public Service red and cream, complete right down to the Civil Defense logo behind the front doors. Previously Muni had represented St. Louis with "actual" ex-SLPS car 1704, but it's been out of service for many years and there don't appear to be plans to rebuild it so car 1050 is now "flying the flag" for that street railway system. A photo of the car in transit, from the MSR blog, is above.

"Baltimore" car back in San Francisco

Thanks to the Market Street Railway blog, we've got an update on the latest news with the Muni PCC fleet: namely that car 1063, the "Baltimore" car, is back from its latest Brookville rebuild. (This is what, maybe the car's third major rebuild following the 1980s SEPTA GOH and 1995 MK rebuilding jobs?) Anyway, the car is no longer in simplified National City Lines yellow and grey but is now in the much more attractive prewar Baltimore livery of blue-green and cream with an orange belt rail. The post makes it clear that the photographs are color-shifted and that the actual car is much less blue than the photos make it look.

In turn, car 1061, the "Pacific Electric" car, has been transported to Brookville for its rebuilding job. Both 1061 and 1063 have had their records updated in the PNAERC list.

More Muni PCC rebuilding news

The Market Street Railway blog reports more progress by Brookville on the project to rehab Muni's entire "original" F-Market Line fleet of ex-Philadelphia PCC cars. Car 1055, pictured, is now back in San Francisco following completion of rebuilding work in Brookville. It has retained its simplified PTC livery, which it wore in regular service in a previous life in Philadelphia as car 2122. Apparently the next car due back from rebuilding is car 1063, which will remain painted as a Baltimore car but will switch liveries to the earlier Baltimore color scheme of dark blue-green and cream from its recent yellow-and-grey paint job used towards the end of streetcar service in that city.

Livery change on the Market Street line

Muni has been sending its "original" F-Market Line fleet of PCC cars - that is to say, the fleet of 14 cars acquired in 1995 from SEPTA that inaugurated heritage line service on Market Street - back to Brookville a couple at a time for rebuilding. They're receiving completely overhauled electrical and control systems along with some body work and new paint jobs. In some cases these paint jobs are more accurate than their original liveries (compare new 1059 with old 1059) and in some cases they're receiving entirely new color schemes.

Car 1062, which was formerly painted in Louisville Street Railway green, is a recent arrival back from Brookville and it falls into the latter category. It's now painted in traditional Pittsburgh Railways red-and-cream, a livery not previously seen among the F-Line fleet. More information is on the Market Street Railway Association blog at https://www.streetcar.org/pittsburgh-nevada-inbound/

You may note that the photos on the PNAERC site still reflect car 1062's old appearance. We're still working on the coding for photos and videos associated with listings on the new PNAERC site, so until that's done our images are frozen in time. As soon as this coding is in place we'll start going through the listings to fix links and update photos in cases like this.

Muni F-Line fleet rebuild update

A new post on the Market Street Railway Association site has information on the current state of the latest Muni rebuilding program. This current contract is with Brookville Equipment in Pennsylvania, which did extensive work on the 11 PCC cars acquired from Newark a few years back. Now Brookville is overhauling the "original" (at least, original preservation era) F-Line fleet of PCC cars that was put into service back in 1995.

According to the post, cars 1056 and 1051 have completed their overhaul and been returned to San Francisco while cars 1055, 1059, 1060, 1062, and 1063 are currently out east being rebuilt. Both cars completed thus far have remained in their previous liveries, though car 1051 has been newly dedicated to the late Harvey Milk as well.

One thing I'm not sure of is how extensive this rebuilding is: whether the cars overhauled have received new or different motors and control or whether their original equipment has been refurbished. For the moment, the mechanical info listed for these cars in PNAERC has remained unchanged.