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| San Francisco operates three basic types of streetcars: the vintage, often one-of-a-kind trolleys, the Peter Witt trams of Milan, and the art deco PCC streetcars, like No. 1052 seen here in the heart of Fisherman's Wharf. |
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San Francisco is home to two of the world’s most successful heritage transit operations. One, of course, is the venerable cable car system, the mechanical, hill-climbing cars that 'climb halfway to the stars', as the song says. It’s a technology that has served the City by the Bay since 1873, and is today found only in San Francisco.
And rapidly gaining cable car-like levels of popularity and acclaim are the historic streetcars of the F-line and the E-line—historic electric rail vehicles serving the City’s main artery, Market Street, and its grand waterfront boulevard, The Embarcadero—linking San Francisco’s most popular visitor attraction, Fisherman’s Wharf, with its commercial, financial, and retail centers, and several residential neighborhoods along the route.
The F-Market & Wharves line is both the world’s longest publicly-operated vintage streetcar line in daily service (six miles one-way), and—along with New Orleans’ famed St. Charles line—the most popular (over 20,000 daily riders). And, no heritage transit line operates such a diversity of equipment... more than 30 authentic streetcars, trams, and trolleys from around the world are currently available for service. They were built as long ago as the 1890s and as recently as the 1950s, with more being restored all the time (thanks in part to the volunteers of Market Street Railway and the financial help of our members and supporters).
Learn more about the F-line, and see its fantastic fleet of streetcars by clicking on the subjects to the left. To learn more about the differences between streetcars and cable cars, click here.
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