Cable Car

San Francisco Cable Car Museum

The Cable Car Museum is a free museum in the Nob Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Located at 1201 Mason Street, it contains historical and explanatory exhibits on the San Francisco cable car system, which can itself be regarded as a working museum.

The museum contains several examples of old cable cars, together with smaller exhibits and a shop. The cable cars displayed include

Ø  Sutter Street Railway - grip car 46 and trailer 54 dating from the 1870s

Ø  Clay Street Hill Railroad - grip car 8, the only surviving car from the first cable car company.

Exterior of the Ferries and Cliff House Railway Co. Building Constructed in 1887. Houses both the cable car winding station, engines, and museum. The smoke stack in the rear was damaged in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, restored then soon decommissioned when steam power was replaced with electrical power at the winding station.

The museum is part of the complex that also houses the cable car power house, which drives the cables, and the car depot (barn). The car depot is not accessible, but two overlook galleries allow the visitor to view the power house, and to descend below the junction of Washington and Mason streets in order to view the large cavern where the haulage cables are routed via large sheaves out to the street.

It displays various mechanical devices such as grips, track, cable, brake mechanisms, tools, detailed models, and a large collection of historic photographs.

The museum was established in 1974, and is run by the Friends of the Cable Car Museum. It is entered from an entrance at Washington and Mason.

Located in the historic Washington/Mason cable car barn and powerhouse, the museum deck overlooks the huge engines and winding wheels that pull the cables. Downstairs is a viewing area of the large sheaves and cable line entering the building through the channel under the street.