San Francisco’s 148 Years of Cable Car Service

This year marks 148 years of cable car service in San Francisco. The city's cable cars granted national landmark status in 1964 are the world's last manually operated cable car system.

As a result, San Francisco is one of the few places in the world where people can ride on a national historic landmark.

Scroll through this chronology to see some of the significant events in cable car history.

Andrew S. Hallidie, an engineer originally from Scotland, had the idea for the cable car. Hallidie worked in mining, where conveyor-built technology was regularly used in the mines to haul heavy loads.  The conveyor-built technology serves as the basic framework for the cable car pulley system to help pull the cars along the track. 

Hallidie conceived his idea in 1869 for a steam engine-powered, cable-driven rail system after witnessing horses whipped while they struggled on the wet cobblestones to pull a horsecar up Jackson street.

The Clay Street Hill Railroad (CSHRR) tested its first cable car on August 2nd, 1873, at 4 a.m. on San Francisco's Clay Street. 

On April 18, 1906, the great San Francisco earthquake and the fires that raged out of control in its aftermath devastated the city.

By this time, the electric streetcar, perfected in 1888 by Frank Sprague, had become the vehicle of choice for city transit. It only required half the investment to build and maintain; it reached more areas and was quicker. The cable cars could traverse the steep hills better, so some of the lines were rebuilt. However, as the streetcars improved, even those lines were in jeopardy.

In 1964 cable cars were named a national historic landmark. The cable car invented nearly 150 years ago symbolizes San Francisco and is in the city’s charter. Technically, the city cannot operate without cable cars. They are among the most significant tourist attractions in the city.

The  Cable Car Museum  is a free museum located in the historic Washington Mason cable car barn and powerhouse. Inside are examples of old cable cars from the 1870s. For example, the Sutter Street Railway No. 46 grip car & No. 54 trailer and the only surviving car from the first cable car company, the  Clay Street Hill Railroad No. 8 grip car. 

Also on display are various mechanical devices such as grips, track, cable, brake mechanisms, tools, detailed models, and an extensive collection of historical photographs.

Today, there are two types of cable cars in regular service. Though they differ in appearance, their operation is almost identical. The California Street Cable Car Line uses twelve larger, maroon cable cars with an open seating section at each end and a closed section in the middle. These cars can be operated from either end and turn around by means of a simple switch at the end of the line.

The two Powell Street lines, Powell-Hyde & Powell-Mason, use smaller cable cars, operable from only one end, and thus require turntables to reverse direction at the ends of the line. There are 28 Powell cars kept on the roster at any given time. Several sport historic liveries recaptured the cars' look at various points in the twelve-decade history of the service.

Additionally, there are unique cable cars from now-vanished lines which Market Street Railway and the Cable Car Museum are working to return to service in the future.

San Francisco’s iconic Cable Cars shut down due to the Covid pandemic will return fully operational with the Powell- Hyde line in September 2021. The cable cars had been out of service since March 17, 2020.