The Railway Museum in San Francisco is small and easy to miss, hidden on a tiny street called Don Chee Way off the Embarcadero. Don Chee worked for SF Railway and headed the historic F-Market and Wharves Lines heritage street car project.





The museum has a fun display of old tokens, Fast Passes and paper transfers. I recall worrying that I’d be late getting on the street car home and hoping the driver wouldn’t notice my transfer was expired. There’s an authentic front section of a cable car at the back of the museum. It was a little confusing to me that this museum has street car AND cable car memorabilia, especially since cable cars have their own museum.





Cable cars (Expedition 8) predate street cars, which were introduced after the 1906 earthquake. San Francisco had a large assortment of transit, including this cute round, horse-drawn car. After WWII, many lines were replaced with motor buses and car ownership rose. In the early 80’s, the remaining Market Street car lines were undergrounded, sharing the tunnel with BART.
The Trolley Festival started in 1983, partly to provide fun vintage street car transit to tourists during the 18 months the cable cars were out of service for maintenance. But San Franciscans loved the street cars too! The festival ran for five years.







Conveniently, I had an errand to do near Fisherman’s Wharf, so I took the street car. I saw or rode cars painted to honor Washington DC, St. Louis, San Diego, Cleveland and Chicago. I thought the cars were actually from those places, but the paint schemes are to honor American cities that once had them.
Finally, in 1995, the heritage street car fleet became permanent. It contains vintage San Francisco cars and a few from Philadelphia and Newark. International cars are painted as tributes to Mexico City, Zurich and Melbourne. The Milan streetcars actually are from Milan. There are many more awaiting restoration.


I had lunch at another piece of San Francisco history, Red’s Java House. The restaurant opened in the 1930’s and became Red’s in 1955. In 1984 it almost burned down, then was nearly subsumed by all the development in the neighborhood. Red retired in 1990. The current owners wisely have changed very little. And the fish and chips are terrific.