Market Street Railway is

San Francisco Municipal Railway The San Francisco Municipal Railway (SF Muni or Muni), is the public transit system for the City and County of San Francisco. It operates a system of bus routes (including trolleybuses), the Muni Metro light rail system, three historic cable ...

's (Muni) 1,200-member non-profit preservation partner. It relies on private contributions to help maintain San Francisco’s fleet of historic streetcars in service on the

E Embarcadero The E Embarcadero is a historic streetcar line that is the San Francisco Municipal Railway's second heritage streetcar line in San Francisco, California. Trial service first ran during the Sunday Streets events on The Embarcadero in 2008. The l ...

and

F Market & Wharves The F Market & Wharves line is one of several light rail lines in San Francisco, California. Unlike most other lines in the system, the F line runs as a heritage streetcar service, almost exclusively using historic equipment both from San Franc ...

lines. Market Street Railway developed and operates the San Francisco Railway Museum along Embarcadero route of the streetcars and operates the David Pharr Restoration Facility where Market Street Railway volunteers restore historic vehicles before donating them to Muni. Market Street Railway borrows the name of the

Market Street Railway Company The Market Street Railway Company was a commercial streetcar and bus operator in San Francisco. The company was named after the famous Market Street (San Francisco), Market Street of that city, which formed the core of its transportation network ...

, a former commercial streetcar and bus operator in San Francisco.

History

Founded in 1976, Market Street Railway members created the successful

San Francisco Historic Trolley Festival The San Francisco Historic Trolley Festival was a heritage streetcar service along Market Street in San Francisco, California, United States. It used a variety of vintage streetcars and operated five to seven days a week, primarily in summer mo ...

s of the 1980s that resulted in the permanent return of historic streetcars to

Market Street Market Street may refer to: *Market Street, Cambridge, England *Market Street, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia * Market Street, George Town, Penang, Malaysia *Market Street, Manchester, England *Market Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ...

in the form of the

line — the most popular service of its kind in all of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Service on the line, then called F Market, commenced on September 1, 1995, replacing Muni's 8 Market trolleybus line. In 1996, one year after service began, F Market streetcars carried an average of 7,758 passengers per day, a 43% increase in ridership over the 8 Market trolleybus. In the late 1990s, the Embarcadero was rebuilt as a tree-lined

boulevard A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway. Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls. In American usage, boulevards may ...

with streetcar tracks in the median. On March 4, 2000, the F Market line was extended to use the new tracks to travel between the Ferry Building and Fisherman's Wharf at the northern end of the waterfront. By 2008, F Market streetcars were carrying an average of 20,000 riders per day, and were so overcrowded that drivers were sometimes forced to skip stops. For comparison, the Muni Metro system carried an average of 130,000 passengers per day through the Market Street subway in 1999. Service again expanded in 2015 with the

line which utilized the tracks on the Embarcadero south of the Ferry Building to Caltrain's 4th and King station. Since its inception, Market Street Railway has helped Muni to acquire and restore more than a dozen historic streetcars and cable cars for service, adding diversity to Muni’s large historic fleet. Market Street Railway's restoration corps has done much of this restoration work themselves. Its volunteers also clean the cars' interiors at the Castro Street Terminal to improve rider experience.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Market Street Railway nonprofit Heritage streetcar systems Market Street (San Francisco) Non-profit organizations based in California Passenger rail transportation in California Public transportation in San Francisco San Francisco Municipal Railway