The San Francisco
trolleybus
A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...
system forms part of the
public transportation
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...
network serving
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, in the
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
of
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Opened on October 6, 1935,
it presently comprises 15 lines, and is operated by the
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 ...
, commonly known as ''Muni'' (or the Muni), with around 300 trolleybuses. In San Francisco, these vehicles are also known as "trolley coaches", a term that was the most common name for trolleybuses in the United States in the middle decades of the 20th century. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of .
The Muni trolley bus system is complementary to the city-owned
Muni bus services,
Muni Metro
Muni Metro is a light rail system serving San Francisco, California, United States. Operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), a part of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), Muni Metro served an average of 157 ...
and
cable car system and the rail-bound regional
Caltrain
Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a California commuter rail line serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose at Tamien station with weekday rush hour service running as far ...
and
Bay Area Rapid Transit
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes on of rapid transit lines, including a spur line in eastern Contra Costa County which uses ...
systems. In addition, it shares some of its
overhead wires
An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as:
* Overhead catenary
* Overhead contact system (OCS)
* Overhead equipmen ...
with the
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 ...
streetcar line.
One of only five such
systems currently operating in the U.S.,
the Muni trolley bus system is the second-largest such system in the
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term We ...
, after that of
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
. The system includes the single steepest known
grade
Grade most commonly refers to:
* Grade (education), a measurement of a student's performance
* Grade, the number of the year a student has reached in a given educational stage
* Grade (slope), the steepness of a slope
Grade or grading may also ref ...
on any existing trolley bus line in the world
[Box, Roland (May–June 1989). "San Francisco Looks Ahead". ''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 165, pp. 50–56. National Trolleybus Association (UK).][''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 261 (May–June 2005), p. 72.][''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 313 (January–February 2014), p. 27.] (22.8% in the block of Noe Street between
Cesar Chavez Street
Cesar Chavez Street (formerly Army Street) is an east–west street in San Francisco, California, United States. The street was renamed in 1995 in honor of American labor leader and Latino American civil rights activist, Cesar Chavez. It ...
and 26th Street on route
24-Divisadero),
and several other sections of Muni trolley bus routes are among the world's steepest.
[''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 259 (January–February 2005), p. 23.]
History
Long a hub of
streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
development, San Francisco already had much of the overhead wire infrastructure necessary to deploy trolleybus service on existing city streets. A city ordinance requiring streetcars to use two operators also served to encourage trolleybus deployment.
In April 1934, Col. Jno H. Skeggs of the State Highway Department urged the conversion of the
No. 33 Line streetcar to "trackless trolley",
as some of the tracks would have to be taken up for the construction of the
Bay Bridge. By early August of that year, 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 ...
(MSRy), successor to the URR, applied to the State Railroad Commission to operate the first trackless trolley system in California;
permission was granted by August 30,
and the first trolleybus service started on October 6, 1935, using 9 coaches built by Brill.
The No. 33 Line had been originally established in 1892 by the San Francisco & San Mateo Railway Company as the 18th and Park or 18th Street Branch route. That route initially ran along 18th from Guerrero to Douglass before being extended to Frederick and Ashbury including a sharp
hairpin turn
A hairpin turn (also hairpin bend or hairpin corner) is a bend in a road with a very acute inner angle, making it necessary for an oncoming vehicle to turn about 180° to continue on the road. It is named for its resemblance to a bent metal hai ...
on the lower slopes of
Twin Peaks
''Twin Peaks'' is an American Mystery fiction, mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on American Broadcasting Company, ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cance ...
at Market and Clayton by May 1894. At the time of conversion, the No. 33 streetcar operated between Third & Harrison (
Downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
) and Waller & Stanyan (
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development ...
),
a round trip of .
The current 33-Ashbury trolleybus route still runs on a portion of that route. After riding the trackless trolley, the editor of the ''
San Bernardino Sun
''The San Bernardino Sun'' is a paid daily newspaper in San Bernardino County. Founded in 1894, it has significant circulation in neighboring Riverside County, and serves most of the Inland Empire in Southern California, with a circulation area s ...
'' published a rumor that all streetcar service would eventually be replaced with trolleybuses.
On September 7, 1941, Muni introduced its first trolleybus line to compete with MSRy, the R-Howard line, using vehicles built by the St. Louis Car Company.
R-Howard was built on the original route of the sparsely ridden No. 35 streetcar line; MSRy's franchise to operate the No. 35 had expired at the end of the 1930s.
The R-Howard line was introduced specifically so that Muni could undercut MSRy's prices on its parallel routes on
Mission Street
Mission Street is a north-south arterial thoroughfare in Daly City and San Francisco, California that runs from Daly City's southern border to San Francisco's northeast waterfront. The street and San Francisco's Mission District through which it r ...
.
The 35-Howard line originally ran from the
Ferry Building along
Howard
Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also probabl ...
,
South Van Ness, and 24th to that street's intersection with Rhode Island. The routing for R-Howard followed a similar path from Howard & Beale along Howard and South Van Ness to South Van Ness & Army (now named Cesar Chavez). Although the overhead wires are still present along Howard, they are not used in revenue service.
The present-day 14-Mission trolleybus route runs along Mission, parallel to the original R-Howard route on Howard. By 1944, the MSRy was in financial difficulties. Thus, at 5 am on September 29, 1944, Muni acquired its commercial competitor. Along with the routes and equipment, Muni adopted its competitor's more expensive seven-cent fare ($ adjusted for inflation).
At the time, the R-Howard line used 9 trolleybuses over a route (round-trip).
![Muni route 5 trolleybus at Divisadero, December 2006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Muni_route_5_trolleybus_at_Divisadero%2C_December_2006.jpg)
The city attorney's office had ruled that using trolleybuses instead of streetcars was not abandonment of service; this opinion would eventually be overturned in 1959,
but not before Muni followed national trends in replacing most of its streetcar rail lines with trolleybus service in the 1940s and 1950s. The E-Union line was the first to be replaced with trolleybus service, which combined the route with R-Howard as the E-Union-Howard. Trolleybus operation on the new E line commenced on June 9, 1947; it was redesignated in 1949 and survives as the 41-Union.
8-Market was converted to trolleybus service in 1948.
The deployment of new "trackless trolleys" was greatly expanded on July 3, 1949, when Muni rolled out trolleybus service to replace five former MSRy lines,
including the 21-Hayes and 5-McAllister streetcar lines.
In total,
fourteen streetcar lines were converted to trolleybus service by 1951.
With the closure of the B-Geary line on December 29, 1956,
only five lines with dedicated rights-of-way (including those running through the
Twin Peaks
''Twin Peaks'' is an American Mystery fiction, mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on American Broadcasting Company, ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cance ...
and
Sunset
Sunset, also known as sundown, is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon due to Earth's rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth (except the North and South poles), the equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring ...
tunnels) continued as rail-based streetcar lines. Those five lines ran 1940s-era
PCC streetcar
The PCC (Presidents' Conference Committee) is a streetcar (tram) design that was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful in its native country, and after World War II it was licensed for use elsewhere in the ...
s through the 1970s and were subsequently converted to the
Muni Metro
Muni Metro is a light rail system serving San Francisco, California, United States. Operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), a part of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), Muni Metro served an average of 157 ...
light rail system using
Boeing-Vertol SLRVs.
Grade
While many municipalities further converted their trolleybus systems to diesel buses during the middle of the 20th century, San Francisco maintained trolleybuses due to their ability to climb the city's notably steep
grades
Grade most commonly refers to:
* Grade (education), a measurement of a student's performance
* Grade, the number of the year a student has reached in a given educational stage
* Grade (slope), the steepness of a slope
Grade or grading may also r ...
and because electricity was available at extremely low cost from the city-owned
O'Shaughnessy Dam.
Muni has stated that it is impossible for some lines to be replaced by regular buses. The system includes the single steepest known grade on any existing trolley bus line in the world,
specifically 22.8% in the block of Noe Street between Cesar Chavez Street and 26th Street on route 24-Divisadero,
and several other sections of Muni trolley bus routes are among the world's steepest.
On December 16, 1981, the 55-Sacramento line was converted from diesel motor coach service to the 1-California trolleybus specifically to power the westward climb on Sacramento up
Nob Hill
Nob Hill is a neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States that is known for its numerous luxury hotels and historic mansions. Nob Hill has historically served as a center of San Francisco's upper class. Nob Hill is among the highes ...
.
Before dieselization, the line had been operated using cable cars. At the time, Muni was also facing a severe shortage of available diesel motor coaches due to age and deferred maintenance, which would lead to the conversion of the 45-Greenwich diesel bus service to the 45-Union-Van Ness trolleybus in 1982 as a temporary experiment later made permanent.
A year after being lengthened, route 24-Divisadero was converted to trolleybus operation in 1983.
In 1993, the last major electric conversion took place when route 31-Balboa was partially converted to trolleybus service. Full implementation was delayed until 1994, when accessible Flyer E60 trolleybuses became available.
Coming full circle, at the end of 1995 the 8-Market trolleybus line was replaced by the
F-Market & Wharves streetcar line using refurbished PCCs. The overwhelming popularity of the new F line allowed Muni to reduce the frequency of and then discontinue the 8-Market, though the overhead wires remain in place.
Approximately of the daily riders on Muni are carried on trolleybuses;
in 2010, that was 227,000 passenger boardings per weekday.
Lines
Trolley buses currently operate the following Muni routes:
Fleet
![Ferry Building with Muni trolleybus, 1953](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Ferry_Building_with_Muni_trolleybus%2C_1953.jpg)
Since the start of service in 1935 (on the Market Street Railway system), the San Francisco trolleybus system fleet has included vehicles built by many different manufacturers, including the
J. G. Brill Company
The J.G. Brill Company manufactured streetcars,Young, Andrew D. (1997). ''Veteran & Vintage Transit'', p. 101. St. Louis: Archway Publishing. interurban coaches, motor buses, trolleybuses and railroad cars in the United States for almos ...
, the
St. Louis Car Company
The St. Louis Car Company was a major United States manufacturer of railroad passenger cars, streetcars, interurbans, trolleybuses and locomotives that existed from 1887 to 1974, based in St. Louis, Missouri.
History
The St. Louis Car Company ...
,
Marmon-Herrington
The Marmon-Herrington Company, Inc. is an American manufacturer of axles and transfer cases for trucks and other vehicles. Earlier, the company built military vehicles and some tanks during World War II, and until the late 1950s or early 1960s wa ...
,
Twin Coach
Twin Coach was an American vehicle manufacturing company from 1927 to 1955, located in Kent, Ohio, and a maker of marine engines and airplane parts until the 1960s. It was formed by brothers Frank and William Fageol when they left the Fageol Mo ...
,
Flyer Industries (now New Flyer), and
Electric Transit.
Early fleet (Brill, St. Louis)
Market Street Railway was the first transit organization in San Francisco to run trackless trolleys, using nine coaches built by Brill in 1935 for the 33 line, numbered 51–59. Each Brill was long and seated 37; approximately half used traction motors from General Electric (GE) and the other half used Westinghouse (WH) motors. Shortly after Muni assumed MSRy's operations in 1944, the Brill coaches were replaced by newer trolleybuses built for Muni and transferred to supplemental rush hour service by 1946. All of the Brill coaches were scrapped by 1954.
![San Francisco Muni St Louis-built trolleybus 506 on display in 2012](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/San_Francisco_Muni_St_Louis-built_trolleybus_506_on_display_in_2012.jpg)
Muni commissioned its first trolleybuses from the St. Louis Car Company in 1939, and they were built in that year but were not placed into service until 1941. These were 40-seat coaches. Like the earlier Brills built for MSRy, the first set of nine St. Louis coaches used motors from GE and Westinghouse. Numbered 501–509, they went into service on the R-Howard Line in 1941. A second order in 1947 for 16 slightly larger coaches completed the first fleet of 25 coaches for Muni.
Replacing streetcars (Marmon, Twin Coach, St. Louis)
The Muni trackless trolley fleet was expanded starting in 1947 as streetcar service was being replaced. Muni primarily purchased trolleybuses from Marmon-Harrington in three different sizes: the "Baby Marmons" in 1947 (Model TC40, numbered 526–549, 40 seats), followed by "Medium Marmons" in 1949 (Model TC44, numbered 550–569 and 660–739, 44 seats), and finally "Large Marmons" in 1950 (Model TC48, numbered 740–849, 48 seats).The Baby Marmons were relegated to supplemental service by 1954 and retired by 1961; most were scrapped, with few exceptions, by 1969.
![Muni 5300 and 776 at Heritage Weekend, September 2017](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Muni_5300_and_776_at_Heritage_Weekend%2C_September_2017.JPG)
In addition, Muni ordered 90 trolleybuses from Twin Coach comparable to the Medium Marmons in 1949 (Model 44TTW, numbered 570–659, 44 seats).
The final expansion of the trolleybus fleet in the 1950s was accomplished by purchasing 40 48-seat coaches from the St. Louis Car Company in the early 1950s.
The mixed fleet of Medium and Large Marmon, Twin Coach, and St. Louis trolleybuses would serve Muni throughout the 1960s and well into the 1970s; by the time Muni was ready to replace its trolleybuses, however, no American manufacturer was willing to build a new trolleybus. Muni turned to
Flyer Industries, a Canadian manufacturer who was still building trolleybuses for their domestic market.
Flyer and New Flyer
By 1977, with the delivery of more than 300
Flyer E800 trolleybuses, Muni was able to retire its existing fleet of trolleybuses; the newest of those (outside the Flyers) was by then more than 25 years old. A significant portion of the legacy Marmon/St. Louis fleet was sold to Mexico City.
As the fleet of Flyer trolleybuses aged, reliability declined. In 1991, the fleet of Flyer E800 trolleybuses traveled a mean distance of between failures (MDBF). By 1995, the MDBF had fallen to just , and each breakdown was taking an average of 4 days to fix, often compounded by the unavailability of parts for the E800s, which were nearly 20 years old at that point.
In addition, a number of incidents where poles had detached from the wires and subsequently struck pedestrians and vehicles gained publicity at the time.
In 1993, Muni procured a fleet of 60
New Flyer E60s, that agency's first use of articulated trolleybuses.
Muni was the only customer for the E60 trolleybus variant of the New Flyer Galaxy; a prototype was built in 1992 and numbered 7000 for evaluation before the larger purchase was completed. The New Flyer E60 fleet subsequently were blamed for increasing the fleet accident rate. By 1996, the fleet average was 12.5 accidents per traveled; in comparison, the E60 rate was 26 accidents over the same distance. They gained a reputation as the most difficult buses in drive system-wide, and were often driven by the least experienced drivers, as their increased capacity meant they were used on the busiest lines, which were relegated to drivers with the least seniority.
In 2001, the first known trolleybus fire occurred aboard No. 5204, a Flyer E800 that was over 20 years old. At that point, procurement of the successor ETI 14TrSF replacement vehicles was already underway.
The reliability of the New Flyer E60s suffered as they aged, achieving a MDBF of approximately in January 2011 and January 2012.
20 of the 60 originally ordered had been retired by 2010.
At that time, the New Flyer E60 fleet was approaching 20 years old, and buses were breaking down, on average, once every five days. 12 New Flyer E60s were retired in early 2013,
[''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 309 (May–June 2013), p. 82.] and the remaining 28 E60s were retired in early January 2015.
[''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 320 (March–April 2015), pp. 62–63.]
Electric Transit, Inc.
The
Electric Transit, Inc. (ETI) trolleybuses were delivered between 2001 and 2003, and came in two different models: 240 40-foot units (model 14TrSF) and 33 articulated 60-foot units (model 15TrSF), specially derived from the
Škoda
Škoda means ''pity'' in the Czech and Slovak languages. It may also refer to:
Czech brands and enterprises
* Škoda Auto, automobile and previously bicycle manufacturer in Mladá Boleslav
** Škoda Motorsport, the division of Škoda Auto respons ...
14Tr and
15Tr, respectively, for use on the Muni system. The suffix SF in the two ETI model numbers stands for San Francisco.
The total number of rigid (40-foot) trolleybuses was expanded to 240 with the new ETI 14TrSFs because of anticipated demand resulting from plans in the early 2000s to expand the trolleybus network. However, the expansion projects were not pursued after the Transit Effectiveness Project determined that minor changes to improve efficiency were all that were needed.
During testing, the new ETI trolleybuses were compared to a "luxury car" by one driver, and touted features included a new pneumatic system to raise and lower trolley poles and an on-board battery to allow off-wire operation for up to . However, the new ETI trolleybuses proved to be overweight during testing.
![Muni trolleybuses at Presidio Division, March 2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Muni_trolleybuses_at_Presidio_Division%2C_March_2008.jpg)
Domesticated 14Tr trolleybuses that had been delivered earlier to
Miami Valley RTA had some electrical issues related to the auxiliary power unit enabling off-wire operation; the cost of fixing those issues forced ETI to ask for a cash advance on its contract with Muni in 1999.
The ETI trolleybuses were assembled at Pier 15;
manufacturing started in the Czech Republic with frames, motors and controls, continued in
Hunt Valley, Maryland
Hunt Valley is an unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, near the site of the Maryland Hunt Cup Steeplechase. It lies just north of the city of Baltimore, along York Road (Maryland Route 45), parallel to Intersta ...
, where the body, paint, under-flooring and wiring were added, and finished in San Francisco.
The manufacturing activities were designed to meet "Buy America" regulations required for vehicles procured using federal assistance.
The 14TrSF displaced the prior Flyer E800 fleet, and the 15TrSF complemented the Flyer E60s. After the initial deployment of the ETI trolleybuses in 2002, the nuts securing the brakes to the axle were found to be loose. By January 2010, the exclusively
high-floor
High-floor describes the interior flooring of commuter vehicles primarily used in public transport such as trains, light rail cars and other rail vehicles, along with buses and trolleybuses. Interior floor height is generally measured above the ...
Muni trolleybus fleet included 313 serviceable vehicles, comprising three different types, of which 240 were 40-foot conventional (two-axle) units, the ETI 14TrSF, and 73 were 60-foot
articulated bus
An articulated bus, also referred to as a banana bus, bendy bus, tandem bus, vestibule bus, wiggle wagon, stretch bus, or an accordion bus, (either a motor bus or trolleybus) is an articulated vehicle used in public transportation. It is usua ...
es, 33 ETI 15TrSF and 40
New Flyer
New Flyer is a Canadian multinational Bus manufacturing, bus manufacturer, specializing in the production of transit buses. New Flyer is owned by the NFI Group, a holding company for several bus manufacturers. New Flyer has several manufacturing ...
E60 vehicles built in 1993–94.
[''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 293 (September–October 2010), p. 116. National Trolleybus Association (UK). .] Parts for the ETI trolleybuses needed to be shipped from the Czech Republic, increasing the time spent out of service.
The MDBF of the ETI 14TrSF and 15TrSF trolleybuses was approximately for January 2011 and 2012.
However, as they aged, the ETI trolleybuses were temporarily pulled from service for repairs after several caught fire in 2014 and 2015. In a separate incident that occurred in 2016, the traction motor control circuit failed on ETI 14TrSF No. 5623 and the bus failed to respond to both the brake pedal and the emergency brake, rear-ending a parked delivery truck. By 2017, the 14TrSF fleet had aged to a point where they were collectively responsible for nearly half of all Muni service delays resulting from mechanical failures.
Return to New Flyer
![Trolleybuses at Cabrillo and La Playa loop, November 2018](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Trolleybuses_at_Cabrillo_and_La_Playa_loop%2C_November_2018.JPG)
In 2013, the
SFMTA
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA or San Francisco MTA) is an agency created by consolidation of the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT), and the Taxicab Commission. The agen ...
adopted plans for an eventual one-for-one replacement of the existing trolleybus fleet in a joint procurement with
King County Metro
King County Metro, officially the King County Metro Transit Department and often shortened to Metro, is the public transit authority of King County, Washington, which includes the city of Seattle. It is the eighth-largest transit bus agency in t ...
and New Flyer over technical specifications and pricing. The first order to be placed under the 2013 agreement was the 2014 order to replace the 61 articulated trolleybuses remaining in the fleet (28 E60 and 33 15TrSF)
with 60 New Flyer
XT60 articulated
low-floor
Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" (i.e ...
trolleybuses, delivery of which began in 2015. These are the trolleybus system's first low-floor vehicles.
Two prototypes (Nos. 7201 and 7202) arrived in March 2015 and May 2015, respectively,
[''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 322 (July–August 2015), p. 126.] and entered service in May
and September 2015.
[''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 325 (January–February 2016), p. 31.] Delivery of the 58 production-series vehicles began in September 2015, and the series entered service between November 2015
and July 2016.
The last of the 33 ETI 15TrSF articulated trolleybuses were retired in April–May 2016. These changes left the fleet with 240 conventional 40-foot units built by ETI (model 14TrSF) and 60 articulated New Flyer XT60s. In July 2016, an order for an additional 33 New Flyer XT60 articulated buses was placed
[''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 329 (September–October 2016), p. 159.] via a first contract amendment, intended as an expansion of the 60-foot articulated fleet. Delivery of the 33 additional XT60 coaches was completed by March 2018.
According to internal testing in November 2015, the New Flyer XT60 articulated trolleybuses are limited to routes with grades of less than 10%.
The second and final contract amendment under the 2013 agreement added an order for 185 two-axle, 40-foot New Flyer XT40 trolleybuses, which received final approval in June 2017.
These vehicles will replace the remaining ETIs.
Although Muni has options for an additional 55 XT40 trolleybuses (which would bring the total order to 240 40-foot XT40s as a one-for-one replacement of the ETI 14TrSF fleet), the option was not exercised because the first contract amendment in 2016 for 33 additional XT60 articulated trolleybuses provided sufficient system capacity.
In the 2010 ''Fleet Management Plan'', Muni anticipated the growth in ridership on routes served by trolleybuses would be accommodated by an increased proportion of articulated vehicles in the fleet.
By September 7, 2019, the fleet of 40-foot ETI 14TrSF trolleybuses was withdrawn from service, which left the all-New Flyer fleet at 93 60-foot XT60s and 185 40-foot XT40s.
Current fleet
The present fleet includes trolleybuses and articulated trolleybuses. Trolleybuses are assigned to Potrero and Presidio Divisions (
garages), with the 60-foot articulated trolleybuses operating exclusively from Potrero.
Retired fleet
The trolleybus system's original fleet, owned and operated by the Market Street Railway when only MSRy was operating trolleybuses in San Francisco, were built by the
J. G. Brill Company
The J.G. Brill Company manufactured streetcars,Young, Andrew D. (1997). ''Veteran & Vintage Transit'', p. 101. St. Louis: Archway Publishing. interurban coaches, motor buses, trolleybuses and railroad cars in the United States for almos ...
. MSRy merged with Muni in 1944, and in the years since then the trolleybus fleet has also included vehicles built by the
St. Louis Car Company
The St. Louis Car Company was a major United States manufacturer of railroad passenger cars, streetcars, interurbans, trolleybuses and locomotives that existed from 1887 to 1974, based in St. Louis, Missouri.
History
The St. Louis Car Company ...
,
Marmon-Herrington
The Marmon-Herrington Company, Inc. is an American manufacturer of axles and transfer cases for trucks and other vehicles. Earlier, the company built military vehicles and some tanks during World War II, and until the late 1950s or early 1960s wa ...
,
Twin Coach
Twin Coach was an American vehicle manufacturing company from 1927 to 1955, located in Kent, Ohio, and a maker of marine engines and airplane parts until the 1960s. It was formed by brothers Frank and William Fageol when they left the Fageol Mo ...
, and
Flyer Industries.
Several trolleybuses have been preserved after serving in San Francisco:
* No. 506 (built by St. Louis Car Company in 1939, but not placed in service until 1941)
[Porter, Harry; and Worris, Stanley F.X. (1979). ''Trolleybus Bulletin No. 109: Databook II'', pp. 48, 71. Louisville (KY): North American Trackless Trolley Association (defunct).]
* Nos. 530 and 536 (Marmon-Herrington TC40, at
Orange Empire Railway Museum
The Southern California Railway Museum (SCRM, reporting mark OERX), formerly known as the Orange Empire Railway Museum, is a railroad museum in Perris, California, United States. It was founded in 1956 at Griffith Park in Los Angeles before moving ...
(OERM))
* No. 614 (Twin Coach 44TTW, at OERM)
* No. 776 (Marmon-Herrington TC48)
* No. 5300 (Flyer E800)
* No. 5538 (ETI 14TrSf)
None of the retired ETI 15TrSF articulated trolleybuses have been saved for the historical fleet.
An E60, vehicle 7031, was saved for four years until 2019, when it was sent to auction.
Muni withdrew the auction for 7031 at the request of interested preservation groups.
;Notes
Infrastructure
*
Market Street Railway (overhead lines)
*
Stockton Street Tunnel
*
Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit
Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit is a bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco, California, United States. The line, which runs between Mission Street and Lombard Street, has dedicated center bus lanes and nine stations. ...
See also
*
San Francisco Municipal Railway fleet
With five different modes of transport the San Francisco Municipal Railway runs one of the most diverse fleets of vehicles in the United States. Roughly 550 diesel-electric hybrid buses, 300 electric trolleybuses, 250 modern light rail vehicles, ...
*
List of trolleybus systems in the United States
This is a list of trolleybus systems in the United States by State. It includes all trolleybus systems, past and present. About 65Murray, Alan (2000). ''World Trolleybus Encyclopaedia''. Yateley, Hampshire, UK: Trolleybooks. . trolleybus sy ...
References
Books
*
External links
SFMTA– official website
*
{{UStrolleybus
San Francisco Municipal Railway
Bus transportation in California
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
1935 establishments in California
*