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| Named after | Market Street Railway Company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1976; 50 years ago (1976) |
| Type | Nonprofit |
| Focus | Preservation of historic transit vehicles |
| Location |
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| Members | 1,000 |
Key people | Rick Laubscher (President & CEO) |
| Website | streetcar |
Market Street Railway isSan Francisco Municipal Railway's (Muni) 1,200-member non-profit preservation partner. It relies on private contributions to help maintainSan Francisco’s fleet ofhistoric streetcars in service on theE Embarcadero andF Market & Wharves lines.
Market Street Railway developed and operates theSan Francisco Railway Museum along Embarcadero route of the streetcars and operates theDavid Pharr Restoration Facility where Market Street Railway volunteers restore historic vehicles before donating them to Muni.
Market Street Railway borrows the name of theMarket Street Railway Company, a former commercial streetcar and bus operator in San Francisco.
Founded in 1976, Market Street Railway members created the successfulSan Francisco Historic Trolley Festivals of the 1980s that resulted in the permanent return of historic streetcars toMarket Street in the form of theF Market & Wharves line — the most popular service of its kind in all ofNorth America.[1]
Service on the line, then called F Market, commenced on September 1, 1995, replacing Muni's 8 Market trolleybus line.[2] 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.[3]
In the late 1990s, theEmbarcadero was rebuilt as a tree-linedboulevard with streetcar tracks in the median. On March 4, 2000, the F Market line was extended to use the new tracks to travel between theFerry Building andFisherman's Wharf at the northern end of the waterfront.[4] 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.[5] For comparison, the Muni Metro system carried an average of 130,000 passengers per day through the Market Street subway in 1999.[6]
Service again expanded in 2015 with theE Embarcadero line which utilized the tracks on the Embarcadero south of the Ferry Building to Caltrain's4th 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 theCastro Street Terminal to improve rider experience.
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