The cable car system of San Francisco is the last manually operated cable car system in the world, with three of the original twenty-three lines still operating today. With these systems being installed between 1873 and 1890, they were due major maintenance and upgrades by the time the 1980s and with it their 100th year of operation rolled around. This rebuilding and upgrading process was recorded in a documentary by a local SF television station, which makes for some fascinating viewing.
While the cars themselves were fairly straight-forward to restore, and the original grips that’d latch onto the cable didn’t need any changes. But there were upgrades to the lubrication used (originally pine tar), and the powerhouse (the ‘barn’) was completely gutted and rebuilt.
As opposed to a funicular system where the cars are permanently attached to the cable, a cable car system features a constantly moving cable that the cars can grip onto at will, with most of the wear and tear on the grip dies. Despite researchers at San Francisco State University (SFSU) investigating alternatives, the original metal grip dies were left in place, despite their 4-day replacement schedule.
Ultimately, the rails and related guides were all ripped out and replaced with new ones, with the rails thermite-welded in place, and the cars largely rebuilt from scratch. Although new technologies were used where available, the goal was to keep the look as close as possible to what it looked at the dawn of the 20th century. While more expensive than demolishing and scrapping the original buildings and rolling stock, this helped to keep the look that has made it a historical symbol when the upgraded system rolled back into action on June 21, 1984.
Decades later, this rebuilt cable car system is still running as smoothly as ever, thanks to these efforts. Although SF’s cable car system is reportedly mostly used by tourists, the technology has seen somewhat of a resurgence. Amidst a number of funicular systems, a true new cable car system can be found in the form of e.g. the MiniMetro system which fills the automated people mover niche.
Thanks to [JRD] for the tip.
SF cable cars are the worlds worst roller coaster.
Nobody gets on/off except at the turnarounds.
At those points they have (well had) hours long lines, like Disneyworld.
You’d expect the tourists to be swarmed by bums, but the city knows which side the bread is buttered on.
So do the bums, avoid detox on the floor of the loony bin.
I bet a lot of SF citizens would love to see their local loony afraid of a 5150 again. 48 hours is eternity to junkie.
Wait, SF still has a loony bin? You sure can’t tell by looking
I was actually in SF about the time they would have been wrapping up the refurb project and lived up the road just a few hours but don’t recall being aware of the project.
Norcalian by birth, but I haven’t been to SF in decades. From what I hear, it is a looney bin. Don’t do drugs, kids.
I do think the video will be worth a watch when I get a chance, but the city sounds like a lost cause to me.
Yeah, that’s what I assumed. They decided that doing positivist interventions is too mean, so the solution defaults to a “stray cat” philosophy of managing drugs and schizophrenia
Locals don’t ride the cable cars
Of course not.
But they should would like some cable car end station type law enforcement on their block for a change.
They might if they went to places that were useful… and if the city was able to muster the will to do something about the awful conditions (schizophrenics menacing and threatening and spitting in your face) which would result if locals started using it. One portion of the locals in SF pay a king’s ransom in rent, while the other pay zero. That’s a big problem for any high-trust society, and you can’t have good public transport in a low-trust society. It’s the elephant in the room
Despite YIMBY ravings and fever-dreams, the thing holding us back from useful public transport (which we have already had before with Edwardian technology) is primarily social technology, not engineering. I can’t stand hearing the term “high-speed rail.” High-speed rail doesn’t exist outside Japan. They have the social technology.
Socialism is the cancer that killed entire Eastern Europe economy. People in the West do not need to repeat mistakes of bolshevism just to discover that pubic transport will never work in practice.
As for Japan – good luck with existing as country when their birthrate is “yeah nah” instead of 2.1 required for survival. By 2050 their population will either become close to zero or will be replaced by muslims.
I think all major countries could use a bit less population. The world will not end if we went back to population figures from the 1980s or 2000s; the only challenge is defeating bureaucrats who will panic and try to enact massive population transfers (like you mentioned) to keep pensions from getting a little smaller and ensure that GDP growth line go up forever.
Birthrates will pick up again once the world isn’t a stifling, suffocating global hospice care.
And by “social technology” I do not mean socialism btw. Not sure if that was what you were assuming or not