Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About San Francisco’s Cable Cars
Ever since they became a part of the city’s transit system, they have been iconic mainstays of its cityscape
- By Jeff Greenwald
- Smithsonian.com, January 04, 2013
Fannie Mae Barnes at Work on Powell and Mason Cable Line | June 5, 1998 (Courtesy of the SFMTA Photo Archive / ©2011 SFMTA)
San Francisco’s cable cars take two people to operate: a conductor, and a gripman, who—among other tasks—handles a 365-pound device that literally grabs the cable as it rattles under the track at 9.5 mph. “Gripping” a cable car is a highly demanding physical task that requires upper body strength, delicate balance, and superb eye-hand coordination.
Fannie Mae Barnes was 52 when she took Muni’s 25-day grip course in late 1997. She’d been a conductor for six years – but no woman had ever made it past the first day of training. Barnes passed, and became the first woman to operate a cable car grip in January 1998.
“The cable car itself weighs eight tons, empty,” Barnes recently told an interviewer. “It's a miniature train. A lot of guys try to muscle the grip, but it's really more a finesse thing.”
In 2002, Barnes carried the Olympic torch up Hyde Street as part of the relay leading up to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah.
Comments (2)
Here's a great film taken from a San Francisco streetcar in 1906, just before the earthquake: http://www.flixxy.com/san-francisco-1905-historical-footage.htm
Posted by Don on January 8,2013 | 05:42 PM
I really enjoyed reading about the history of the cable cars, and the sound tracks of the bells added to the fun !! What a great touch !!!
Posted by roslyn miller on January 5,2013 | 09:28 PM