Recently, Telstar Logistics had an opportunity to take an authorized tour of the San Francisco Municipal Railway's Marin Division yard, thanks to our friends at Market Street Railway.
The Marin Division Yard is home to San Francisco's derelict streetcar storage facility — a kind of purgatory for old streetcars as they await either restoration or piecemeal destruction as parts-donors for the active streetcars in Muni's thriving vintage streetcar fleet.
Most of the old streetcars here are streamlined PCCs built roughly between 1940 and 1952. Some survive as spooky time capsules of the day when they were removed from service:
Much of the original signage remains:
There's a PCC from Philadelphia here, looking just as it did when San Francisco snatched it up as surplus from Septa, Philly's mass-transit agency:
Some of the old PCCs were left exposed to the elements — and vandals — for years until they finally found refuge inside the boneyard fence. They're now painted blue, but the scars from those feral years are still clear to see:
There's a even retired California Street cable car parked among the hulks:
There's also a streetcar from Hamburg, Germany. After retirement in Hamburg, it was imported to the United States and operated in San Francisco during a series of Trolley Festivals held during the 1980s. Now, after years of inactivity, it awaits rehabilitation:
The good news is that as hopeless as some of these old streetcars seem, they are stored here because they remain valuable. Many will enjoy better days again — eventually. Consider this rather grim photo of ex-Muni PCC streetcar No. 1040, as it looked in 2009:
Shortly after that photo was taken, 1040 was fully rebuilt and restored. And here's how streetcar No. 1040 looks now:
Good as new.
Until Restoration Day comes, then, here's a photoset of streetcar survivors preserved at Muni's Marin Division yard. PRO TIP: Embigged to fullscreen.
PHOTOS: All photos by Telstar Logistics, except restored exterior of streetcar 1040,, by Kevin Mueller.
