Here's an innovation that may strike terror into the hearts of San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf Merchants Association. Indeed, the video you are about see could be the harbinger of a wholesale reconficuration of San Francisco's urban landscape and northern waterfront, eventually turning a now-popular tourist area into a robotic Serv-O-Mat... or worse!
As if the dangers of overharvesting, fishery contamination, and economic downturn weren't scary enough for a typical Wharf crab-monger, In Nanjing, China, a new vending machine serves live crabs direct to seafood-craving consumers.
Think about it: If Chinese entrepreneurs take this idea one step further -- by figuring out how to offer live crabs WITH melted butter AND cocktail sauce... perhaps served in a bread bowl... all from a vending machine -- Fisherman's Wharf as we know it may cease to exist. Be afraid, Wharf merchants. Very afraid!
Watch for yourself, and enjoy the Japanese narration:
Our familiar friend and local neighbor, the former USS Tripoli, is getting a spa treatment.
A retired US Navy amphibious assault ship, the weary-looking ex-Tripoli now serves as a test platform for America's missile-defense program, and this week the ship was moved to San Francisco's BAE Shipyard. Daver6, the photographer who took the photos above, tells us, "It's got a few soft spots on her bottom that will be cut out and replaced, then a bottom paint job."
CAMEO BONUS: Notice that the tugboat hard at work on the port side of the ex-Tripoli is the high-tech tractor tug Marshall Foss. Telstar Logistics explored the Marshall Foss in 2008, so you can explore it too.
One of the benefits of having a brand extension who is three years-old is that it affords us the opportunity to experience various San Francisco attractions that we might otherwise dismiss as being too touristy for any self-respecting local.
So that explains why we went for a Duck Tour.
Properly speaking, of course, it was a DUKW tour. And as any self-respecting geek can tell you, a DUKW was a World War II amphibious vehicle that played an important role during the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944. Half General Motors truck, half boat, the DUKW proved to be a very useful vehicle either on land or in the water. Here's one coming ashore during the invasion:
Capable of carrying 2.5 tons of cargo at up to 45 mph on land, and then driving into the wet to carry same at 6 mph over water -- or vice-versa -- the DUKW was a classic wartime case study in clever ingenuity and rugged simplicity, and more than 21,000 of them were built during the war. As the Wikipedia summarizeth:
The DUKW (popularly pronounced "duck") is a six-wheel-drive amphibious truck that was designed by a partnership under military auspicies of Stephens & Stephens and General Motors Corporation during World War II for transporting goods and troops over land and water and for use approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious attacks. Designed to last only long enough to meet the demands of combat, productionized Ducks, a modification of the 2-ton capacity "duece" trucks used by the US military in WWII, were later used as tourist craft in marine environments.
From a design standpoint, amphibious vehicles are innately fascinating. (See also: The Amphicar.) This is because amphibians are, by definition, all about the awkward compromises created when one vehicle is asked to perform two fundamentally opposing tasks: driving and swimming.
As Roderick Stephens, a naval architect who helped design the DUKW, once quipped, “She’s better in water than any truck, and she’ll beat any boat on a highway.” The three year-old grasped the improbablitiy of this instantly: "It's a TRUCK???" she squealed. "And a BOAT???" Then she practically dragged us to the ticket booth.
If only as a mechanical curiosity, the opportunity to go for a drive and a swim in a surviving DUKW was a no-brainer. Throw in the excitement of hearing a lot of bad jokes about San Francisco told for the benefit of a Duckload of out-of-towners, and who could possibly resist?
That's pretty much how we ended up going for a ride in the "Peking Duck," a 1944 DUKW operated by Bay Quackers. Our DUKW was remarkably intact considering both its age and the US Coast Guard's passenger safety requirements. Apart from an overhead canopy, a proper windshield, and the addition of bus-like seating, the vehicle was, from a historical perspective, pretty straight.
We motored from San Francisisco's Fisherman's Wharf to the boat ramp at China Basin -- a distance of about 4 miles -- via North Beach, Chinatown, and Union Square. When we reached the water, we simply drove into the Bay without the slightest bit of dramatic fanfare or mechanical clunkiness. The DUKW may be a mutant hybrid of a truck and a boat, but making the transition from land to sea (or sea to land) is one of the things it was designed to do best, and it shows. Smooooove...
Once in the water, we sailed (drove?) over to McCovey Cove, where the San Francisco Giants were in the process of trouncing the San Diego Padres in the last game of the 2010 National League West playoffs. (Go Giants!)
Circling back, the DUKW waddled effortlessly out of the water, and then we drove back to Fisherman's Wharf via the Embarcadero. The three year-old was smiling from ear-to-ear, and frankly, so was everyone else. A TRUCK that turns into a BOAT??? On a sunny day in San Francisco? What's not to like about that?
Here are more photos from our surf-and-turf adventure. Set it on full-screen and have a fun trip:
The 1906 film of "A Trip Down Market Street" went viral on the YouTube recently after it was paired with a soundtrack by Air. But the story behind the original footage -- which was filmed less than a week before the catastrophic Great Earthquake that destroyed all of downtown San Francisco -- is even more interesting.
CBS 60 Minutes sent correspondent Morley Safer to San Francisco to investigate the film, and tell the tale of the local rail historians and archivists who pieced together clues to bring the original film to life. Here's the segment (Tip: click the square icon in the footer to embggen):
Want your very own digitally restored copy of the complete Trip Down Market Street video? It's for sale, CHEEP!, from the good folks at Market Street Railway, the nonprofit organization that keeps San Francisco's vintage streetcar fleet running.
There's a 1959 Ford Fairlane 500 for sale in San Francisco's Mission District. It's owned by a neighborhood mechanic, and it runs great -- we've seen it hauling down the street. The body appears all-original, and it looks terrific in a wabi-sabi sort of way.
Here are two things we're happy to see together at last: bicycles and tacos.
Timothy Holt, aka Taco Bike Timmy, is a restauranteur and cyclist (not necessarily in that order) who sells yummy fish tacos from a custom-built bicycle he pedals in San Francisco and Healdsburg, California.
Timmy's rig is pretty special, and he spoke to the charming Vélo Vogue blog about his ride, which even includes a four-slot griddle so none of the meats touch each other.
VV: Tell me about the history and transformation of the Taco Bike:
TBT: I bought the orange Mexican cargo bike in 08' and wanted to prepare and sell tacos from the bike. Figured out I couldn't do it on my own, so I asked my friend Todd Barricklow a Santa Rosa artist (killing time studios) and he accepted the challenge. It is a one of a kind, art piece. Outfitted for any event from Dolores park to burning man. He put in a lot of time and when you see the bike, it shows. From the hot water hand sink, to the back eating area behind the seat. Truly a genius.
Indeed! Check out the clever and stylish design: Integrated stand-up dining area, with condiment stand, hot water sink, and trash receptacle. Nicely done!
Last weekend, the San Francisco Municipal Railway (MUNI) did a major overhaul of a section of streetcar railbed at the corner of 30th and Church streets. The project was completed -- start to finish -- in 4.5 days, and it just so happened to take place outside the window of infrastructuralist Ken Murphy.
This is a time-lapse video showing the replacement of the MUNI tracks in front of my house. Demolition began on the evening of Friday, October 8, and work continued around the clock until early in the morning of Tuesday, October 12. The MUNI folks were nice enough to distribute earplugs to those of us in the immediate vicinity.
Very satisfying to watch, and some impressive work on MUNI's part:
Here's a swell piece of Fleet Week 2010 multimedia, and definitely something we don't get to see every day. United Airlines dispatched a Boeing 747 (N173UA) to do a low pass over San Francisco Bay last weekend, and fortunately, someone caught it on video. Wheee!
The video is nice, but this does seem like a missed opportunity for United. After all, wouldn't this have been a swell time to roll out a 747 in the combined United/Continental livery? While thousands of eyeballs were watching the big jet float over the Golden Gate Bridge? Oh well. Maybe next year.
It's Fleet Week here in San Francisco, so we'd like to apologize in advance if we seem a little distracted. Between the beautiful roar of Blue Angels F-18s tearing through the sky, and the sight of big Navy ships chugging under the Golden Gate Bridge... well, let's just say it's a lot to take in.
The Blue Angels are practically locals, so our special guest this year is the USS Makin Island (LHD-8), a hybrid-powered amphibious assault ship that is basically the USS Prius of combat vessels:
Take a close look at these pictures of a San Francisco cable car.
Can you tell what's wrong with it?
Answer: It's not a cable car!
No, it's not a cable car. It's an electric streetcar. What's the difference? A quick refresher: San Francisco's classic cable cars are unpowered vehicles propelled by grabbing on to a moving underground cable with a giant metal clamp, or grip. Mechanically, it's no exaggeration to say that a cable car is far more closely related to, say, a ski lift, than a contemporary bus or tram.
But if you look at the car shown here, you'll notice a thin black arm that extends up from the roof. That's the big clue. It's a trolley pole, which is used to transfer electricity from overhead wires to the electric motors that give this streetcar its mojo.
San Francisco Streetcar No. 578 was built in in 1895, and according to the folks at Market Street Railway, it may be the world's oldest streetcar still on the active roster of an urban transit agency. It still runs for special events, and it looks almost good as new, although No. 578 does contain some nifty cues that hint at its true age:
But what explains No. 578's uncanny resemblance to a cable car?
That answer is pretty simple. 578 looks like a cable car because when it was built, this is what all public transit vehicles had looked like since the basic infrastructure of modern public transportation was invented in the 1830s. Indeed, the appearance of No. 578 -- and the cable cars, for that matter -- is derived from the shape of the first true mass transit vehicle, the horse car, or horse-drawn streetcar. Here's a horse car from 1877:
Cable cars came along in 1873, and cable car vehicles were basically built to look like horse cars -- only with the horse lopped off. Then things got really exciting. Thomas Edison patented his system for electric power distribution in 1880. Urban electrification followed, as did the development of the electric streetcar, in 1888.
Electric streetcars simply embraced the conventional design vocabulary of the times, which explains why streetcar No. 578 looks like a cable car which looks like a horse car.
Sad news for railfans and infrastructure history geeks this week: The "West Oakland Diesel Shop" has been torn down.
If you frequent Interstate 880 in Oakland, California, chances are you noticed the structure; it was a conspicuous landmark alongside the highway for anyone traveling to or from the Bay Bridge.
The building looked old, but until recently, we didn't realize how truly historic it was. Portions of the structure dated back to the 1870s, just a few years after the Transcontinental Railroad was completed. Harry Wong compiled a good history of the building:
The Southern Pacific/Central Pacific Car Paint Shop, later the Southern Pacific Diesel Shop, was the oldest extant industrial railroad building in Oakland and a significant reminder of Oakland’s historic role as the western terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. The southeastern half of the building dates to 1874, just five years after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. [...]
By the late 1870s, transcontinental passengers and freight began arriving in Oakland. Due to the great need for extensive railroad facilities here at the western end of the Transcontinental Railroad, the railroad in the 1870s established switching yards, a roundhouse, car repair shops, car building shops, a creosoting plant and shipyards. The Southern Pacific Paint shop, once part of the enormous West Oakland car and repair shops yard, was used to paint and varnish the passenger cars built and maintained by the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads. [...]
In 1942, the Southern Pacific Paint Shop was modified to serve the diesel locomotives of the new “City of San Francisco” streamliner and renamed the Streamliner Shop. The original arched doors were modified at this time to accommodate the newer, larger equipment. The Shop was altered again in 1949 and 1956 and a small compressor house added to the north side of the building in 1958. It is equipped with sub-floor inspection pits, elevated service walkways, and a small machine shop.
Historic photos of the West Oakland Diesel Shop are rare, but here's one that shows the structure in use in 1958, with a few stylish Alco PA locomotives out front:
As you can see, the trains changed, but the building itself didn't evolve much between then and September 2010:
And finally, here's how it looked earlier this week, as the buildng was being torn down:
Although Union Pacific demolished the Diesel Shop, the railroad was kind enough to organize a tour of the structure last month, and Telstar Logistics was invited to participate. Here are our pictures of the building... which are, sadly, now all that remains of it:
Images: 1958 image by John West. Demolition image courtesy of Anonymous. All other images, Telstar Logistics.
Burrito Justice, our neighborhood cognoscenti, points us a very cool video created by Eric Fisher, San Francisco's incomparable mass transit data artist.
Eric has an exceptional talent for telling transportation policy stories with pictures. Sometimes, that involves dredging up old planning diagrams for mass transit schemes that never actually happened, like ths ambitious proposal to offer rail service across the Golden Gate Bridge:
Or, Eric might crunch a trove of data collected from GPS positioning units on public buses and taxicabs to generate a graphic that would look right at home in the office of any transit agency administrator -- or abstract expressionist. The image at the top of this post, for example, shows the operation of San Francisco's 38 Geary bus line on May 17, 2010, on a bus-by-bus basis.
Eric's newest visualization is an infographic video. It shows where Muni, San Francisco's municipal transit agency, can take you in 45 minutes along the city's main transit arteries -- assuming your trip either begins or ends at the intersection of Third and Market Streets.
A new, bipartisan report released by a group of transportation experts concludes that the transportation infratructure in the United States lags behind that of other economic powers, with potentially dire consequenses for American competitiveness. The Washington Post summarizes:
U.S. investment in preservation and development of transportation infrastructure lags so far behind that of China, Russia and European nations that it will lead to "a steady erosion of the social and economic foundations for American prosperity in the long run."
That is a central conclusion in a report issued on behalf of about 80 transportation experts who met for three days in September 2009 at the University of Virginia. Few of their conclusions were ground-breaking, but the weight of their credentials lends gravity to their findings.
Co-chaired by two former secretaries of transportation -- Norman Y. Mineta and Samuel Skinner -- the group estimated that an additional $134 billion to $262 billion must be spent per year through 2035 to rebuild and improve roads, rail systems and air transportation.
"The United States can't compete successfully in the 21st century with a 20th century transportation infrastructure," the report said.
Last weekend, during an Indian summer morning in San Francisco, Telstar Logistics spent a morning at Treasure Island watching the action at the 2010 Dragon Boat Festival.
Dragon boat racing has been an annual event in San Francsisco for 15 years, but it's a far cry from rowing crew at Haaaaahvard. For one, the boats really do look like dragons. For another, each boat carries a drummer, who beats a drum to help the rowers synchronize their pace. Let's brush up on some dragon boat fundaments:
A dragon boat (also dragonboat) is a human-powered boat traditionally made of teak wood to various designs and sizes. It is one of a family of Traditional Long Boats found throughout Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands. It is now used in the team paddling sport of dragon boat racing, which originated in China over 2000 years ago. While competition has taken place annually for more than 20 centuries as part of folk ritual, it emerged in modern times as an international sport in Hong Kong in 1976.
The boats were fun and colorful, and the scene at Treasure Island was lovely, not least because the races take place against a superb background: The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and its now-under-construction replacement span.
The race course itself spanned an area of Treasure Island known as Clipper Cove. Though that name sounds like the kind of faux-historic drivel that might have been cooked up by a developer of cookie-cutter tract housing, in this case, it's the real deal. Clipper Cove at Treasure Island really was once home to Clippers -- but they were the flying kind.
Clipper Cove was originally created for Pan American Clippers, the giant flying boats that inagurated the first commercial air service between the United States and China. We wrote about the Clippers a few years ago:
Passengers reached Asia by playing hopscotch across the Pacific, stopping along the way for rest and refueling in Hawaii, the Midway Islands, Wake Island, Guam, and Manila before arriving in Hong Kong... The 8000-mile journey to China took five and one-half days. Tickets cost $1600 per person — roughly $10,000 in contemporary dollars.
Clipper Cove was the San Francisco terminus for Pan American's Transpacific service, while the cove itself served as a sheltered parking lot for the Clipper fleet. Though Clipper service ended with the outbreak of World War II, the area has changed little since those days, so today it really doesn't take much imagination to envision what it must have looked like when it was home to the flying boats.
So today, where the Clippers once departed for China, an annual celebration of Chinese culture now takes place in the form of San Francisco's annual dragon boat races. It's as if the flying boats brought the dragon boats back as souvenirs of their journeys to the Orient.
Tilt-shift techniques aren't just for still images anymore.
Following up on our recent post about real/fake tilt-shift photography, here's a nifty little video of San Francisco scenes that puts tilt-shift in motion. Very fun, and best served full-screen.
