Been There Thread, San Francisco's Summer continues......

Thought I'd take a drive through The City this morning and take a few pictures for my friends across the various ponds.

On San Francisco's Russian Hill, I got a kick out of the name of this very posh little laundramat, "The Missing Sock"


A few blocks north, on Hyde and Lombard Streets, the southbound #6 Hyde St. cable car crests the hill with The Bay and Alcatraz in the background.


As two of the old cars passed each other, you could hear the delighted giggles and screams of the passengers. "What a view!", "Hey, kids! It's the Golden Gate Bridge!," "Look, Marge! It's Lord Plye Wood's car!" and the ever popular, "AAAAAHHHH! We're all gonna DIE!"


This little bungalow at Hyde and Lombard gives you a good idea of the slope of the hill. Yes, it's a pretty steep hill, but we haven't lost a tourist for as long as I can remember, although back in the late 50s, one of the cars did lose it's brakes about a block from the end, forcing the gripman to drop the slot brake (a steel wedge that allows the car to stop NOW!) causing it to slam to a stop, spilling the passengers riding on the outside off into the street. One woman was badly bruised and was taken to the hospital, where she was treated and released. Several months later, famed attorney Mel Belli sued The City on her behalf, saying that, although before the accident she'd been a decent, church going, morally straight lady, the trauma of the accident turned her into a nymphomaniac and ruined her life. The court awarded her $50,000, a tidy sum in those days. Today, she would've been laughed out of court, but in those days, young women who liked sex as much as men were called "nymphomaniacs." Today, we call them "My kind of gal!"


This is a close up of the cable car track. The wheels ride on the two parallel outside tracks. The slot in the middle is where the cable is. The cable car features a lever actuated "grip,' which runs in the slot and is controlled by the Gripman to make the car stop and go. The steel cable is many miles long and is powered by huge machines at a central powerhouse, located about a mile from this location in Chinatown. All the city's cable cars are powered out of this powerhouse. Top speed of a cable car is 12 1/2 miles an hour. Well, that is, when it's attached to the cable. I suppose it'd be going much faster if it lost its brakes and the grip at the top of the Hyde Street hill.


At the bottom of Russian Hill, San Francisco Bay laps gentley at the shore at Aquatic Park, the location of The Hyde St. Pier, and its collection of antique boats and ships. The Balclutha is an iron hull "China Clipper" similar to the famous "Cutty Sark" in Greenwich. It was built in Scotland as were many of that class of fast sailing ships. Across the Bay, looking north, is Marin County and the Redwood Empire beyond.
On the far left, about 20 miles from The City, is Mt. Tamalpais, which means, in the local native Indian dialect, "Sleeping Maiden." The mountain is supposed to look like a sleeping maiden. I can't see it, myself. Maybe you have to have been smoking some of the local herbs to see it. There must be dozens of "Sleeping Maiden" mountains in the world. There's one in Utah called "Mount Timpanogis." It doesn't look anything like a sleeping maiden to me, either. But Mt. Tam is a great place for a picnic. It's a bit over 3000' high and easily accessible.



I drove west, past the Golden Gate Bridge and along the northern shore of The City through the old Army post at The Presidio, which was established by the Spanish in 1776 as a defensive position at the entrance to the bay. I went to Baker's Beach. Too bad it's a work day for those poor blighters who have to actually work for a living! What a day to be at the beach! The only blemish was the slight haze of smoke coming from a rather nasty brush fire burning about 75 miles south of San Francisco. We used to call Baker's Beach "Shark Bait Beach," after two swimmers were killed here - one in the late 50s and the other in the early 60s - by Great Whites who partrol this coastline looking for small seals to eat.


The first picture is looking north, back at the west side of the Golden Gate Bridge. The second is looking south, at the posh neighborhood of Sea Cliff and the cliffs of Land's End. When I was a kid, lots of my Jewish friends lived in Sea Cliff. We called it "The Guilded Ghetto."




Thus ends our brief tour of San Francisco's northern shore. Please watch your step upon leaving and remember, it is customary to leave a gratuity to your helpful and friendly guide.

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Lord Plye Wood
Duke of Earl

Brilliant photos LPW, as an avid rail man, I am interested in the cable cars and have a couple of questions if I may ask. The slot is quite narrow so I assume the "grip" on the car must be fairly thin but quite long (or do I mean wide?) in order to give it the strength to hold onto the cable with all the weight of the car, am I right in that assumption. Also how often is the cable renewed, with the constant grip and release mechanism on the car it must eventually damage the cable, so necessitating renewal. Next on the list is how old are the rails, being grooved for the wheel flange, in this country they would be called tramway rail. Surprisingly the most famous tram system still in use is the Blackpool promenade tramway. It is only in the last few years that Blackpool has renewed a tremendous amount of their rail. In one instance about twenty odd years ago in Fleetwood, I saw a long line of weld metal deposited on the head of the rail in order to prolong its life, thereby saving the need for traffic disruption while renewing on a section of track still in the main roadway.

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I think I am OK. Apart from the usual discomfort of being awake.

You're right in assuming that the grip is very narrow in section. Most of the leverage is fore and aft, so the width of the mechanism isn't as important as the fore-aft measurement, which is about 8". The wear pads on the grips are replaced monthly and are made (I believe) of lead, or a similar maliable metal. The cables are replaced once every few years. The tracks themselves are replaced infrequently. I believe the last time the whole system was retracked was in the 1970s, and the system was shut down for several years. THere's not a lot of wear on the tracks since the cars only roll on them. There's no friction as the wheels aren't driven.

A young professional couple bought a luxury condominium on Hyde Street right near where I took those photos this morning. They bought it when the cable car system was being rebuilt. A year after they moved in, the cabel cars began running again. The young couple were shocked to realize that cable cars are NOISY! What with all those cables clacking and those pulleys and wheels rolling along, not to mention those anoying cable car bells, well, the young couple did what any other decent person would've done, they sued the City and County of San Francisco and the Municipal Railway for millions of dollars for loss of sleep, loss of property value, and probably for alianation of affection. They lost! Justice was served.

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Lord Plye Wood
Duke of Earl

Hey LPW, great pictures of SF, brings back many happy memories. lol
I added a few things to your pics, hope you don't mind.
Semper Fi !

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Stop being a show off and showing us how inadequate we are in the photo stakes.

They are great shots and as I said before you have a great eye for a good picture, keep 'em coming.

Hello Duane. Joined 2002 and only a few posts. Come on lad, join in and add to the general rubbish spouted on here!
As Roamer said, please don't show up our computer inadequacies.

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Stop at 42, its a good age.

Thanks all for your kind comments, and thanks Duane for the nifty annimation!

Semper Fi!

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Lord Plye Wood
Duke of Earl

I must say that San Francisco looks like one of the few American cities I would enjoy visiting. I'll have to try and make it before I am too old and decrepit.

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...the Daily Mail - not so much a newspaper as an idiot's guidebook issued in bite-size daily instalments.

KE, you old "lefty" you, you've got to make the trip. You'd think you'd died and gone to heaven, if you believed in that sort of thing. :wink:

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Lord Plye Wood
Duke of Earl

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...the Daily Mail - not so much a newspaper as an idiot's guidebook issued in bite-size daily instalments.