Building a landmark. Nearly 135 years after first rolling up Clay Street, San Francisco's famous cable cars are still using an elegant, yet antiquated system of understreet cables and two types of unpowered cars to move delighted tourists and patient locals across the city every day. But most riders don't realize that five specialized craftsmen in a shop in an industrial part of town make up the the last cable car factory in the world, still building cars by hand, from plans reverse-engineered from a car disassembled in 1982. [via]
posted by toxic on Feb 25, 2008 - 13 comments

A Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire (1905). Pictures San Francisco's main thoroughfare as seen from the front window of a moving Market Street cable car, before the downtown area was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire.
posted by mr.curmudgeon on Aug 24, 2005 - 26 comments