San Francisco Trams (cable car system)

The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually operated cable car system, and is an icon of San Francisco, California. The cable car system forms part of the intermodal urban transport network operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway, or Muni as it is better known.

The very first successful cable-operated street railway was the Clay Street Hill Railroad, which opened on August 2, 1873. The promoter of the line was Andrew Smith Hallidie, and the engineer was William Eppelsheimer.


The current cable car network consists of three lines. Like other Muni routes, they have line numbers, but are generally referred to by the street name. The single-ended cable cars require manually-operated turntables to rotate the car around, so that it faces in the right direction. The city of San Francisco is home to three such turntables, or turn-arounds, outdoors (at Market & Powell, Taylor & Bay, and Hyde & Beach); with a fourth one being located inside the car barn.