Cable Cars Still Hold S.F.’s Heart, Despite Pesky Ways

Four summers ago, former Mayor Dianne Feinstein rose before a civic celebration to declare that a two-year, $58.2-million reconstruction of San Francisco’s beloved cable car system had been completed “on time and on budget.”

In fact, it was neither.

As “grip men” and conductors soon learned, and it seems that engineers knew at the time, the rebuilt system still had its problems--among other things, droopy cables, quirky gearboxes and a new car barn, or garage, that did not meet the city’s own building and safety codes.

Today, four years later, the country’s only mobile U.S. historical landmark still has its problems, despite years of tinkering and millions of dollars in added costs.

What is worse, a collision last month between a cable car and a pickup truck has raised questions about whether the reconstruction project--which centered on rebuilding the track beds and powerhouse--may have overlooked one critical safety item: the cable cars’ 19th-Century braking systems.

Federal investigators are still probing the May 16 crash, but the top administrator at the Municipal Railway, the city’s mass transit agency, concedes that tests earlier this year showed that under certain conditions cable cars cannot stop while descending steep hills.

Because of pending claims and lawsuits, a spokesman for Muni, as the agency is commonly known, declined to directly discuss either the collision, in which six people were hurt, or the reconstruction project, which could cost millions of dollars.

But Muni spokesman George Newkirk said the Victorian-era cars actually have fewer accidents than statistically anticipated for any transit vehicles of their kind of route and ridership. Because of the cable cars’ popularity, he said, cable car accidents simply get more attention than accidents involving buses and streetcars.

“The system is safe,” he said. “The proof of the pudding is that the cable car division, one of our seven divisions, has won our safety award (for having fewer accidents than projected) in 10 out of the last 12 months.”

Other Muni officials said they do not keep the records needed to determine whether the reconstruction reduced the number of cable car accidents or accident-related personal injury claims. But Muni records do indicate that the cable cars have had slightly more than their expected share of injury claims.

Since the renovated system was returned to service in June, 1984, cable cars have accounted for 5.1% of all personal injury claims filed against Muni while carrying about 4.7% of the system’s 975,000 daily transit patrons.

Other Factors

This could be due to the cable cars’ age, design and routes over the city’s steepest hills, narrowest streets and most congested districts, as well as the system’s sharply higher passenger volume. Cable cars carry their 4.7% share of all riders on only 2.1% of the city’s transit mileage.

“It’s not dangerous at all,” said Nick J. Zaboukos, cable car maintenance manager. “We have been going up and down these same hills for over 100 years, and we’ve been starting and stopping with very few problems.”

Despite such assurances, the district’s own general manager, William Stead, said after the most recent accident that tests earlier this year indicated that the antique cars’ three mechanical braking systems are unable to stop a loaded car on a wet track on the system’s steepest hill if the car is disengaged from the 1.25-inch cable running under the street at a steady 9.5 m.p.h.

Those were the circumstances of the May 16 crash. One federal inspector was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying that the car might have partially disengaged from the cable, gaining enough momentum on the Hyde Street hill that its antique mechanical brakes could not stop it. No official written report on the crash has yet been issued.

“A loaded car on wet rail with the existing braking system never stopped in tests” under those conditions, Stead told a press conference. He has since declined to discuss the accident or the tests because of pending litigation.

NASA Contribution

The tests were held to determine the need for hydraulically boosting one of the cars’ four brake systems--an idea first made in 1976 by scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

In addition to simply clinging to the cable, which prevents runaways, cable cars have three types of brakes--metal wheel brakes that press on the wheels, wood track brakes that drag against the steel rails on which the cars run, and an emergency slot brake that jams a metal wedge into the street and brings the car to a predictably sudden and jarring stop.

Since steel-rope magnate Andrew Hallidie ran the first cable car down steep Clay Street in 1873, these systems have operated only with levers and treadles and muscle. When the test indicated that existing brakes were inadequate, the district received $130,000 from the city in February to test and design a hydraulically assisted wheel brake.

The latest accident occurred before that project was finished. Now the city is considering additional safety measures, including banning automobiles from the steepest part of Hyde Street. Oil and other fluids that leaked onto the tracks are believed to have contributed to the accident.

Hydraulic brakes were briefly discussed as the system was rebuilt, but the main problems then were considered to be crumbling tracks, wheezing machinery and the unreinforced brick cable-car barn, or headquarters.

Two Killed in 1967

Although the cable cars have long had accidents--including a 1967 collision that killed two and a 1964 mishap that allegedly turned one passenger into an insatiable sex addict (she won $50,000 in a 1970 lawsuit)--problems became more frequent in the late 1970s. Track conditions, often involving cable guides called depression beams, were usually blamed.

This led to the movement in the early 1980s to either rebuild the system or retire it. No one seriously considered closing the system, so government funds and corporate donors were solicited and construction began in 1982. Feinstein, seen as a potential vice presidential candidate, promised to finish the job by the time her fellow Democrats arrived for their convention two years later.

During reconstruction, the entire system was shut down and all 10 miles of track were ripped up and replaced. The cable car barn and powerhouse also were rebuilt. Modern cable-winding machinery and pulleys were installed. The cars themselves, many nearly a century old, had their wood bodies repaired and repainted.

One goal was to keep the system as Hallidie had designed it--loops of steel rope snaking 18 inches under city streets, pulled at a steady 9.5 m.p.h. by giant motors in the central powerhouse. Cable cars, using grips that reach down through a slot in the street, clamp onto the cable to move forward or--while coasting downhill--to slow to 9.5 m.p.h.

Another goal was to get the job done on time and on budget.

Whether due to the city’s impatience or contractors’ incompetence--this is the subject of a number of pending lawsuits--the $58.2-million reconstruction project not only neglected to completely attend to the cable cars’ brakes, it seems to have created nearly as many problems as it solved.

Denies Knowledge of Problems

Feinstein said that at the time of the system’s 1984 rededication, she was unaware of the engineering problems that have since been made public.

“I was under the impression there were some loose ends,” she said in an interview last week, “but the system was operational and (the loose ends) would be cleared up.”

As described in Muni files, some of the problems found after reconstruction are comical; others just difficult to believe.

After the cable car barn was stripped down to its aging brick walls--which had to be preserved because the system is a national historic landmark--and rebuilt to modern standards, the city found that parts of the building, such as a battery charging area and lubricant storage room, did not meet the city’s own building and safety codes.

Grease and solvents were poured directly into the sewer--a violation of federal law--until a city inspector complained. Fire sprinkler heads hung so low that vehicles hit them and turned them on. A storage room door was too small to accommodate some of the items to be stored. Garage floors sloped the wrong way.

In the streets, turntables were installed off-center, forcing work crews to remove part of the table to allow it to rotate; a crossover track designed to avoid traffic jams was built but not installed. Ill-fitting hatch covers would pop out of the track bed and damage passing autos, and a California Street line gearbox failed only four months after service had resumed.

Out With the New

Sometimes, new technology was abandoned in favor of century-old standbys. A new cable-winder was “inadequate and (did) not meet design criteria,” so the old one was retrieved from a salvage yard.

The rebuilt system worked, but it often seemed as balky as the original.

Part of the problem is the nature of the system. It was built a century ago completely by hand--often with plans lacking measurements or dimensions, Muni workers said--and much of the reconstruction had to be done the same way, with hand-made, one-of-a-kind parts.

“It’s always been a jerry-rigged system,” said Feinstein, who is now busy writing an autobiography. “It turned out to be a much more difficult job than we expected.”

Making things more difficult is the system’s status of being a historical landmark: Changes and repairs to the system cannot significantly alter its appearance.

But part of the problem, too, was the quality of the reconstruction job itself. Muni’s catalogue of recent cable car projects notes that many repairs are required to fix “deficient work on the part of the previous restoration contractors.” In court records, the contractors deny they are responsible for the problems.

Oddly, the controversy has not affected cable car ridership one bit, either during the commuter rush hours or the midday tourist crunch.

“How could you come to San Francisco and not ride cable cars?” Georgianna Obrigewitsch of Baker, Mont., asked during a rainy spell last week. She knew about the recent crash, but discounted it as unlikely to happen again soon.

“Just coming to San Francisco is dangerous,” she added with a laugh and a shrug before running to hop a Powell Street car for a 2-mile, 15-minute ride to Fisherman’s Wharf.

HOW TO STOP A CABLE CAR

Each cable car has four separate braking systems, three of which are able to bring the car to a complete stop. Municipal Railway officials are testing a fifth--a hydraulic system--to see if it should be added. Hydraulic brakes were first recommended in 1976, and system officials say they plan to install the brakes after further tests.

1 Wheel brakes are small metal plates that stop the car by rubbing against the front wheels when the gripman steps on a foot lever. The conductor in the back of each car can turn a hand lever to apply a similar brake to the back wheels.

2 Track brakes are two-foot-long soft pine blocks suspended between the front and rear wheels. When the gripman pulls a lever, the blocks press down on the track with nearly enough force to lift the car up, dragging it to a stop.

3 Slot brake, or emergency brake, is an 18-inch-long metal wedge forced into the slot through which the cable car grabs the steel rope, or cable, beneath the street. This brake is used as a last resort because friction and heat cause the wedge to expand, virtually welding it to the track. A cutting torch is required to remove the wedge.

4 Cable brake is how gripmen refer to the action of maintaining the speed of the car simply by keeping it connected to the cable. The cable runs at a constant 9.5 miles an hour, preventing the car from moving any faster.