‘Climbing halfway to the stars’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33869, 14 June 1975, Page 11

‘Climbing halfway to the stars’

'By JOHN N HUTCHISON)

SAN FRANCISCO. Tbe world famous cable-cars of San Francisco are often called unsafe, absurdly antiquated, and wildly costly to operate. Their continued service is guaranteed by a law which may be amended only by popular vote, and the public regards them as absolutely indispensable. The Cars, as much a symbol of the city as the Golden Gate itself, are a source of pride to San Franciscans, who have named a handsome new square for the citizen who invented them in 1873 — Andrew Hallidie. They are a source of delight to tourists. And even the sedate business man who rides between hftme and office on these relics of the last century ooks on them as a bright 'aily opportunity for (venture. Sometimes a local resign t, his heart melted or is mischief inspired, will y to explain to a frightted visitor the five sys■ms of brakes which, as t puts it so tactfully, ake it ’‘unlikely" that the r will plunge unchecked wn one of the city’s zy streets. To the visitor, peering er the edge with the apehensions of a man makig his first ski jump, the xplanation is more aiarmtg than reassuring. He suspects, and there is statistical support for his attitude, that a vehicle which

needs five different devices to keep it from running away must be basically undependable.

The veteran San Franciscan usually agrees, with a cheerful grin.

Systems failed

In 1967, all five brake systems failed on a car which careered down a steep hill, struck a motorcar, and killed two people as well as injuring 30. A woman injured in a 1964 cable-car accident sued the city, claiming that the mental trauma she suffered transformed her from a sedate and faithful housewife to a promiscuous nymphomaniac. She was awarded $50,000. A little old lady with a cane once fought off a cable-car crew that tried to prevent her — for safety reasons — from climbing aboard before the car had been rotated on the turntable at the end of the line. She and her cane won. San Franciscans, who live on an earthquake fault without great concern, enjoy the precarious reputation of the cars. Tht •ee routes They ride on the open step that runs along the open-air half, daring passing cars to scrape them, defying the conductor and gripman who beg them not to board or leave while the car is moving, and preserving their insouciance when some tourist passenger shrieks with alarm at the incredibly steep streets travelled by these Victorian vehicles which re-

semble Ronald Searle illustrations.

There are three cable-car routes, totalling 10 miles — the last remnant, of a crazy system of 112 miles of competing private companies which interlaced the city in 1890 when such public transportation reached its greatest development here. Under the street, midway between the tracks of each line, runs a loop of steel rope miles long, passing over immense sheaves at the central powerhouse serving all three lines. To move his car, the gripman pulls back a longhandled lever which, at its lower end, squeezes the cable like a giant fist, called the '’grip." Since the cable runs at a constant 91 miles an hour the grip" when tightly attached, serves as a brake against higher speed. Emergency brake At the gripman’s feet are two pedals. One of them operates brakes on the four front wheels of the car. The second pedal is for releasing sand on the tracks if they are wet and slippery’. At the rear of the car is a brake wheel, turned by hand by the conductor, to set the brakes on the four rear wheels.

Above the gripman is a hand emergency brake. It will press large blocks of resinous pine down on the tracks to keep the car from skidding on its steel wheels.

, If all these four braking methods fail, fear not.

There is still the EMERGENCY emergency brake. It is operated by a bright red lever over the gripman. When he grabs that lever, the consequences are rare and drastic.

It drives a steel wedge straight into the steel slot in the street, the car stops as if it has hit a a stone wall. Line shuts

The whole line shuts down until the wedge can be cut froom the slot with an acetylene torch, and the city attorney braces his department for another set of passengers’ lawsuits. As the fatal accident in 1967 illustrated, there can still be runaways despite the five man-powered brake systems.

This may be why so many of the natives think it safer to ride on the outside steps, where they can leap to safety, or at least to some alternative accident.

Apart from the elaborate and antiquated brake systems, there are other curious measures which encumber the lines in the name of safety. At the intersection of California and Powell Streets on Nob Hill, two cable-car tracks cross. There, in a control booth, a man who can watch both streets operates a signal light to tell the Powell Street gripman when it is safe for him to start up from the next street below California. It takes nice judgment.

Just as the Powell Street car tops the crest — but not an instant before, or

the car would roll back down the hill — the gripman releases his car from the cable, the car rumbles across the intersection, and he grabs the cable again.

This precise execution is to prevent cutting the California Street cable in two, with the obvious consequences to the cars climbing or descending that steep hill.

Many traditional but unwritten rules of safety, long unquestioned, have been challenged.

A gripman once closed a line down for, more than an hour while a man refused his order to get off after boarding the car while it was moving. The traffic jam was historic. Always popular Quite recently 11 passengers were injured when the grip on a car jammed suddenly into a heavy plate improperly placed across the slot. The news flurry lasted only overnight. The cable-cars are as popular as ever, carrying some 13m passengers a year at 25c a time, which is a cent or two less than it costs to carry them. But the city fathers learned their lesson 30 years ago, when their effort to abolish the cablecars ran into a hurricane of public opposition. The outcome was an election which amended the city charter to say that the cable-cars should operate in perpetuity, exactly as they do now.