Ahoy!

September is Transit Month in the Bay Area. And we’re celebrating on board Muni’s Boat Tram open air streetcar. In this episode we discuss the beloved 90-year-old boat’s history and how we maintain it. Plus, we talk about the joy it brings to the streets of San Fransico.

SFMTA Director of Transportation Jeff Tumlin, Board Member Dominica Henderson, Muni Historic Fleet Superintendent Kevin Sheridan and Muni Operator David Gunter appear in the episode. We also speak with Market Street Railway President Rick Laubscher, SFMTA Citizens Advisory Council Vice Chair Chris Arvin and SFCTA Community Advisory Committee Chair Kat Siegal.

Transcript

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MELISSA CULROSS, HOST: One of Muni’s most unique vehicles, if not the most unique, is the Boat Tram.

KAT SIEGAL, SFCTA COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE CHAIR AND MARKET STREET RAILWAY BOARD MEMBER: It’s so fun. I mean, an open air streetcar? 

MELISSA: Welcome to Taken with Transportation, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Official podcast. I’m your host, Melissa Culross, and we begin this episode on Market Street. It’s a slightly overcast Saturday morning, and while there’s nothing unusual about that in this city during the summer, we are taking a pretty unusual ride with SFMTA Director of Transportation Jeff Tumlin. We are on the boat tram

JEFF TUMLIN, SFMTA DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION: I’m so excited

MELISSA: I am too. I’ve never been on this before.

JEFF: What?!?

MELISSA: I know!

JEFF: boat tram is… You know, I love all of my children, but boat tram has a very special place in my heart. 

MELISSA: Why is that?

JEFF: There’s something magical about it. When you’re in Boat Tram trundling down Market Street or along the Embarcadero, you’re also still fully a part of the city. It’s open-air, the sky is there, the wind is in your hair, and everyone on the street loves Boat Tram. You feel like a celebrity.

MELISSA: This is the boat tram’s inaugural ride of 2024. We’re taking it to the Embarcadero where it will run from the Ferry Building to Pier 39 a couple of days a week through mid-October. The boat tram is an historic streetcar that looks like a combination of a boat and a convertible. We have many historic streetcars that run every day along our F Market line. But with no top, the boat tram certainly stands out.

JEFF: It’s an, an ambassador for public transit in part because it grabs your attention and makes you smile. And that is something that we want more from public transit, and that we’re starting to see. Public transit is not just for utilitarian commuting. It’s also for discovering the city. And for those of us, no matter how long that we’ve lived in San Francisco, one of the reasons why we stay here, including in tough times like this, is because the city continually delivers unexpected joy.

MELISSA: SFMTA Board of Directors member Dominica Henderson is on the boat with us and is delighted to be here.

DOMINICA HENDERSON, SFMTA BOARD MEMBER: I feel like I’m a tourist in my own city. This is an amazing experience and attraction. I think that this is…gives me the opportunity to look up and, you know, take a moment to enjoy all of what San Francisco has to offer. Not just what’s, you know, directly in front of me. Not what’s on my phone. But instead, look up from that and, and really, just take it all in and enjoy it. I love this. 

MELISSA: Director Henderson adds that the boat tram is as valuable to the agency as it is fun.

DOMINICA: I think this is such a great addition to the Muni fleet. It gives us an opportunity to stand out, you know, apart from, from other transit agencies. But also, it gives people a connection to transportation and to transit that I think is a little unconventional and makes it special and maybe will bring people to ride the Boat Tram, of course, but you know, even the F line or other modes of transit that they may not have considered in order to get around the city. And so, I’m excited that it got to land in San Francisco.

MELISSA: Our ride ends in front of the Ferry Building just as the sun is burning through the clouds. So, exactly what is this Boat Tram, and how did we get it? Well, first of all, we actually have three of the trams. And Rick Laubscher, president of Muni’s non-profit preservation partner, Market Street Railway, tells us a bit about their history.

RICK LAUBSCHER, MARKET STREET RAILWAY PRESIDENT: These trams…streetcars. The British call them trams. We call them streetcars. Were built 90 years ago this year for Blackpool, England, north of Liverpool. And they got the idea that because they have a beach, they should have open-top cars that people could ride. Well, if you’ve ever been to Blackpool, there aren’t that many really warm, nice days. So, it was a surplus of optimism, and as a result, because of the weather in Blackpool, they didn’t get all the use that they might have gotten in a, in a nice weather town. And that’s good news because it meant that they didn’t get a lot of milage run up on them. 

MELISSA: Laubscher says Market Street Railway purchased our boats through private donations and then gave them to the agency. Originally 12 of the vehicles ran in Blackpool, but there are only eight left. Three are still in Blackpool. We have three. And there’s one at the National Capital Trolley Museum just outside of Washington D.C and one at a museum in the U.K. To learn more about our boat trams, we head across town to Cameron Beach Yard…where Muni’s historic streetcars are stored and maintained. There we talk with Kevin Sheridan, superintendent of the historic fleet. He mentions that each boat tram…or car…has a number.

KEVIN SHERIDAN, MUNI HISTORIC FLEET SUPERINTENDENT: Car number 228 has been here the longest. It arrived in 1984 and participated in what was then the Trolley Festival. We also have car number 233, which arrived here in 2013. And just this year, we acquired Boat Tram number 226 from the Western Railway Museum in Solano County. And we moved that down here just a couple of months ago. 

MELISSA: Sheridan is also the shop supervisor at Cameron Beach, and we ask him about the work it takes to maintain these nearly-century-old vehicles. He says it’s actually pretty simple.

KEVIN: The technology by today’s standards is very archaic. So, it’s not very technically advanced. So, that makes it a little bit easier to work on. But what presents a challenge is procuring parts to maintain the equipment due to its age. Much of this stuff has not been available for many years. So, that’s where the talents here within the agency…primarily the heavy overhaul department, Heavy Overhaul and Mechanics. The machinists, the metal workers, the electric motor rewinders…where they all come into play and essentially are building new parts, back engineering parts and getting everything together that’s necessary to maintain these cars, to do things like rebuild the trucks, which we recently completed on boat car number 233. Um, it also requires a lot of support from the body shop and the paint shop here at Cameron Beach Yard to keep the cars looking their best. Support from the car cleaners to keep them cleaned up. And also support from the running repair and mechanics here at Cameron Beach Yard to fix all the little defects and keep everything in tip-top shape so that the cars can go back out when they’re scheduled to go out. So, it’s really a team effort here, and it really takes a lot of people; it takes a lot of drive; and it takes a lot of resourcefulness to get this stuff out on the road. 

MELISSA: Car 233 is the one we rode down Market Street and along the Embarcadero, and it’s the one that will be running until October. Sheridan tells us that not only were its trucks rebuilt, it was renovated, overall, before going back into service for the season. And that the process, including testing, took about two years.

KEVIN: The car has new wheels on it. It has new axles. All of the suspension, all of the springs are new. All of the rubber bushings on the truck are new. The traction motors were taken apart and repaired, as needed, and put back together, essentially rebuilt. And the, um, entire truck frame, the steel frame was cleaned up, inspected, sent out for powder coating. There was a lot of machine work that went along with that on the axles and a lot of the small parts and the brake linkages and things like that. So, as things were kind of moving around, as the trucks were sent out for powder coating, there was machine work going on. And then, as things started to come back, then it was like putting a large jigsaw puzzle back together, for lack of a better term. There’s a lot of pieces that come apart, and then, as the job moves along, those pieces go back together.

MELISSA: While the technology that runs these vehicles may be relatively simple, it is still old, and Sheridan says that is and always will be significant. 

KEVIN: As you can imagine, with the, the age of the streetcar, most of the people that were educated and proficient in the maintenance, as well as the operation of these types of cars are either no longer on the job or, unfortunately, might not even be with us at this point in time. So, it’s created a challenge for maintenance to, in a sense, help develop a new generation of mechanics to look after and to care for this equipment.

MELISSA: Now, what about operating or driving a boat tram? Who knows how to do that? Muni Operator David Gunter does. He’s been with the agency since the late 90s and is part of a rotation of operators who sit in the boat tram’s driver's seat. We’re talking to him while on a much newer car…one of our modern light rail vehicles.

DAVID GUNTER, MUNI OPERATOR: I’m what you would consider a “rail person,” meaning that I enjoy driving all types of rail equipment. But when you come to the historic vehicles…the things are 90, a hundred years old, things of that nature…it’s really, um, more of a enjoyment than it is work, for me. When it’s 90 years old, there are very few people on the planet who’ve actually had the opportunity to drive things of that nature. So, the mechanical part is what I enjoy but also the nostalgia. The one in, you know, 200 people that are possibly ever gonna drive this vehicle, and I’m one of them. So, I look forward to that every day. 

MELISSA: Gunter explains the mechanics of operating the boat tram from the driver’s point of view.

DAVID: That large black wheel to the far right of the train looks like it would turn the vehicle, but in essence, it’s actually just to set the parking brake. Then in the center of the vehicle, there’s a brake, and it’s an air brake. To the left of us is where the controller is. And that large box, it gives us direction, forward or reverse, and it also gives us power. The mechanics inside of the car, itself, makes it so smooth. The controllers are smoother. The braking is smoother. Also, it gives you, um, the convertible (laughs). Basically, your top is always off. So, it allows you to, uh, enjoy the environment, but also, um, it sort of relaxes you. 

MELISSA: Let’s talk about the environment. Given that the boat tram cars are topless, everyone on them is subject to the elements. That’s why we run them for only part of the year…in the summer and early fall. But of course, when it comes to weather, especially in occasionally foggy and drizzly San Francisco, there are no guarantees.

DAVID: We have gotten wet before. That’s not a problem. The actual environmental part of it…it doesn’t affect us at all. Whether it’s wet, whether it’s dry, whether it’s hot. Well, maybe the heat is a little different. But yes, we have gotten wet. We are pretty much geared up for that. And what we’ll do is, if it becomes too much of a situation…because the tram, itself, does not have windshield wipers. So, we wouldn’t stay out long. And then once when we get it, uh, back in, then that it would be fine. It’s not a problem. It has happened.

MELISSA: And of course, Gunter can attest to the popularity of the boat tram.

DAVID: I've met people from all over the world who now email me and say, “Hey, David, I’m back in town. When is the car coming out?” Or “If it’s…is it coming out?” They’ll find out when Historical Week is, and they’ll try to come out during, you know, our flagship time of the year. So, it’s, uh, I would say its own little world. And there is just that group that enjoy that, and I’m part of that.

MELISSA: We’ve talked a lot about the boat tram’s age. But know that despite being almost a hundred, it has kept up with the times….and even has its own social media account. Chris Arvin, a transit advocate and Vice Chair of the SFMTA Citizen’s Advisory Council, created the at-boat-tram-sf account on Twitter, now known as X, back in 2019.

CHRIS ARVIN, SFMTA CITIZENS ADVISORY COUNCIL VICE CHAIR AND BOAT TRAM SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT CREATOR: I was working downtown at the time, and I would just like, honestly, leave my job when I heard that the Boat Tram was out and go find it on Market Street. And, you know, that vehicle at the time did not have any kind of, like, GPS. So, it would be kind of like, “Well, where is the boat?” And so, I started using that Twitter account to kind let people know when the boat was going to be out, where it was, and also just really, like, sharing a lot of the photos people would tag the boat tram of them hopping on the boat or just seeing it out and about. And, really using that to kind of just spread the, the love of the Boat Tram.

MELISSA: We’re in Golden Gate Park near the conservatory of Flowers…where people are walking, jogging and biking. And there’s someone playing a public piano. It seems so appropriately San Francisco, like the boat tram, really. So, Arvin created and runs the boat’s social media account and would leave work to find it…but why? What is it about that ride?

CHRIS: I think, for me, one of the best things about riding the Boat Tram is just seeing the faces of people on the street when they see it, and they’re like, “What is that thing?” and people are just, like, smiling at it and taking pictures and waving at you. And it’s just a fun experience where you kind of feel connected to a lot of people around you on the street in a way.

MELISSA: It’s not just the boat tram. Arvin is passionate about public transportation, overall.

CHRIS: So, I moved to San Francisco in 2012, and it was the first time I’d been in a city that had a real public transit system. And so, I just kind of immediately fell in love with Muni and that fact that anywhere you go in the city, you’re just a few blocks from hopping on a bus. That just felt like a real kind of new independence to me after having to be dependent on a car. And I eventually started getting into the history of Muni and learning about the old streetcar networks that led to the bus network that we have today. I made a map of the old rail routes, and that shows, like, where all the streetcars used to go in San Francisco and shows photos of them. And that lead me to the Market Street Railway non-profit. And so, I have just ended up kind of going from, like, big fan to doing some creative projects and then also kind of getting involved in some advocacy for better transit and for fighting for our transit network on the Citizens Advisory Council. 

MELISSA: Joining this conversation now is Kat Seigal. She is Chair of the San Francisco Country Transportation Authority Community Advisory Committee, a board member of the Market Street Railway and co-editor of Muni Diaries…a blog, podcast and live show featuring city transit riders. We talk about how the boat tram and all of Muni’s historic vehicles keep us connected to the past…in a good way.

KAT SEIGAL: In San Francisco, transit features so prominently in our city’s history and our sense of pride. You know, we had the first publicly run transit agency in the country. The cable cars were invented here. So, I find it important to make people aware of that and, like, how much we have historically innovated in transit and inspire people to keeping thinking about ways we can, we can make transit better.

MELISSA: Plus, as we’ve mentioned in this episode, the boat tram is a good reminder that Muni…and we mean the entire system…can be fun to ride in addition to being the lifeline that it is for so many people.

KAT: think it’s important to celebrate the joy side of transit, kinda like we do with, you know, cars. I feel like cars feature prominently in the American, like, story about freedom. But transit is freedom for so many people. And, like, going on a transit joy ride, for me, is more fun than, like, going on a joy ride in a car because, like, I very much trust the people that are driving the vehicle to get us all there safely. And I also get to see, you know, other people I wouldn’t normally see. We’re, like, sharing in the experience of getting somewhere together.

MELISSA: Thank you for joining us on TAKEN WITH TRANSPORTATION. We’re a production of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and you can find the latest episodes at SFMTA.com-slash-Podcast, as well as Apple, Spotify, our YouTube channel or wherever you listen. I’m Melissa Culross. Be well and travel well.