The Pneumatic Rolling-Sphere Carrier Delusion: July 2024

Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Red Devils Return to Pacifica #18 -- July 2, 2024

Pacifica is one of the two cities on the San Francisco peninsula that allow the sale of fireworks. The booths arrived last week. This is the stand at the Linda Mar shopping center. I took the photo today.

Many Pacificans agree that selling fireworks is a bad idea: We have steep, brush-covered hillsides that pose a fire danger. People use the "safe and sane" fireworks to mask the unsafe and insane variety. Not to mention my cat hates the Fourth of July.

Unfortunately, our charities claim that fireworks are the only thing they can sell that will generate enough money. That can't be true. What about drugs? Weapons? They're not thinking outside of the box.

Monday, July 1, 2024

July 2024 Version of the Cable Car Home Page -- July 1, 2024

I just put the June 2024 version of my Cable Car Home Page on the server:

http://www.cable-car-guy.com/

It includes some new items:

Picture of the Month: "Who Remembers?" asks "When you received a real thrill by riding alongside the gripman in one of the old cable cars?" "CTC" stands for Capital Traction Company, which consolidated the District's transit companies. (source: "Who remembers?" Washington Evening Star, 07-October-1927.)
On the Cable Car Lines in the District of Columbia and Baltimore page: A ten-ear update about the Washington and Georgetown Railroad including contemporary newspaper items and images. The company was forced to use cable traction at a time when companies in other cities were switching from horse or cable to electric traction.
On the UK page: Added Cliff Railway Day banners for the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway (2019 and 2022) and the Babbacombe Cliff Railway (2020, 2022 and 2024).
Added News item about SFMTA Christmas sweaters.

Ten years ago this month (July, 2014):

Picture of the Month: Cable Train on Pennsylvania Avenue, passing the White House (source: "The Washington & Georgetown Railroad Co.'s System Completed", Street Railway Journal, September, 1892.)
On the Cable Car Lines in the District of Columbia and Baltimore page: The Washington and Georgetown Railroad
On the Who page: Added a profile from the Street Railway Journal about Clift Wise, who helped build many of the lines of the Kansas City Cable Railway. Be sure to check his moustache.
Also on the Who page: Added an ad for Edmund Saxton, a contractor built the tracks and conduits for many lines in Kansas City, Washington DC, Baltimore and Tacoma also a profile of cable railway engineer Daniel Bontecou
On the Horse Car Home Page: Thanks to Yosef Sa'ar, more Horse Car Transit Tokens
On the UK page: A contemporary photo of a former depot (car barn) for London's Brixton Cable Tramway
Added News item about a Muni sickout that shut down the cable cars

Twenty years ago this month (July, 2004):
1. Picture of the Month: A New York Metropolitan Street Railway cable car
2. Added some new items on the New York/New Jersey page. Cable Car Run Amuck is an 1893 newspaper article about a runaway cable car on Broadway. Also an article about the Park Hill Incline, a funicular in Yonkers.
3. Migrated some more items from the Cable Car Museum site:
  1. The Cable Car Lady & the Mayor by Walter Rice and Val Lupiz on the San Francisco page, an article about the epic battle between Mrs Friedel Klussmann and Mayor Roger Lapham.
  2. The Great Orme Tramway: The Cable Car of Wales, another article by Walter Rice, about the only street-running funicular in the United Kingdom.
4. Thanks to Walter Rice and Val Lupiz for allowing me to be the new host of this material
In January 2024 I started on a long overdue process of cleaning things up on my site. I started with the development pages. Actually, I guess I started last year with making the thumbnails 200 pixels instead of 100.
Coming in July, 2024: On the Cable Car Lines in the District of Columbia and Baltimore page: A ten year update about the Columbia Railway.
125 Years Ago This Month (July, 1899):
Jul 15 - Peoples' Cable Railway Tenth Street line (Kansas City, Missouri) closed.
Jul 16 - The Brooklyn Elevated Railway (New York, New York) stopped running its trains across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan, using the New York & Brooklyn Bridge's cable line, except during busy summer periods.
50 Years Ago This Month (July, 1974):
Jul 15 - San Francisco Giant Willie McCovey hit his four hundredth home run and Juan Marichal shut out the Pittsburgh Pirates 12-0.
The Cable Car Home Page now has a Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/CableCarHomePage/
The Cable Car Home Page also has an Instagram page:
https://www.instagram.com/cable_car_guy/

Joe Thompson
The Cable Car Home Page (updated 01-July-2024)
http://www.cable-car-guy.com/
San Francisco Bay Ferryboats (updated 31-March-2024)
http://www.cable-car-guy.com/ferry/
Park Trains and Tourist Trains (updated 29-February-2024)
http://www.cable-car-guy.com/ptrain/
The Pneumatic Rolling-Sphere Carrier Delusion (updated spasmodically)
http://cablecarguy.blogspot.com
The Big V Riot Squad (updated obsessively)
http://bigvriotsquad.blogspot.com/