Customer Reviews

San Francisco's Market Street Railway (CA) (Images of Rail)

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While intended for the San Francisco history buff, SAN FRANCISCO'S MARKET STREET RAILWAY, is sure to be relished by any urban traction fan: packed with clear vintage black and white shots of various incarnations of the Market Street Railway, chapters provide a wonderful overview of San Francisco's transit challenges over the decades. From central Market Street outward, changes from additions to subtractions of San Francisco and surrounding city trolley lines are detailed, with each photo receiving not only a descriptive sentence, but explanation of why it was important, expanded or discontinued. It's these extensive notes, tied to the vintage shots, which make for such an important coverage: this, and the attention to including historically significant yet clear, sharp photos.

I was looking for a book containing a comprehensive history of San Francisco streetcars and interurbans. This book is focused on MSR only, but the quality of pictures is astonishing! I'm writing from Rome, Italy, and I can assure that similar very high quality images of our tramcars in, say, Therties or even later are barely available and, furthermore, they belong to private archives and therefore probably never published as a whole. I like it!

Slightly before my time. For many years I deliver the US Mail in downtown San Francisco, riding the street cars and cable cars as well.