Let the climb halfway to the stars resume.
San Franciscos cable cars were back on the streets Monday, climbing hills and shuttling around tourists following a 10-day shutdown for much-needed repairs.
The three lines — Powell-Hyde, Powell-Mason and California — returned to service Monday morning after the repairs went as scheduled.
Beginning Sept. 13, workers began overhauling and refurbishing gearboxes that control the movements of the cable lines that pull the cable cars around the city streets. The old gearboxes housed at the Cable Car Barn on Mason Street had been in operation for 35 years.
The rehabilitation project began in 2017 and cost an estimated $6 million.
“The gearboxes have been in place since 1984, and their life expectancy was at an end,” San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spokeswoman Erica Kato told this publication through an email. “For the past two years we have been changing out the gearboxes, and the Hyde Line gearbox was the last to be installed. The gearbox that was removed will be rebuilt and kept as a spare.”
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Bus shuttles ran in place of the cable cars during their 10-day downtime, and the SFMTA and other city departments were able to complete tasks on related projects.
“During the outage, we were able to perform work throughout the entire system that we would not normally be able to perform under normal conditions,” Kato said. “This included rebuilding switches, replacing pulleys, track repair, cleaning and welding various components. We have also reached out across and coordinated with other city departments to ask them to assist us in working on and around the Cable Car system. We were also able to allow private contractor work Read More – Source
