[net.railroad] SF Muni operations

rhc%ucbpopuli.CC@Berkeley ( San Franciscan for Responsible Anarc (11/28/84)

Because of construction (involving a standpipe I hear)
in the subway, Inbound cars (only)
will be operating on the surface weekday nights
after 2100 between Castro St and Church St.
Outbound cars, and all cars at other times,
are announced to be using the subway.

Note that Church St, at and just south of Market,
is now operating single-track; the inbound track
has just been rebuilt, and the outbound is now torn up.

Should be fun.

paul@dual.UUCP (Baker) (12/07/84)

>Because of construction (involving a standpipe I hear) in the subway,
>Inbound cars (only) will be operating on the surface weekday nights
>after 2100 between Castro St and Church St.  Outbound cars, and all
>cars at other times, are announced to be using the subway.

>Note that Church St, at and just south of Market, is now operating
>single-track; the inbound track has just been rebuilt, and the outbound
>is now torn up.

For the first few days of operation, Church Street was indeed operating
single-tracked, however work on this section has now been finished.
Some of the initial inexplicable delays descending into the Market
Street tunnel seem to have been shortened so that the trip is now
fairly fast.  This service operates between 2130 & 0000 according to
Muni.

The standpipe apparently is required to satisfy fire regulations that were
changed after the Bart fire a few years back.  All of the Muni tunnel above
the Bart tunnel already has the required pipes installed as has the Twin Peaks
tunnel.  There still remains the section between Church Street and Van Ness.
When this is to be installed, I believe we will all be forced to use stinky
diesel buses for at least part of the trip downtown.

Hopefully, at some time, the trolley wires above Market Street will be
converted to work with trolley poles or pantographs.  as was
done to the section along 17th Street between Castro & Church.  This
would permit a wider range of historic Trolleys to be used along Market
Street as well as providing redundancy in the event of any difficulties
or maintenace work being required in the Market Street tunnel.

Paul Wilcox-Baker.

(How many Muni staff do you think read net.railroad?)

rhc%ucbpopuli.CC@brl-tgr.ARPA (12/09/84)

Thanks for the background info.

You don't *have* to use the diesel shuttles,
In fact I'm somewhat mystified why the Muni is running
diesel shuttles, when extra trolleybusses on the 8-Market
line would cover the route.

Last Fri (7 Dec) was fun:
Yes the new subway was shut down that night.
KLM lines were turning back on the surface tracks at 17 & Castro.
J and N lines were joined together via the Y at the Mint yard,
inbound cars on each line showing outbound designation
for the other line.