SFMTA says cable-car shutdown could end this week

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency crews are working to restore service to two of San Francisco’s three cable-car lines, with service indefinitely replaced by bus shuttles in the meantime.

SFMTA officials suspended service on the Powell/Mason and Powell/Hyde cable car lines over the weekend due to what the agency termed a “machinery issue” in the agency’s cable-car barn that ended up affecting both lines. Bus shuttles are being provided on both lines until crews can resolve the issue, which the agency said it hopes to be at some point this week.

Erica Kato, a spokesperson for the SFMTA, said that the agency has its transit team “working around the clock” to repair the cables responsible for operating the two lines.

Kato told The Examiner that the agency expects to bring service back slowly over the course of the week.

“Until then, we will have ambassadors out at all terminals directing customers to the F line and the Cal line,” she said of the agency’s streetcar and still-operating cable-car lines, respectively. “We are also increasing supervision on both routes to reduce service gaps.”

Plans are also in the works to bring Muni Cable Car 62 along Powell Street later this week so that tourists and other visitors can have photo opportunities with The City’s most famous form of transit. Muni rebuilt the car on a motorized truck chassis in the 1950s so that it could be used in parades, special events and displays.

SFMTA officials first delayed cable cars Friday on the Powell/Hyde line in both directions due to a cable-strand alarm going off. Bus shuttles provided service between Washington and Powell streets, as well as Hyde and Beach streets. The issue, which persisted throughout this past weekend, ended up affecting the Mason line Monday morning, according to agency officials.

Rick Laubscher, president and CEO of the Market Street Railway nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving historic transit vehicles, said that he had heard about the problem but didn’t have any details on specifics. He said The City replaced its entire cable-car system 40 years ago and that the SFMTA has replaced individual components of the propulsion system in recent years.

One of the more recent rebuilds of the system came between 2017 and 2019, when the agency refurbished the five gearboxes that control each cable car’s movement down the line it serves. The SFMTA said that this was the first update to the machinery since the gearboxes began operating in 1984. Officials said the refurbishments would improve the system’s safety and reliability.

An agency project to rehabilitate the cable-car barn at 1201 Mason St. is currently on hold due to limited funding, according to a February SFMTA presentation given to the agency’s Citizens’ Advisory Council. SFMTA officials said that the project aims to make needed fixes that would improve working conditions in the barn and modernize electrical operations.

Improvements to the cable-car barn would include upgrading the building’s HVAC system, fire- and life-safety systems, office spaces, and roof. A 3-ton free-standing jib crane and a 2-ton bridge crane would be installed, among other improvements, as would a cable rewinder to help manage and store the cables.