San Francisco Cable Car Museum

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The Cable Car Museum is a free museum in the Nob Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Located at 1201 Mason Street, it contains historical and explanatory exhibits on the San Francisco cable car system, which can itself be regarded as a working museum.<ref name=fodor>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Exhibits

The museum contains several preserved cable cars, together with smaller exhibits and a gift shop. The cable cars displayed include:<ref name=ccmab>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Sutter Street Railway - grip car 46 and trailer 54 dating from the 1870s
Clay Street Hill Railroad - grip car 8, the only surviving car from the first cable car company

The museum is part of the complex that also houses the cable car power house, which drives the cables, and the car depot ("barn"). The car depot is not open to the public, but two galleries allow visitors to view the power house from above, and to descend below the junction of Washington and Mason streets to view the large cavern where the haulage cables are routed via large sheaves out to the street.<ref name="ccmab"/>

The museum was established in 1974, and is run by the Friends of the Cable Car Museum.<ref name="fodor"/><ref name="ccmab"/>

Reconstruction of powerhouse (July 1907)
Layout of Cable Car Museum; primary exhibit space is on the northwest mezzanine level
Preserved Clay Street Hill Railroad No. 8
Motors and winding wheels; the signs above each cable ("Hyde", "California", "Mason", and "Powell") show which line it is driving.
Preserved Sutter Street Railway No. 46 and 54
Car depot (car barn)