Tracks in the Sky: Overhead Lines Then and Now

Tracks in the Sky: Overhead Lines Then and Now
By Jeremy Menzies

After telling you about the Track Department through the years, this month we take a look back at the Overhead Line Department. The focus of this group is to maintain our “tracks in the sky” which provide electric power to the LRVs, historic streetcars and trolley buses that are critical to keeping San Francisco moving.

A black and white image of an old railway tower truck with a man in the driver seat, two men standing on the truck bed, and one man standing behind the truck

SF Municipal Railway Tower Truck No. 1 on Van Ness Avenue circa 1917.

The earliest overhead transit power lines were built for San Francisco’s first electric streetcar line, which opened in 1892. As more electric streetcar lines came into service over the years, the electric grid above them expanded into a complex network requiring more power and more maintenance. Within 20 years, electric streetcars provided nearly all transit in the city.

A black and white image of a bus with people working on overhead wires, one of them climbing a ladder

A complicated overhead line operation at Bryant and Alameda, 1951. The building on the right- built as a power generating plant in 1893 -was home to the Overhead Lines department until just a few years ago.

In the late 1940s, many of the city’s streetcar lines were replaced by electric trolley buses. While they were able to tap into the existing power supply system, these buses made it necessary to expand the overhead line system further. Unlike streetcars, trolley buses need two wires to run, so all the new trolley routes required new overhead equipment. A black and white photo of a man doing repair work in a workshop

Lineman Ralph Greco making repairs to a section of trolley overhead inside the shop in 1985.

In addition to wires, the department maintains and repairs all the auxiliary equipment that allows streetcars, LRVs and trolley buses to intersect and make turns, including switches, crossings and breakers.

A fallen tree on top of a bus with emergency workers and trucks on the street

An Overhead Line Dept. team clears trolley coach wires downed by a fallen tree on Sutter and Stockton Streets during winter storms in January 2023.

Emergency response has always been another important and difficult part of the job. Without a power line, trolley buses and subway trains are stopped dead in their tracks. So a speedy response is essential.

Workers on a truck in a subway station with a large roll of wiring

Crews installing new wire in the Market Street Subway at Castro Station during a Fix It Week shutdown in 2022.

Over the years, the department has improved equipment and practices, but inspecting and maintaining the lines remains at the core of its work. Preventative maintenance like stringing new sections of wire in problem areas have played a critical role in improving system reliability.

So we look to the Overhead Line team to make sure the equipment above keeps everything rolling on the tracks and the streets.

Published June 02, 2023 at 02:20AM
https://ift.tt/VnsOCg1

Comments

New top story from Time: Little Recognition and Less Pay: These Female Healthcare Workers Are Rural India’s First Defense Against COVID-19

https://ift.tt/3mrDgrm Archana Ghugare’s ringtone, a Hindu devotional song, has been the background score of her life since March. By 7 a.m. on a mid-October day, the 41-year-old has already received two calls about suspected COVID-19 cases in Pavnar, her village in the Indian state of Maharashtra. As she gets ready and rushes out the door an hour later, she receives at least four more. “My family jokes that not even Prime Minister Modi gets as many calls as I do,” she says. Ghugare, and nearly a million other Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) assigned to rural villages and small towns across India, are on the front lines of the country’s fight against the coronavirus . Every day, Ghugare goes door to door in search of potential COVID-19 cases, working to get patients tested or to help them find treatment. With 8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, India has the second-highest tally in the world after the United States and its health infrastructure struggled to co...

New top story from Time: No, the Vikings Did Not Discover America. Here’s Why That Myth is Problematic

https://ift.tt/3h1mI9B Who discovered America? The common-sense answer is that the continent was discovered by the remote ancestors of today’s Native Americans. Americans of European descent have traditionally phrased the question in terms of identifying the first Europeans to have crossed the Atlantic and visited what is now the United States. But who those Europeans were is not such a simple question—and, since the earliest days of American nationhood, its answer has been repeatedly used and misused for political purposes . Everybody, it seems, wants a piece of the discovery. The Irish claim centers on St Brendan, who in the sixth century is said to have sailed to America in his coracle. The Welsh claimant is Madog ab Owain Gwynedd, who is said to have landed in Mobile, Ala., in 1170. The Scottish claimant is Henry Sinclair, earl of Orkney, who is said to have reached Westford, Mass., in 1398. The English have never claimed first contact, but in the English colonies John Ca...

New top story from Time: How the Tech Industry Can Help to Strengthen Democracy Over the Next Decade

https://ift.tt/3ikqTgX Over the next decade, democratic governments will be tested by the rise of China . They will have to prove to their citizens and those of developing nations that democracy can deliver widespread economic growth, stability and security in the modern world. Once again there will be a global competition between two very different forms of government, and right now the outcome is uncertain. For democracies to win this contest, they will need to leverage software to deliver more prosperity to a wider cross section of their populations, while still preserving individual rights. They have powerful potential allies in the private tech sector who could be of service building and selling industry-leading software to democratic governments. They should be intrinsically motivated because helping preserve democracy also safeguards the marketplace rules these companies depend upon to generate financial returns. In the following 10 years, the chief executive officers o...

New top story from Time: How the Texas Winter Storm Disaster Will Shape Joe Biden’s Climate Agenda

https://ift.tt/2P58EQX President Joe Biden arrived in Texas Friday on a trip designed to highlight the region’s recovery after a deadly winter storm knocked out power in most of the state. But while t he winter storm crisis may be fading into the rearview mirror , the battle to define its political meaning is just beginning. The Biden Administration has signaled that once its COVID relief legislation passes Congress, it plans to push for a massive stimulus package that would put people to work rebuilding American infrastructure designed to combat climate change. The Texas disaster has quickly become a focal point of the debate over that plan. For the past 10 days, dueling interests have duked it out over the significance of the Texas blackouts, with Democrats saying they underscored the need to adapt our infrastructure to climate change and many Republicans claiming—falsely—that the disaster shows the pitfalls of renewable energy. It’s a familiar exchange that has been ...

New top story from Time: ‘I Can Be Someone I Didn’t Have.’ Actor Simu Liu on Asian Representation and His Marvel Future

https://ift.tt/3ad9HoX A Chinese-Canadian actor as the face of a Marvel superhero franchise? That’s not the world Simu Liu grew up in. But that’s the world Liu is making this year. “ I can be someone I didn’t have as a kid ,” the actor tells TIME100 Talks He’s talking about the upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings , the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie starring a hero of Asian descent, due out in July. The Kim’s Convenience actor will play the titular character, Shang-Chi. And—as his comment suggests—it’s been a long time coming. “ I loved comics as a kid, I loved superheroes, but I really didn’t see myself represented in that space,” he says. “I really hope with this movie, kids who are like me, who grew up similarly, can have that. That’s really the power of representation: seeing yourself on screen and feeling like you’re a part of this world, which for Asian children who have grown up in the West hasn’t always been the case.” Liu’s leading-man s...

New top story from Time: Supreme Court Delivers Two Major Voting Victories to Democrats. But the Battle May Not Be Over

https://ift.tt/3ea9ynJ The Supreme Court on Wednesday handed Democrats major victories in election legal battles in two critical swing states, letting extended deadlines for mail-in ballots in North Carolina and Pennsylvania remain in place for now. The Supreme Court declined to expedite a decision on Pennsylvania’s extended deadline for receiving mail-in ballots, virtually guaranteeing it will remain in place through the election, and, in a separate ruling, declined to halt an appeals court ruling that kept the North Carolina deadline in place. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented in both of the rulings. The Court’s newest justice, Amy Coney Barrett, who was confirmed on Monday, did not participate because she did not have adequate time to review the filings, according to the court’s public information officer. As a result of the rulings, mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day can be received through Nov. 6th in Pennsylvania and Nov. 12 ...

Take Muni’s Safety Survey!

Take Muni’s Safety Survey! By Greer Cowan Everyone should feel safe on Muni. Help make Muni safer by taking the SFMTA’s survey about personal safety and harassment in the Muni system. As part of the MuniSafe Safety Equity Initiative launched in August 2022, the SFMTA has partnered with the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies to better understand Muni riders’ experiences and develop safety recommendations, tools and policies aimed at preventing harassment and assault on Muni. Take the 5-minute survey Survey information will also help the SFMTA understand Muni customers’ specific safety needs and challenges, and help us identify valuable trends and patterns so we know where, when and how harassment shows up in the Muni system. Incidents often go unreported, but the SFMTA is working to change that with new reporting options. As of October 2022, Muni customers can report incidents of harassment by calling 311, using the 311 mobile app or using t...

Breaking News LIVE: Top Headlines This Hour https://ift.tt/34z4QNj

The total number of global coronavirus cases has surpassed 44 million, including more than 1,171,272 fatalities. More than 32,442,947 patients are reported to have recovered. Follow this breaking news blog for live updates on the coronavirus pandemic as it continues to pose a challenge for health workers and scientists who are in a race against time to produce a vaccine/medicine.

New top story from Time: You May Be Surprised by the Type of American Who is Postponing Basic Health Care During the Pandemic

https://ift.tt/3pJNS5Z There’s more than one way to get sick during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can contract the virus, of course, as more than 28 million Americans already have. Or you can dodge the disease but still suffer from the disruption caused by quarantines and social distancing, if they lead you to neglect routine health care. That, a new TIME-Harris Poll survey shows, is just what too many of us are doing. The top-line numbers from the survey of 1,093 participants (a representative sample of the U.S. public) are sobering, with 78% of respondents reporting that they have put off at least some medical services during the past three months of pandemic. Of those procedures, dental exams or cleanings were the most frequently missed, with 30% saying that they have passed on regular oral care. Annual physical check-ups were next at 27%, followed by eye exams at 25%. More troubling—if somewhat less common—were the 15% of people who said they were missing appointments...

New top story from Time: Teen Artists Are Making Millions on NFTs. How Are They Doing It?

https://ift.tt/3DSCUn8 Jaiden Stipp was watching a Star Wars movie at his afternoon youth group in Tacoma, Washington, last March when the bids started coming in. First it was a fragment of an Ethereum coin, worth about $300 at the time. Then it was more. Eventually Stipp—who is 15 years old and will soon be starting his sophomore year of high school—sold his artwork, a digital illustration of a waving, astronaut-like cartoon figure, for 20ETH. (That converted to over $30,000; it was traded a month later for nearly $60,000.) “My dad was like, ‘No way this is actual money,’” Stipp says. “It seems like it’s a lot of fake money being passed around. So we took some of the money out just to see what’s actually real. And then at the bank. I was like, ‘Whoa.’” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Stipp had been making and selling logo designs for customers found on the social app Discord for $20 to $70. On a whim, he made his astronaut cartoon into an NFT (non-fungible token), put i...

My precise view

Search This Blog