![]() That period was one of just coping day to day: making service each morning with ramshackle equipment and depleted (and exhausted) staff. World War II ended 11 months after the Muni-MSRy merger took effect. Three major factors determined how well they would meet those needs in the postwar years: labor, voters, and automobiles. Other than five streamlined PCC-lookalike cars purchased in 1939, all of Muni’s 238 streetcars (and all 440 they acquired from Market Street Railway) were boxy and drafty. Muni’s original vehicles and facilities were in better shape, but its streetcars, though well maintained, were obsolete. none of the 1911 ‘100-class’ of MSRy cars survived, but our nonprofit’s volunteer craftsmen replicated the end and platform of one at our San Francisco Railway Museum. Soon, new center-lane tracks will carry all the surviving streetcar lines, while the outside lanes, cleared of tracks, will host lines converted to buses. 450 (renumbered from 150 by Muni to avoid conflicts with its own streetcars) tiptoes past Jones & McAllister on Market Street, headed for Duboce Avenue on the temporary 32-line in 1947, using Muni’s old outer tracks while MSRy’s inside tracks are being demolished. NO MORE ROAR-Ex-Market Street Railway Co. Its streetcar tracks, power supply systems, and facilities were on the brink of collapse. MSRy’s equipment was on its last legs, run into the ground by a combination of wartime crush loads, reduced maintenance capabilities, and deferred maintenance caused by its failing financial situation. The previous year, it had more than doubled in size when San Francisco voters finally approved acquiring Muni’s private competitor, Market Street Railway Company (MSRy-our namesake). The end of World War II in 1945 marked the beginning of big changes for the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). ![]() Fourth of six installments in our history of Muni’s birth and first century
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