San Francisco Cable Car Museum

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.

Exhibits

The museum contains several preserved Cable [car (railway)|cable cars], together with smaller exhibits and a gift shop. The cable cars displayed include:

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. 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.
The museum was established in 1974, and is run by the Friends of the Cable Car Museum.