The always excellent and interesting Telstar Logistics site has a great article about the vintage San Francisco streetcars and the people who keep them going.

San Francisco’s F Line streetcars can be seen in their vintage color schemes all across downtown on Market street and along the piers on Embarcadero all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf. The colorful streetcars were built between the 1890s and the 1940s and they are all lovingly restored in original color schemes from cities all around the world.

It’s fun to watch tourists when they realize that the city has not just the only working cable car system in the world, but in addition has this multicolored fleet of hundred-year-old streetcars in active duty on its streets.

I always enjoy riding these clattering and shaking rail cars. The interiors are at least as interesting and beautiful as the paint jobs and it’s fun to imagine for a moment that the very car you are in once rolled through Brooklyn, Milan or Kobe.