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Geary Street, Park and Ocean Railway
Geary Street, Park and Ocean Railway
	The former carbarn at Arguello Street in 2018
Overview
Locale	San Francisco, California
Transit type	cable cars
Operation
Began operation	February 16, 1880
Ended operation	May 5, 1912
Operator(s)	Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railway (1880–1887), Market Street Railway (1887–1912), San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (1912–present)
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm),
Old gauge	5 ft (1,524 mm), converted in 1892

The Geary Street, Park and Ocean Railway was a street railway in San Francisco, California, United States.

History

The company received a franchise from the city to operate a cable railway on November 6, 1878.^[1] Operations commenced on February 16, 1880 as a Russian gauge tram pulled by steam dummy locomotives. The route soon proved quite popular.^[2] The line was purchased by the Market Street Railway in 1887;^[3] operations were not consolidated as Market Street Railway did not own all of the outstanding stock in the Geary Street railway.^[4]

The company's operating franchise expired in November 1903, but it continued to operate and pay its fees to the city.^[5] Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, cars had actually operated in the few hours immediately following the tremor but were stopped until June due to damage at the power house.^[6] The company's operating permit was restored in 1907.^[7] In 1912, the city declined to renew the franchise and instead took over the right of way.^[8] The last day of cable operations by the Geary Street, Park and Ocean Railway was on May 5, 1912.^[9]

The line was rebuilt into an electric streetcar line, forming the first element of the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) that was to become synonymous with transit in that city. Streetcar service on the new B-Geary line began on December 28, 1912, based out of a carhouse at Geary and Presidio Streets. Muni replaced the street cars with motor coaches in 1956, and the 38 Geary remains one of Muni's busiest bus routes, serving over 40,000 passengers per weekday.^[a]^[10]^[11]

Infrastructure

Cars terminated downtown at Geary, Market, and Kearny Streets.^[12] The powerhouse was in a two-story wooden building on the northwest corner of Geary Boulevard and Buchanan Street.^[13] The car barn was in a building on the northwest corner of Geary Boulevard and Arguello Boulevard, later an Office Max store.^[14]

Rolling stock

Baldwin Locomotive Works built four 0-4-0 tank locomotives for the line. Numbers 1 and 3 (C/N 4801 & 4817) had vertical boilers while numbers 2 and 4 (C/N 4827 & 5115) had more conventional horizontal boilers. The two locomotives with horizontal boilers were sold to redwood logging railroads when line was converted to cable car operation on August 7, 1892. Locomotive #2 became #6 for Hobbs, Wall & Company of Crescent City, California; and #4 was sent to the Glen Blair Redwood Company on the California Western Railroad.^[15]