RailPictures.Net Photo: MUNI 952 San Francisco Municipal Railway Perley Thomas Co., High Point, North Carolina at San Francisco, California by James Belmont
The most iconic transit vehicle in American literary history is Tennessee Williams’ “Streetcar Named Desire” from New Orleans. San Francisco's MUNI currently has two such icons. Both cars were built in 1923, part of an order of 73. They ran on a variety of lines, including the famed “Desire” line, named for a street in the French Quarter, until 1964, when bus conversions left only the venerable St. Charles line operating with streetcars. A few surplus cars, including these two, were sold to museums or attractions; the rest were scrapped. Car No. 952 was repurchased by New Orleans from an attraction in Chattanooga to serve a new Riverfront line in 1984, and then retired again in 1997 when replaced by replica cars. It came from New Orleans to San Francisco in 1998 by agreement between Mayors Willie Brown and Marc Morial, for the world premiere of Andre Previn’s opera of Williams’ novel. Its lease was subsequently extended and it has operated regularly on the streets of San Francisco ever since. In 2005, Market Street Railway arranged the purchase by Muni of car No. 913, identical to No. 952, from the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Riverside County. Car No. 913 awaits restoration. While streetcars disappeared from the Desire line in 1948, that line lives on, not only in Tennessee Williams’ play, but in cars No. 913 and 952, and their 35 surviving siblings still serving New Orleans on the National Historic Landmark St. Charles line today.
