Talk:San Francisco cable car system

Only Moving National Landmark
Is this really true? The National Landmark entry page shows the USS Constitution, and there are many other ships on the list that also sail. Is sailing the same as moving? —Preceding unsigned comment added by John3165 (talk • contribs) 05:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Trains importance scale
The definition of 'importance=high' is 'Most readers will at least be familiar with the topic being discussed'. The San Francisco cable car system is an icon for the city and as such is known world-wide. It clearly fits this importance scale better than 'importance=mid' which is defined as 'The article is about a topic within rail transport that may or may not be commonly known outside the rail transport industry'. -- Chris j wood 12:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

How do they work?
Neat that in like 1,000 words no one actually manages to explain how cable cars work, how they are powered, or little things like exactly why they were well-suited to hilly terrain such as is prevalent in San Francisco. But kudos for hitting the important stuff, like who patented the grips, and which lines were spared the bus in the '40s. And no, I don't feel like fixing it, thanks.07:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)07:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)68.35.160.2 yourself.


 * The link to cable car in the first sentence explains how they function. n2xjk 14:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Make that link cable car Peter Horn 20:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Track gauge??
Is it, or what??? Peter Horn 02:34, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I repeat the question. Peter Horn 20:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I repeat the question. Peter Horn 02:34, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I found the answer in San Francisco Municipal Railway, it is . Peter Horn 18:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Winner 08?
how can leornard oats win this year, when the contest is in July? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.224.164.202 (talk) 16:54, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It would appear that the organisers of the competition are unaware of the rule that the competition has to be held in July and went ahead and organised it on the 3rd June. In fact they seem to organise it in months other than June in most years. 109.153.242.10 (talk) 13:19, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Operation all around the clock?
Do the cablecars drive all the day/night long? what's the schedule? --88.71.206.14 (talk) 23:11, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No. The schedule is the list of times of arrivals and departures for each stop. 109.153.242.10 (talk) 13:15, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

'Mobile National Monument' claim
This article includes the claim "The cable cars are the only mobile National Monument in the world". The cable car system is not even mentioned in the List of National Monuments of the United States, a featured list. At least according to this webpage, this claim is false.- Gilliam (talk) 21:23, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

'last manually operated cable car system' claim
The article claims that the San Francisco cable car system is "the world's last manually operated cable car system". This is not true, there are others, including the Wellington_Cable_Car in New Zealand, which has been in operation since 1902
 * It's possible that the Wellington one is excluded because it's a funicular. Conifer (talk ) 04:01, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Similar or identical text at cablecarssanfrancisco.com
I just removed this site (which appears to be operated by a SF-based tour company, and to largely serve as advertising for it) from the External links section. Besides concerns about whether the link satisfies WP:EL, I also noticed that a lot of the site's text seems to have been copied from this Wikipedia article (with small modifications), without following the license requirements. To exclude the possibility that text had been copied the other way around, I compared the earliest version of the website available on the Internet Archive with a version of the Wikipedia article around that time, and checked for two sentences when and in what form they had been first added here:

While one could check further examples, I think these two already make it highly likely that that website copied from Wikipedia, rather than the other way around.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:06, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Featured picture scheduled for POTD
Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Cable Car_No._1_and_Alcatraz_Island.jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for August 2, 2023. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2023-08-02. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 13:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Heavy black smoke probably an error
A sentence in this article (directly quoting it's cited source) claims the tall smokestack was required "due to the heavy black smoke from the anthracite coal burned". This is almost certainly an error, anthracite coal is well known for producing little smoke, and certainly not "heavy black smoke". While it's certainly possible they burned bituminous coal, which could produce heavy smoke, even that is unlikely since heavy smoke would only occur if the boilers were being heavily over-fired - something which occurs with railroad locomotives and steamships since a coal fire can't quickly adjust to changes in load, but would be unlikely in a stationary plant. Operators of steam plants in the 1890's were extremely conscious of the cost of coal, and a fireman who routinely produced smoke (i.e. was inefficient in his use of coal) would quickly be replaced.

It is more likely the tall smokestack was required to produce a draft thru the furnace. Anthracite coal is notoriously difficult to burn, and requires a strong draft. Stationary steam plants depended on natural draft, they did not have forced-draft fans (like steamships) or exhaust steam blast (like locomotives). The strength of a natural draft is, to a large extent, proportional to the height of the chimney, thus the choice to burn anthracite would in turn require a tall smokestack. This is further supported by the smokestack height being reduced when they switched to oil fuel, which does not require as strong a draft to burn well (it is, however, very easy to make thick black smoke with an oil fire if over-fired, much more so than with coal. Firemen of restored steam locomotives frequently do so for the benefit of photographers).

In short, I think the authors of the cited article were likely unfamiliar with steam power, and made an erroneous assumption in their description.