Port de Sóller is a coastal village and resort on the north west coast of Mallorca.
Between the port and the nearby town of Sóller there is a tramcar service, asserted locally to run on rolling stock sourced from San Francisco, either during the 1930s or at the turn of the 20th century, it depends upon who you believe.
I’ve spent some time, but probably not enough, trying to find some photographs of San Francisco streetcars that look vaguely like what follows:
Well it sounds like you’re talking about the F-line tram that runs (mostly) along the Embaradero in San Francisco. Most of the cars are a “newer” style like this one, but there are also a few older looking ones like this one. and this. Not sure how exact of a match you want.
You are trying to confirm those tramcars were indeed imported from SF? In that case I think your best bet is to ask for information from the Soller operator.
The trams running in SF today come from all sorts of places and i do not think would be very helpful in confirming your question. You would have to find photos from the 1920’s or whenever they claim those cars were in SF. And even then you cannot be sure they are not copies or just manufactured by the same company or whatever.
The Port de Soller tram is narrow gage - three feet - and Muni streetcars are standard 4 foot 8.5 inch gage, so that pretty well knocks out the idea that the rolling stock came from San Francisco.
Once upon a fabled time, there was the Key System linking SF and Oakland (yes, the Bay Bridge once had tracks).
see http://www.actransit.org/aboutac/eastbay.wu
for a start - per it the Key System startd in 1903, so may well have used cars of that vintage at one time.
There’s a website for the F-Line which, among other things, discusses the history of the system and has pictures of the various cars now in use, one of which is the very first put in service (see here). Frankly, I can’t tell from your pictures how much they resemble SF’s original cars, but it seems unlikely they’re actually the source, as the city was only just then establishing its own system. Inspired by seems more likely.
Many years ago, the cable cars were overhauled - even Victorian engineering gives out eventually :D. This took them out of service for many months - don’t remember.
To keep the tourists happy, the city put out a call for antique streetcars from just about everywhere.
These were run on the then-unused Market St tracks, reviving the old F line. These proved so popular (esp. the boat-shaped car) they were kept on even after the cables were restored.
Result: The F line has one-offs of many cars from around the world - they are NOT necessarily anything ever used in SF - they re simply NOT historically SF cars.
The San Franciscan origin of the Sóller rolling stock is not disputed either locally or on various travel pages on the internet. That said, the information from both sources cannot be described as reliable. To discover here that it’s probably all a myth naturally leaves me wondering where the tramcars actually came from.
There was no literature in the local shops about the history of the tram service and my Spanish, being more than somewhat execrable, rendered me unable to question anyone sensibly about the matter. I guess if I’m determined to ascertain the provenance of the Sóller trams I’ll have to draft a letter to the Sóller town council, or similar.
The tram is a cool ride. In Sóller itself, it passes within a couple of feet of various buildings. If I had so desired, I could have stroked a couple of melons I saw on prominent display in a greengrocer’s shop.
There are many companies that provided streetcar (on rails in the street, overhead electric power lines), cable car (on rails, cable running continuously under street), trolley (bus not on rails, overhead power lines), and bus (internal engine, no rails) service in San Francisco. They all eventually were absorbed by MUNI or became defunct. For example, there were once 8 cable car companies in the City.
The trams in Soller were built in Spain for the line’s opening in 1913. They are a typical European design of the period - the city of Palma di Mallorca had very similar trams. Soller also has a couple of second hand trams from Lisbon in Portugal. They have absolutely nothing to do with San Francisco, whose trams were and are much bigger and run on a different track gauge.
It’s just a tale told by locals to impress gullible American tourists!
To be fair, American streetcars did make their way abroad, though usually it was a little later in the 1940s-1960s when streetcar systems were being abandoned. Many companies had purchased new PCC cars in the 1930s and 1940s that were still in plenty good shape and fetched a reasonable price on the used market. Generally they went to Canada, but some went to Mexico, Argentina, and Egypt.
Thanks to @Ian29 for his informative remarks, although it would be nice to understand whence he derived this information, i.e. how is it that you know this to be true?
Before noticing this was a zombie thread, I was going to say that the rear view photo supplied reminds me of cable cars, not that they look like that, but the cable car brake operator has a rotating handle like that which operates one kind of brakes.
I have a book on the railways and tramways of Majorca which states that the original trams were ordered from the company of Carde & Escoriaza in Zaragoza in 1912. And if you go to the official website of the Soller Railway, https://trendesoller.com and go their history page, it will confirm this fact. The three original trams are still in service, plus 5 bought 2nd hand from Lisbon.
Yes, I am aware of the sale of PCC cars around the world, including Europe. Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzagovina, at one time had a fleet of 71 ex-Washington DC PCCs bought in the late 1950s and early sixties when Washington was scrapping its system. Vienna also had a number of Third Avenue Railway streetcars from New York (not PCCs) after the war. We have one of these in our Tramway Museum here in England, where I am a volunteer tram driver.
However, American streetcars generally tended to be a lot larger than their European counterparts, and would not have been able to operate in the narrow streets of many smaller European towns, like Soller.
I hope you are interested in continuing here at the Straight Dope Message Board, and in that event, it might be helpful for you to understand that this forum (Factual Questions), plus Great Debates, and Politics and Elections, are the three forums where facts are most important, and sources are often asked for. Not to say you won’t find a lot of opinions and guesswork also expressed when questions are asked, but usually facts come first.
