Cable Car Museum

The Cable Car Museum is at 1201 Mason Street and is serviced by two of the Cable Car Lines, Powell-Hyde and Powell-Mason. If you disembark here, you shorten your ride by 50% but you are also only a few blocks from Chinatown.

The Museum is free! In the museum you can see the historic cable cars up close and examine the simple parts that make them operate. The museum houses the actual cables that pull the cars, and you can watch them racing under the building.

There are about 40 cars in the entire fleet, but they do not all operate at the same time nor are they alike. Some of the Cable Cars are “double ended” so they can be operated from both the front and back and do not need to be turned around after each trip.

If you get off here to visit Chinatown, take the time to explore this Cable Car Museum. It gives you good opportunity to take pictures that are not possible from the moving cars.