1.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
2.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
3.
Cable car (railway)
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A cable car is a type of cable transportation used for mass transit where rail cars are hauled by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed. Individual cars stop and start by releasing and gripping this cable as required, the first cable-operated railway, employing a moving rope that could be picked up or released by a grip on the cars was the Fawdon railway in 1826, a Colliery railway line. The London and Blackwall Railway, which opened for passengers in east London, England, the rope available at the time proved too susceptible to wear and the system was abandoned in favour of steam locomotives after eight years. In America, the first cable car installation in operation probably was the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway in New York City, the cable technology used in this elevated railway involved collar-equipped cables and claw-equipped cars, and proved cumbersome. The line was closed and rebuilt, and reopened with steam locomotives, beauregard demonstrated a cable car at New Orleans and was issued U. S. Other cable cars to use grips were those of the Clay Street Hill Railroad, the building of this line was promoted by Andrew Smith Hallidie with design work by William Eppelsheimer, and it was first tested in 1873. The success of these grips ensured that this became the model for other cable car transit systems. In 1881 the Dunedin cable tramway system opened in Dunedin, New Zealand, both of these innovations were generally adopted by other cities, including San Francisco. In Australia the Melbourne cable tramway system operated from 1885 to 1940 and it was one of the most extensive in the world with 1200 trams and trailers operating over 15 routes with 103 km of track. Sydney also had a few cable tram routes, Cable cars rapidly spread to other cities, although the major attraction for most was the ability to displace horsecar systems rather than the ability to climb hills. Thus, for a period, economics worked in favour of cable cars even in relatively flat cities, for example, the Chicago City Railway, also designed by Eppelsheimer, opened in Chicago in 1882 and went on to become the largest and most profitable cable car system. As with many cities, the problem in flat Chicago was not one of grades and this caused a different approach to the combination of grip car and trailer. After 1896 the system was changed to one on which a car was added to each train to maneuver at the terminals, while en route. On 25 September 1883 a test of a cable car system was held by Liverpool United Tramways and Omnibus Company in Kirkdale and this would have been the first cable car system in Europe, but the company decided against implementing it. Instead the distinction went to the 1884 route from Archway to Highgate, north London, the installation was not reliable and was replaced by electric traction in 1909. Other cable car systems were implemented in Europe, though, among which was the Glasgow District Subway, the first underground cable car system, in 1896. For a while hybrid cable/electric systems operated, for example in Chicago where electric cars had to be pulled by grip cars through the loop area, due to the lack of trolley wires there. In the last decades of the 20th century cable traction in general has seen a revival as automatic people movers, used in resort areas, airports, huge hospital centers
4.
Market Street Railway (transit operator)
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The Market Street Railway Company was a commercial streetcar and bus operator in San Francisco. The company was named after the famous Market Street of that city, over the years, the company was also known as the Market Street Railroad Company, the Market Street Cable Railway Company and the United Railroads of San Francisco. The franchise for what would become the Market Street Railway was granted in 1857 to Thomas Hayes, the line was the first horsecar line to open in San Francisco, opened on July 4,1860, as the Market Street Railroad Company. A few years later, the line was converted to steam power utilizing an engine that was part locomotive and part passenger car. Following the opening of the cable hauled Clay Street Hill Railroad in 1873, in 1882, Leland Stanford and associates bought the Market Street Railroad Company and converted its lines to cable haulage. In the process, the name was changed to the Market Street Cable Railway Company. This company was to grow to become San Franciscos largest cable car operator, at its peak, it operated five lines all of which converged into Market Street to a common terminus at the Ferry Building, during rush hours a cable car left that terminus every 15 seconds. In 1893, Stanford died and the company was taken over by the Southern Pacific Railroad, the company was again renamed to the Market Street Railway Company, and began the process of converting its lines to electric traction. In 1895 the company placed an advertisement in the San Francisco Examiner offering horse cars for $20. Many of these became the basis for the community built from streetcars called Carville-by-the-Sea. Conversion to electricity was resisted by opponents who objected to what they saw as ugly overhead lines on the thoroughfares of the city center. At 5,12 am on April 18,1906, those objections were swept away as the great San Francisco earthquake struck, the race to rebuild the city allowed the company to replace all but the steepest of its cable car lines with electric streetcar lines. By this stage, the company had changed again. Horsecars were finally withdrawn from city streets on June 3,1914, by 1918, and assisted by the construction of several tunnels under the citys hills, Muni was in direct competition with the URR down the length of Market Street. The two operators each operated their own pair of tracks down that thoroughfare, which came to be known as the roar of the four. The two Market Street Railway tracks were on the inside and the two San Francisco Municipal Railway tracks were on the outside, competition, labor troubles and a bad accident in 1918 led to the reorganisation of the URR, to re-emerge again as the Market Street Railway Company. This continued to operate electric streetcars throughout the city, the Powell St. cable car lines, and a fleet of buses.5 million. These are the surviving vehicles from the Market Street Railway fleet, Car 578 was built in 1896 by the Hammond Car Company and is a single-truck
5.
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
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The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is an agency created by consolidation of the San Francisco Municipal Railway, the Department of Parking and Traffic, and the Taxicab Commission. SFMTA was established by the passage of Proposition E in November 1999, the measure, promoted by the transit riders group Rescue Muni, among others, established service standards for the agency and made a number of changes to the laws governing it. Prior to the passage of Proposition E, the Muni was governed by the Public Transportation Commission, both bodies were dissolved upon the full implementation of Proposition E. Board members are limited to three terms. The SFMTA Board of Directors is responsible for, among other things, at its inception, the SFMTAs Director of Transportation was Michael T. Burns. On July 15,2005 he left the SFMTA for a position with Santa Clara VTA, ford, Sr. previously the general manager and CEO of MARTA in Atlanta, took over as the new executive director. Johnson would take over as acting director until a permanent replacement was selected by the SFMTA Board. The board selected Edward D. Reiskin, the head of the San Francisco Department of Public Works, as the permanent executive director, the first chair of the SFMTA Board of Directors was H. Welton Flynn, he was succeeded by Cleopatra Vaughns. When Vaughns left the board, James McCray, Jr. was elected chairman, like two of his then-colleagues, McCray previously served on the Parking and Traffic Commission, which was abolished when the department merged into the SFMTA. The Board of Supervisors rejected Stern by a 7–4 vote on September 27,2005, Stern was an official with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Proposition E also established a 15-member SFMTA Citizens Advisory Council which must review the agencys budget, the mayor appoints four members of the SFMTA Citizens Advisory Council and each member of the Board of Supervisors appoints one. Proposition E allowed for the SFMTA to take over the functions of the Taxicab Commission, in 2009, the agency did so, as a result of legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors and signed by the mayor. In November 2005, the voters of San Francisco rejected, by a margin of 35%–65%, in November 2016 San Francisco voters rejected by 45%–55% a second ballot measure that would have split appointments between the mayor and the Board of Supervisors. The measure would also have made it easier for the supervisors to reject the SFMTA budget. In November 2016, The SFMTA was hit by hackers, using ransomware, demanding $70,000 in bitcoins, with fare machines reading “OUT OF SERVICE”, in February 2006, the MTA Board adopted a resolution adding CEO to the title. When Edward D. Reiskin took office in 2011, he opted to use only the official title. * Although the city charter specifies that the MTA Board shall have a chair, Flynn, Vaughns, McCray, and Nolan have all opted for the style chairman
6.
Track gauge
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In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. All vehicles on a network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, as the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network. There is a distinction between the gauge and actual gauge at some locality, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, the nominal track gauge is the distance between the inner faces of the rails. In current practice, it is specified at a distance below the rail head as the inner faces of the rail head are not necessarily vertical. In some cases in the earliest days of railways, the company saw itself as an infrastructure provider only. Colloquially the wagons might be referred to as four-foot gauge wagons, say and this nominal value does not equate to the flange spacing, as some freedom is allowed for. An infrastructure manager might specify new or replacement track components at a variation from the nominal gauge for pragmatic reasons. Track is defined in old Imperial units or in universally accepted metric units or SI units, Imperial units were established in United Kingdom by The Weights and Measures Act of 1824. In addition, there are constraints, such as the load-carrying capacity of axles. Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. Broader gauge railways are generally expensive to build and require wider curves. There is no single perfect gauge, because different environments and economic considerations come into play, a narrow gauge is superior if ones main considerations are economy and tight curvature. For direct, unimpeded routes with high traffic, a broad gauge may be preferable, the Standard, Russian, and 46 gauges are designed to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. In addition to the general trade-off, another important factor is standardization, once a standard has been chosen, and equipment, infrastructure, and training calibrated to that standard, conversion becomes difficult and expensive. This also makes it easier to adopt an existing standard than to invent a new one and this is true of many technologies, including railroad gauges. The reduced cost, greater efficiency, and greater economic opportunity offered by the use of a common standard explains why a number of gauges predominate worldwide
7.
5 ft and 1520 mm gauge railways
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Railways with a railway track gauge of 5 ft/1,524 mm were first constructed in the United Kingdom and the United States. This gauge is commonly called Russian gauge because this gauge was later chosen as the common track gauge for the Russian Empire. The gauge was redefined by Russian Railways to be 1520 mm, the primary region where Russian gauge is used is the former Soviet Union, Mongolia and Finland, with about 225,000 km of track. Russian gauge is the second most common gauge in the world, in 1748, the Wylam waggonway was built to a 5 ft gauge for the shipment of coal from Wylam to Lemington down the River Tyne. In 1839, the Eastern Counties Railway was constructed, and in 1840, in 1844, both lines were converted to 1,435 mm standard gauge. In 1903, the East Hill Cliff Railway, a funicular, was opened. In 1827, Horatio Allen, the engineer of the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, prescribed the usage of 5 ft gauge. The presence of several distinct gauges was a disadvantage to the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. In 1886, when around 11,500 miles of 5 ft gauge track existed in the United States, while of almost no practical importance the railway did demonstrate that this gauge was viable. The second railway in the Russian Empire was the Warsaw–Vienna railway which was built to 1,435 mm, for the building of Russias first major railway, the Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway, engineer Pavel Melnikov hired as consultant George Washington Whistler, a prominent American railway engineer. Melnikov, of the Construction Commission overseeing the railway, recommended 6 ft following the example of the first railway and his study of US Railways. Following a report sent by Whistler the head of the Main Administration of Transport and Buildings recommended 5 ft and it was approved for the railway by Tsar Nicholas I on February 14,1843. The next lines built were also approved with this gauge but it was not until March 1860 that a Government decree stated all major railways in Russia would be 5 ft gauge. It is widely and incorrectly believed that Imperial Russia chose a gauge broader than standard gauge for military reasons, in 1841 a Russian army engineer wrote a paper stating that such a danger did not exist since railways could be made dysfunctional by retreating forces. Finally for the Moscow - Saint Petersburg Railway, which became the benchmark, despite this the difference in gauge did play a role in hindering invading armies, especially in World War II, it was just not selected with that in mind. The 5-foot gauge became the standard in the whole Russian Empire and that includes the Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus, the Caucasian and Central Asian republics, Finland, and in the once Soviet-influenced Mongolia. This formed a break of gauge between Changchun and Kuancheng, until the rest of the former Chinese Eastern Railway was converted to standard gauge, unlike in South Manchuria, the Soviet Unions reconquest of southern Sakhalin from Japan did not result in regauging of the railway system. Southern Sakhalin has continued with the original Japanese 1,067 mm gauge simultaneously with the Russian gauge railway, constructed in the northern part of the island in 1930-1932
8.
Tram
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A tram is a rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets, and also sometimes on a segregated right of way. The lines or networks operated by tramcars are called tramways, Tramways powered by electricity, the most common type historically, were once called electric street railways. However, trams were used in urban areas before the universal adoption of electrification. Tram lines may run between cities and/or towns, and/or partially grade-separated even in the cities. Very occasionally, trams also carry freight, Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than conventional trains and rapid transit trains, but the size of trams is rapidly increasing. Some trams may also run on railway tracks, a tramway may be upgraded to a light rail or a rapid transit line. For all these reasons, the differences between the modes of rail transportation are often indistinct. In the United States, the tram has sometimes been used for rubber-tired trackless trains. Today, most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph, in some cases by a sliding shoe on a third rail. If necessary, they may have dual power systems — electricity in city streets, trams are now included in the wider term light rail, which also includes segregated systems. The English terms tram and tramway are derived from the Scots word tram, referring respectively to a type of truck used in coal mines and the tracks on which they ran. The word tram probably derived from Middle Flemish trame, a Romanesque word meaning the beam or shaft of a barrow or sledge, the identical word la trame with the meaning crossbeam is also used in the French language. The word Tram-car is attested from 1873, although the terms tram and tramway have been adopted by many languages, they are not used universally in English, North Americans prefer streetcar, trolley, or trolleycar. The term streetcar is first recorded in 1840, and originally referred to horsecars, when electrification came, Americans began to speak of trolleycars or later, trolleys. The troller design frequently fell off the wires, and was replaced by other more reliable devices. The terms trolley pole and trolley wheel both derive from the troller, Modern trams often have an overhead pantograph mechanical linkage to connect to power, abandoning the trolley pole altogether. Conventional diesel tourist buses decorated to look like streetcars are sometimes called trolleys in the US, the term may also apply to an aerial ropeway, e. g. the Roosevelt Island Tramway. Over time, the trolley has fallen into informal use
