Powell & Hyde Cable Car Turntable
Wooden turntable where crews hand-push single-ended cable cars in a full circle to reverse direction.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Powell and Hyde cable car turntable in San Francisco follows how crews still turn a fifteen-thousand-pound car around by hand, no engine involved, and how tourists used to be allowed to jump in and push alongside them until safety rules ended that. You'll hear why this particular turntable is newer than it looks, replacing an old switchback route, and why it landed in what was once a neglected vacant lot near Ghirardelli Square. Watch the crew at the stanchions the next time a car rattles down from Hyde Street.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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