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Bonus picture for today. This is the cable car barn/powerhouse... where just four 510 horsepower motors and gears pull miles of heavy cables underneath city streets, yanking 40 cable cars up and down the hills of San Francisco.
I love this place. The machinery is fascinating, the cables sing, and the smell of machine oil is intoxicating.
I didn't realize car cables moved 馃槷馃槄馃う馃徎
what a cool manifestation of the city's beating heart
@BobHorowitz I also heard "take the a-train" while looking
@BobHorowitz
I've heard the cables singing even where they just run under the street and it's so cool.
The cables for the elevator on the broadcast towers I work on sing at times but they just more emit a wretched loud scream lol
@vxo
Oh man I would love to hear shrieking elevator cables! You just made me smile at the thought of that.
AAAAAAaaaaaaaaa......
@BobHorowitz
It sounds almost like a basketball scoreboard buzzer. It's strange
@BobHorowitz
On the older tower the elevator is quiet but bounces pretty good when it starts and stops. Thankfully the bounce isn't violent enough to trip the safety brakes (they're located on the cab itself along with their centrifugal dinglewheel).
On the slightly newer, taller tower, the elevator just honks and buzzes at a few points as you go up because you're passing through the standing waves on the cables
Great choice of the sepia tone It sings, as well. It's pretty cool that they let you in there with a camera.
@EricMartin The museum is very welcoming to photographers.
Also, lining the wall on the way to their bathrooms, they have a terrific set of street photos from the 1906 earthquake.
@BobHorowitz great little museum!
@BobHorowitz Incredible! I have to see this the next time I visit SF.
@BobHorowitz Yes a must see for SF tourists.
@briansullivan Absolutely. When I take visitors on walking tours around town, we start at one of the cable car terminuses and ride up to the top of Nob Hill... then walk down Mason towards Chinatown and head straight to the cable car barn.
@BobHorowitz Very cool.
I wonder... what is the dominant scent? I grew up troubleshooting electromechanical equipment, so these places are magic for me. They all have their smells.
I imagine some slight rubber from the belts, ozone from the motors... generated wind blowing it around, where different spots smell different...
Man. I miss those days.
@knowprose Yes, it is magical in there. The overwhelming smell of WD-40 or some oily equivalent hits you in the head the moment you walk in the door. The structure itself, largely rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake, still feels like something you would find in Edison's Menlo Park campus in New Jersey.
Andrew Hallidie was a 19th century mechanical genius.
@BobHorowitz you captured it well.
Random note... originally wd40 was based on fish oil. Different scent. 馃檭
@knowprose
Oh thank God they made that change *chuckles*
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