I don't know what year it was but the whole thing was shut down for repairs. It took a few years, I think. They asked for donations and I sent them little of something and entered the "Name The Cable Car" contest. It was $5.00 each so I sent in about 3.

I got a telegram a long time after and they said I had won a prize for naming a cable car and be in the City for the drawing on such & such date.

What they did was post a huge board with our names on it. Then they went through what we had won. Someone pulled my name out of a hat and was a free RT to Hawaii on NWO airlines. They even threw in transportation for my wife and girls for free.

After it was over I went and looked what the prize was before and after. Before was a trip around the world and after a bus trip thru the Redwoods.

I sent in the name "Mark Hopkins". There is a plaque down in the car barn that is North, down the hill on Mason. Someone said they saw it upstairs from the power fly wheels not long ago so I guess its still there.

When we would go into the City visit my Aunt, I would sneak out early, go down the hill and just stand around, looking at everything. Changing the grips, brake "shoes" oak boards that were pushed down on the rail. Some of the guys would show me how everything worked, etc. Back then they threw the old oak "shoes" away. I should have got a couple of them to display. The barn used to have its own smell. Grease, oil & burned wood, just like the roundhouse at Bayshore, San Jose, etc. Those steam engines from the past had a smell all their own.

That is when you buy an all day Sunday pass for the entire Muni for 25 cents.

Nudge