Mar 31 2014

"A couple months ago I was walking out of Golden Gate Park onto Fulton around 8th Avenue. I stepped onto the sidewalk just in time to see a Prius roll by with a pair of giant antennae mounted on the roof. At first I thought it was just some kind of art-car getup, but then I realized the antennae was the same power pole doodad that MUNI buses use (I later learned they’re called “trolley poles”). Not only that, they were actually running along the overhead power cables for the 5 line."

-Sierra Hartman https://thebolditalic.com/hacked-prius-running-on-muni-power-lines-the-bold-italic-san-francisco-80cdbe55d68e




May 7 2019

A defective overhead wire splice was to blame for the subway mishap, and when a two-car train around 6:30 a.m. zipped passed the splice, the second car train’s pantograph got tangled with the overhead wire and down came 1,000 feet of overhead wire between Civic Center and Powell stations

https://sfbay.ca/2019/05/07/muni-admits-inspection-should-have-caught-issue-that-caused-meltdown/


July 8 2019

SF News

Joe Kukura

Muni Debates Overhauls To Poorly Designed Subway Rail System

A fun (but facepalm-inducing) fact about Muni’s almost daily rush hour meltdowns is that the underground tunnels are inefficiently designed in part because Muni did not even design them. BART designed much of the Muni Metro system, apparently with little success getting feedback or input from Muni, which was under-funded and indecisive at the time the tunnels were getting designed. In the late 70s and early 80s when the current underground tunnel system was being planned and constructed, Muni failed to inform BART of very fundamental decisions like what kind of trains they planned to use in the tunnels ,or the types of platforms they needed. “Muni had not decided how they would operate the tunnels,” transit activist and historian Rick Laubscher said at a June SFMTA Board of Directors meeting. “BART was flying blind.”

https://sfist.com/2019/07/08/muni-debates-overhauls-to-poorly-designed-subway-rail-system/








synonymouse Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> [www.sfexaminer.com]-
> after-muni-subway-suffers-five-breakdowns-in-three
> -hours/
>
> "The current automatic train control system relies
> on wires that Muni trains have to attach to when
> entering subway tunnels — if a train operator
> doesn’t nail the precise speed needed for a
> train’s connector to 'catch' the overhead wire it
> can lead to stalled trains or damage to the
> overhead wires. The computers that form the
> backbone of that system are old and sit in often
> waterlogged rooms in subway stations."
>
> This does not seem a very accurate description of
> an operation which presumably changes the
> pantographs from a high streets position to a very
> low level for subway overhead.