HUTCH --
Sorry -- my pronoun reference was incorrect.
The tunnel is very much there The original Muni Twin
Peaks East Portal is gone, removed when teh subway
under Market Street was built.

The East Portal I remember was called (I think, not sure!)
the Eureka Portal.

I remember a NorCal excursion in the 80s (I think) during
which we rodfe through the Twi Peaks Tunnel in Muni's
Boat Car. On the eastbound trip (going towards the Ferry
Building), we stopped just inside that Eureka Portal, the
motorman cranked the switch so the car could run on the
diverging track to the surface, and we proceeded up a short,
steep grade to the surface.

By the way, even the burned-out street people and homeless
folks smiled and waved at us as we ran along Market Street
downtown. That was neat! Everyone seems tove the Boat Car!

We proceeded down Market Street to wherever it was that
we turned around, turned around, and ran outbound down
Market Street toward that Eureka Street tunnel entrance --
only to find out that the car could not make it up the hill to 17th
and Market with everyone on board. You see, the Boat Car
has only 2 traction motors, not 4 -- only one per truck, and is
very underpowered when it comes to dealing with hills.
Remember: she was built to tun on the flat-as-a-pancake
Blackpool line at the beach in Blackpool, England.

So we all pied out and let the motorman (I don't remember
who ti was) do his best to get the car up that little hill. He made
it, and we got back on, only to discover that someone had
parked their car(s? I don;t now remember if there was more than
one car) on the tracks, which were rarely used. So the motorman
called Muni Central and asked them to get a tow truck out there
ASAP so we could continue our trip. After a while, the tow truck
came, towed the car(s) and we were on our way.

(I don't remember for sure whether we were on the inbound leg of
our excursion or the outbound leg when we encountered teh cars
on the tracks at the Eureka Portal. I never wrote trip logs after my
railfan trips, which I now really wish I had. I am going off of old
memories.)

Yep, NorCal trips were REALLY ffun back then!

Margaret