Radio Flyer

As a graphic designer, at times my work seems to be nothing but data sheets and network diagrams. Fortunately for me, I'm a bit obsessed with typography and layout, so I'm able to throw my heart into corporate documents, even if they don't represent the pinnacle of creative achievement. But every once in a while, a project comes along that brings my job satisfaction to a higher level, and designing a new look for a US National Landmark definitely qualifies!

I recently had the honor of being asked to design--in collaboration with Market Street Railway president Rick Laubscher--a new paint scheme for cable car No. 25 (above), a 118-year veteran of the rope. Car No. 25's new livery is based on that of the Powell-Mason cable cars of 1906, operated at the time by United Railroads. Tragically, in the fires following the great earthquake on April 18th of that year, every one of URR's Powell cars was utterly destroyed.

Having been assigned to the Sacramento-Clay line at the time, car No. 25 was stored outside of the fire zone, and managed to survive the day. She was transferred to the Powell-Mason line in the following year (and has run there ever since), but she did so wearing a standard green and cream livery that would grace San Francisco's cable cars for most of the 20th century. With her new livery today, car No. 25 honors the Powell-Mason cars of that historic and tragic year.

It was quite a pleasure to work closely with the Muni paint crew up at the cable car barn. They took to the project with enthusiasm right from the start and wanted to discuss every aspect of the livery in great detail, bringing up a hundred things that had never even crossed my mind while throwing together the (very basic) reference illustration that they worked from. Every inch of paint was applied to that car with the pride of ownership by the Muni painters, and it shows.

Being a bit of a type junkie, the most pleasing aspect of this project for me was recreating the United Railroads lettering. It would have been easy enough to use any Railroad Roman typeface and just rip it out, but that would be a disservice to the men who, in 1906, would have lettered each car by hand. So, I used the few historical photos of this livery that we had on hand to draw up a custom logotype based on the amalgamation of those images. It's not perfect, and it's not supposed to be. That's what's so great about it.

The decals for the lettering were delivered to the cable car barn literally days before the car made its revenue-service debut on May 28.

(Notice the use of the period after "United Railroads" in the lettering. While that seems very odd by today's standards, pretty much all of the owner's panels and destination signage on the cars in those days used that very formal treatment. Of course, these were also the days when women went down to Ocean Beach in their dresses and hats.)

This project was the rarest example of two entities working together in an informal capacity toward the same goal, without regard for ego, or credit, and without any passing of the buck. The deliberate structure of the municipal agency found freedom in the agility of my nonprofit client, and my enthusiastic amateurism found perfection in the Muni paint crew's 130 years of professional tradecraft.

I'd like to thank my client, the nonprofit Market Street Railway, for giving me the opportunity to be involved in something this cool. Whenever I catch a glimpse of that bright-red Radio Flyer rolling through my North Beach neighborhood, I can't help but smile from ear to ear. Accuse me of bias if you will, but I think car No. 25 is the best-looking cable car in the fleet!

(Click here to view a very nice video of car No. 25's return to service, hosted by the San Francisco Chronicle.)

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