Pre - 1982-84 track reconstruction, San Francisco Cable Car turnout on Jackson between Powell and Mason Streets. A heavy guard rail (right foreground in the photo) buffers cable car wheels and keeps them on the straight and narrow. Direction of the front truck going into the turnout aligns the truck-mounted grip to the proper slot. A time-worn groove is visible on this guard rail where the left route's wheels have continually ridden over it, as they take the cross over. Exact spacing with precision tolerances like this make this kind of "special work" an engineering work of art. Line is now operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway, but was opened by the Ferries and Cliff House Railway in 1888.

Photographed by Paul Joyce, October, 1970.
Added to the photo archive by Paul Joyce, May 25, 2006.

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