When San Francisco started the Municipal Railway in the early 1920s, the streetcars from the Muni and the older Market Street Railway Company met at Market Street.  The private company wouldn't share its tracks on Market with the Muni so the City had to build its own.
   When the proposal was made to have four tracks on Market Street there were no demonstrations, no pickets.  The Board of Supervisors had a couple of hearings, passed the ordinance and that was it.  San Franciscans were well behaved, they knew what was good for them.
   Now there were four tracks on Market Street.  

Two outbound and two inbound. Muni had the outside. 
At 5 o'clock in the afternoon you took your life in your hands to get to a Market car on the inside track.   Getting on a Muni was easy, but boarding a MSRR car was scary.
You had to step across the Muni tracks and stand motionless as two behemoths of steel roared down the street towards you.  You could feel the blast of air as they passed.  I don't think five feet separated you from oblivion. It was terror for mothers as they held their toddlers by the hand.
   At rush hour the cars were packed.  Men stood on the back steps, hanging on to the bars or they sat on the cowcatcher of the Market cars.  They were latched upright against the back of the car making a nice open air seat on the rubber roller for five or six men.  They would read their Call or News and when the conductor hollered for fares they passed their nickels to him through the others on the bumper.
   We kids just grabbed the bumper and stood on it. Riding bumpers would never be allowed today. There would be at least 10 City ordinances against it.  Nobody cared in the 1940s.
   Speaking of oblivion, the MSRR company had a funeral street car. It was painted black.  I never took it, of course, but the car carried the casket and the mourners to the Colma cemeteries.  When funeral directors found out they could make money renting limousines for the last ride, that was the end of the funeral street car.

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