Nymphomania, explosions and runaway cars: San Francisco's most famous cable car accidents A history of accidents involving SF's moving landmark

A Muni bus hit a cable car on Bush at Powell Streets. An elderly woman getting on was injured as the cable car driver tried to grab her as the bus was about to collide, probably saving her life, September 25, 1991. less A Muni bus hit a cable car on Bush at Powell Streets. An elderly woman getting on was injured as the cable car driver tried to grab her as the bus was about to collide, probably saving her life, September 25, ... more Photo: Liz Hafalia, San Francisco Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, San Francisco Chronicle Image 1 of / 48 Caption Close Nymphomania, explosions and runaway cars: San Francisco's most famous cable car accidents 1 / 48 Back to Gallery

Scroll through the slideshow above to see photos of cable car crashes from the past.

Millions of visitors over the years have taken a ride on San Francisco's moving landmark: its beloved cable cars.

Most San Franciscans no longer ride them to get around town, but I used to use them for my commute to Fisherman's Wharf in my early days here. Now it will cost you $7 a pop. Despite that, it's still a much-loved part of the fabric tied to the city's early history.

I recently came across a folder in the Chronicle's basement archives, marked "Accidents and Disasters: Cable Cars." There were quite a few photos in the folder, which covered the 1950s to the 1990s. One cable car accident that occurred in 1967 was particularly disastrous, injuring 40 people when the car careened down very steep Hyde Street. You can read some passages from the Chronicle article here:

A runaway cable car jammed with screaming passengers careened down the steep Hyde Street Hill into a station wagon last night, triggering a fiery explosion that injured 43, three critically. Flames enveloped the plummeting cable car after the crash, at the busy intersection of Bay and Hyde Streets.

Spewing out its passengers into the rainy street, it raced on for another two blocks out of control. "There was a sheet of flame throughout the car," said passenger Harvey Epstein of New York, a vice president of Dreyfus Fund who was standing behind the grip man. "Everything was in flames. I got spilled out just after it happened. The guy who fell out over me was on fire."

Neighborhood residents who ran outside after the crash rocked their homes about 6:30 p.m.saw rivers of flames sweeping down Hyde Street - and screaming passengers in flaming clothes. Three children - flames spurting from their clothing - were dragged to safety through the street.

"All I can say is that it was a miracle nobody got killed," a military police sergeant said. "It looked like something out of Vietnam after a napalm strike."

Flames from the ruptured gas tank of the sedan raced after the cable car is it rumbled two more blocks down the hill to Hyde and Jefferson Streets, where it finally stopped opposite the Buena Vista Cafe. A half dozen persons were pried from the mangled wreckage of the charred auto, including its driver, who was badly burned.

Municipal Railway spokesmen were unable to immediately determine the cause of the crash. Epstein and some fellow passengers aboard the car said they heard gripman Arthur Coats yell he had "lost the rope" (the cable) as the cable car skidded down the slippery hill from Chestnut. "At first, I thought he was joking," said Epstein. "But then we started to go faster and faster ... there were screams, and then flames and children all over. God, the children."

Martha Kincaid, a 23 year old pregnant housewife, who made the terrifying ride, said: "We were just tearing down the hill. All of a sudden there was this orange ball of flames and I was thrown to the floor. It was like a nightmare."

Police said the exploding car was tossed like a toy down Hyde Street by the hurtling cable car into a sedan coming up the hill. The flaming sedan bounced into the curb and another car caroomed into a line of parked autos, setting off a chain reaction which left eight to ten cars damaged.

Muni officials declined to comment on the cause of the crash. The crippled cable car's brakes were "full on" from the top of the Hyde Street hill to the bottom, investigators said. But, without the cable, they were apparently not strong enough to hold the car back on the steep, slippery grade.

The cable car was built in 1893 and weighed over six tons. Despite having four sets of brakes, it couldn't stop. The "rope" or cable, at that time, normally moved at 9.5 mph. It was estimated to be moving at a rate of 35 to 40 mph as it descended down the hill, according to John J. Barry, superintendent of the Cable Car Division at that time. A veteran carman called it the worst cable car disaster in 50 years.

The Chronicle reported that it was the sixth crash in as many years on that hill. J. William Conroy, director of the City Disaster Corps, blamed the accident on the traffic light at the bottom of the hill not turning red, which would have kept the intersection clear.

But despite its victim toll, that's certainly not the most infamous cable car incident in the city's history.

In a very "only in San Francisco" article dated March 31, 1970, and headlined "A Cable Car Named Desire," a woman who had been in a cable car accident in 1964 sued the city, claiming that the incident had turned her into a nymphomaniac. She was asking $500k in damages; she eventually settled for $50k.

After the news broke about the story, Herb Caen reported, tongue-in-cheek, that the city had to employ an additional five cable cars.