Cable Cars

Cities all over the country are buying buses that look like old-fashioned streetcars. Local customers include Whittier, Bellflower, Bell Gardens and Lynwood. The concept behind the trend is that people find simulated streetcars more attractive than ordinary buses, so more people will ride mass transit. The streetcar-style buses are generally based on the look of San Francisco's streetcars, which retain a turn-of-the-century appearance and technology that predate this century.

Two wind-blown gondolas carrying dozens of skiers plunged 40 feet when a pylon broke, and the cable cars landed on parked automobiles at a resort Saturday. At least 36 people were injured, some seriously, police and witnesses said. Skiers who saw the accident said there were strong winds in the Embrunais Valley at about 1 p.m. when the two cable cars, one going up to the La Grenouillerie ski resort and another coming down to a parking lot, fell to the ground.

The commercial marriage between Rice-A-Roni and the City of San Francisco is over. After nearly three decades of identifying its rice side dish with San Francisco, Golden Grain Macaroni Co. has dropped cable cars and city vistas from its television advertising and dumped the "The San Francisco Treat" line from its familiar jingle. The slogan will remain on the back of a redesigned package. Golden Grain executives insist that they have nothing against San Francisco.

The Historic Trolley Festival, which began like an understudy called upon to fill the shoes of an incapacitated headliner, now in its fifth season, is a star in its own right. In the summer of 1983, when San Francisco's famous cable car system was shut down for a two-year renovation, worried city officials and merchants dreamed up the trolley parade as an alternative for disappointed tourists.

Thousands of cable car fans cheered Monday as a parade of the tipsy trolleys, decorated like floats with balloons, daffodils and streamers, proudly lurched along Powell Street in celebration of the line's 100th birthday. Costumed characters portraying cable car inventor Andrew S. Hallidie and other historical figures rode the 14 cars in the parade under arches of balloons strung across Powell.

Even after uprooting his family to the green acres of Sebastopol, Calif., where he ran a small farm with chickens, rabbits and a 2,000-pound bull, Al Davison was a gripman on a San Francisco cable car. For close to 30 years he rode up and down the hills, ringing the bell and singing for the passengers, not unlike a Venetian gondolier. When the woman who worked at Macy's jumped aboard, day by day, Al became so smitten that singing someone else's song seemed inadequate to express what he felt.

Several services will help young travelers stretch their budgets in Austria this summer. These include special youth guides to three cities, youth passes for unlimited transportation, free guided hiking programs and economical short tours to neighboring countries. Most Austrian resort areas offer a hiking program but Innsbruck's free program is considered special because the route is determined by the type of hikers who sign up each day.

Ron May rode the ferry from San Diego to Coronado hundreds, maybe thousands, of times while growing up in this city of sun and water. It was something to do on a Friday night. Kids would sit in their cars on the lower deck and watch the bay lights twinkling. They would relax and take in the sea air, listen to the fog horns. On a foggy night the 10-minute trip through shrouds and veils could be thrilling. It only cost a quarter.