Restored video of San Francisco - Apr 14, 1906 - Four days before the devestating Earthquake/Fire

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

Restored video of San Francisco - Apr 14, 1906 - Four days before the devestating Earthquake/Fire

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

No clue what it means, but these Neural Network restorations are unreal.

I remember looking at this vid a long while back when it was in it's 1st redo and though it was amazing, but this is nuts.

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

I think artificial intellegence is used to "fill in the blanks" of parts of the film that are damaged. Amazing work for sure! It's ironic someone would have the forethought to make this movie given 4 days later most of the area was destroyed.

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Wonder how many people seen in the film perished?

Greaser · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Seemed like an awful lot of cars for 1906....explained in the text at the beginning of the video.

"This is actually a staged shoot, so it's not actual traffic from that time:

The film records a total of thirty cable cars, four horsecars,

and four streetcars. At first there also appear to be many automobiles;

however, a careful tracking shows that almost all of the autos circle the camera many times

one of them ten times.

This traffic was apparently staged by the producer to give Market Street

the appearance of a prosperous modern boulevard with many automobiles."

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

That makes sense as I was sure I saw a license plate more than once.

MC · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Fascinating, Todd. I had seen the film a number of years ago, and it was interesting then, but much less clear. This is amazing.

Definitely staged, after awhile you could see the same cars passing time and time again and then u-turning in front of the camera to come back around again. Eventually the kids caught on and started riding on the back of the cars or running in front of the camera.

Very neat. I'll have to look again and see what part of SF it was filmed in, as I'm pretty sure we took a trolley ride down the same street when we were there 6 or 7 years ago. Of course it looks very different now, as attested to by the brief shot of the damage at the end.

Also noticed different types of trolleys: The cable cars, of which one carried the camera - you could tell by the slot in the middle of the tracks. Also saw some electric trolleys crossing in front of them - you could see the rod up to the overhead wires. Also there was one horse-drawn trolley on rails that I noticed.

Another interesting thing was how some of the wagons would run their wheels on the tracks or in the grooves beside the tracks - presumably it was smoother than running over cobblestones?

The quality of this restoration is so good you could even see the horse poop in the street! biggrin

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

And you could see the guy who's fun job was to sweep up the poop!

MC · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

I wonder if that was considered the worst job in the city at the time? One of those jobs you just don't see so much anymore (thankfully). biggrin

MC · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Duh... I finally read the title of the film, and yes it was on Market Street. When we were there we took the trolley line that uses vintage trolleys that range from the early 1900s through the 1950s. San Francisco bought them up from other cities when they were retired, refurbished them and still run them to this day.

Here's what it looks like today near the end of the run by the ferry building at the link: https://goo.gl/maps/jr98KG5dXTEYU4xw5

At this link is a description of their fleet: https://www.streetcar.org/streetcarroster/

More info: https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/muni/historic-streetcars

Example of one of the 'newer' ones (in Illinois colours):

They also run older ones like this:

Then there's the cable cars, which don't run on Market Street anymore, but run on other routes. It is entertaining just to watch what the operators have go through on an average run. They earn their money without a doubt. At the end of the cable car run, they still have the turntables that are turned by the operators getting out and manually turning them. You can see one in the video at the end of the run by the ferry building. Neat stuff. Never did make it to the underground to see the workings of the system down below. That will be next time...

-- Edited by MC on Monday 4th of May 2020 10:31:35 PM

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

I wonder if there is abundant film footage of Halifax before the explosion?