The impetus behind the Trolley Festival was that the city's famed cable car system, one of its biggest tourist attractions, was scheduled to be closed for more than a year and a half for renovation, starting in September 1982.

[4] It used historic streetcars/trolleys – these two terms are synonyms in most parts of the United States[5] – from several different countries, as well as a number of preserved San Francisco streetcars, many of which were borrowed from museums.

Local business owners and city officials were very concerned that the temporary absence of the cable cars would lead to a sharp decline in tourism,[7][8] especially during the one summer season included in the 20-month period.

[10] The idea for what came to be called the San Francisco Historic Trolley Festival was born in summer 1982, when regular use of the streetcar tracks on the surface of Market Street–the city's main street–was about to end and a 20-month closure of the cable car system for rebuilding was about to begin.

The famed cable car system, a National Historic Landmark and one of the city's biggest tourist attractions, was determined in 1979 to be in need of extensive repairs.

[6][17] San Francisco business owners and others who benefited from tourism were very concerned that the temporary closure would lead to a steep drop in the number of visitors to the city.

[10] A phasing-out of the use of the tracks along the surface of Market Street had begun in February 1980, when weekday service on the N Judah line was converted from the old PCC streetcars to new trains of Boeing LRVs (light rail vehicles) and moved into the newly opened upper level of the Market Street subway as the first stage of an upgrading and rebranding of the city's remaining streetcar lines as the Muni Metro.

Weekday service on the four other then-surviving Muni streetcar lines (J, K, L and M) was gradually also converted to the modern, longer trains and moved off of the surface of Market.

Weekend service on J-K-L-M-N would be converted from PCC cars to light-rail vehicles and all use of the Market Street tracks would end, the last day of the old arrangement being set for September 19, 1982.

[22] In summer 1982, both cars were operated in regular J-line service almost every weekend and holiday from July 4 until the closure of the Market Street tracks on September 19.

[14][24] The city's Board of Supervisors and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission both passed resolutions in August 1982 endorsing the continuation of vintage streetcar service in some form.

Starting in the summer of 1982 the idea of organizing a historic trolley "festival" to take place during the 1983 tourist season was developed jointly by Muni and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce,[7] with help from others such as businessman and trolley fan Maurice Klebolt, who had helped to arrange the earlier operation of historic streetcars 1 and 178.

However, only double-ended (bidirectional) streetcars can turn around using a crossover, so the regular Trolley Festival route would be restricted to vehicles with that configuration.

[30][32] Weekend service on the five streetcar lines was temporarily operated by buses until November 20, when the Market Street subway stations of the Metro finally became served seven days a week.

[19][33] Laubscher presented the still-developing Trolley Festival plan to City Hall and affected neighborhood organizations in the fall of 1982 and gradually won their full support.

[14][27] Another entity that assisted with organization and promotion of the first Historic Trolley Festival was the non-profit Market Street Railway, whose board of directors included Klebolt and Laubscher.

[18][25][35] A storage and maintenance area for the fleet was set up in the private right-of-way next to Duboce Avenue and the subway portal for the J and N lines just west of Market Street, and an additional track with an inspection pit was installed.

[14] Public service began on June 24 and continued until September 19,[38] operating five days a week, daily except Tuesdays and Wednesdays, on a scheduled headway of 15 minutes, requiring six cars.

Because these cars were single-ended and unable to turn around on the crossover at 17th & Castro streets, when in service they operated either on the J-line or only as far as 11th & Market, where they could reverse direction on an existing wye there.

[14] San Francisco Muni trolleybus 776, a 1950 Marmon-Herrington product, was occasionally operated as part of Trolley Festival events in 1983 and subsequent years, often running in the opening-day and closing-day parades, but usually not in service.

[53] However, the service's popularity led Muni to decide to extend it beyond September, albeit reduced to Saturdays and Sundays only, between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.,[54] at least until the weather turned poor.

Porto 122 also returned to Oregon; its owners, Bill and Sam Naito's Norcrest China Company, sold the car to the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority, a non-profit group working to establish a heritage streetcar line in Dallas, Texas,[26][57] and No.

[5] However, Muni purchased Porto 189 from Gales Creek Enterprises while the Festival was still under way, making it a permanent part of the fleet,[26] and the loans of San Francisco 178 and Blackpool 226 by the Western Railway Museum were extended.

[40] San Francisco car 578, a short, semi-open trolley built in 1895 for the Market Street Railway joined the fleet, restored by Muni.

The first resulted from the installation, in early May 1986,[74] of a track "wye" at 17th and Noe streets, which enabled single-ended streetcars to turn around at a location near the 17th & Castro terminus.

With this facility in place, all Trolley Festival cars could now cover the same route, from the Transbay Terminal to 17th & Castro, providing a more consistent and reliable service.

[78] With Trolley Festival service, outbound single-ended streetcars would turn onto Noe Street from 17th, then run backwards around the corner onto 17th westbound and continue backing up for the last block along 17th to Castro terminus.

106, a short, single-truck, single-ended trolley car from Orel, Russia, which was originally built for the Moscow street railway system, in 1912.

[84] A short-lived but very notable feature of the 1987 Trolley Festival was the operation of a streetcar service along the Embarcadero over a five-week period starting in mid-September.

[84] Because the disused freight tracks were not equipped with overhead trolley wires, the electricity powering the streetcars' motors would be supplied by diesel generators towed or pushed on small trailers.