In downtown Los Angeles, you’ll find a strange arch at the foot of a hill. Unlike the gleam of the steel and glass skyscrapers surrounding it, the architecture is old, like something pulled from the facade of a medieval castle. Behind the arch, 300 feet of track slope upward to the towering buildings at the top of the hill. This is what’s left of one of America’s most famous funiculars, Angel’s Flight.
Just a Penny
Long before cars clogged the roads of Los Angeles, commuters heading downtown had to take long treks uphill. To ease the journey for commuters, Angels flight emerged in 1901 with its twin cars Sinai and Olivet. The cost of this several hundred foot journey? Only a penny. In its first 50 years, this famous Los Angeles funicular carried over 100 million passengers up and down hill.
The Long Decline
As commuters moved away into the suburbs, fewer people rode the world’s shortest railway. It closed, reopened at a new location and closed a final time three years ago. The final closing came after one of the cars skid off its tracks and slid down the 300 foot slope. Fortunately, the sole tourist on board wasn’t hurt.
The Legacy
Although the oldest Funicular in Los Angeles is no more, there are still plenty of systems within the area. Hill Hiker® has five residential funicular systems in the city and fifteen in surrounding communities—not to mention five more projects in the works.
Like Angel’s Flight, these funiculars are unique. The city of Los Angeles has the strictest requirements in the U.S. for installing funiculars, which leads to some interesting and unique features. For starters, Los Angeles requires all the cars to be fully enclosed. Some of the other requirements include hard wired electrical wiring to the car and mechanical electrical interlocks on all fixed landing gates, car doors and double cable drive systems. Here are just a few of our systems, so you can see what we mean.
Hill Hiker, Inc. Featured Los Angeles Project:
Beverly Hills Funicular
To learn more about our systems, and what sets us apart, check out our Why Us page, or contact us here.
