The World's Shortest Railway

A funicular, also known as an inclined railway or cliff railway, is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of passenger vehicles moves them up and down a steep slope. The vehicles are specially designed to remain horizontal, despite the incline, ensuring passenger comfort.

The operation of a funicular relies on the principle of counterbalancing. The two cars are connected by a cable, which runs through a pulley at the upper end of the track. As one car goes up, the other comes down, and vice versa, with the weight of the descending car helping to pull the ascending car up the slope. This means that the engine at the top only needs to compensate for the difference in weight between the two cars and passengers, making the system more energy efficient than other types of transit systems.

Funiculars are used in various parts of the world to transport people along steep hillsides, including urban settings and tourist locations. They have been particularly useful in mountainous regions and in cities built on steep hills.

Opens New Year's Eve 1901

The history of the Angels Flight funicular railway in Los Angeles dates back to New Year's Eve 1901, when it was inaugurated to provide transportation for the residents of the Bunker Hill neighborhood. Colonel James Ward Eddy was a Civil War hero and a friend of President Abraham Lincoln. He lived in downtown Los Angeles with his teenage grandson. Noticing the difficulty of climbing Bunker Hill, he brought the idea of Angels Flight to L.A. Eddy was an entrepreneur who had practiced many professions, including railroad construction and engineering. In May 1901, he was granted permission by the city to build the railway, which was completed by the end of the year. Eddy also built a 100-foot tower behind the Olive Street railway terminal, called Angels Rest, to attract tourists to Bunker Hill. 

And the plan worked. In its first 50 years, Angels Flight carried over 100,000,000 passengers on its two cars, Olivet and Sinai (named after the Biblical mountains). These millions took the 315-feet journey for just a penny and Angels Flight became the railway with the most passengers per mile in the world. 

Its charm and uniqueness have been featured in movies as early as Fatty Arbuckle's 1918 silent comedy "Goodnight Nurse" and as recently as 2016's Best Picture winner "La La Land". It seems that detective fiction in particular loves to get hard boiled at Angels Flight. Raymond Chandler's hard-drinking private dick Phillip Marlowe (of "The Big Sleep" fame) visits it in the book, "The High Window". It features in the first movie that showcases Mickey Spillane's two-fisted private eye Mike Hammer in 1955's "Kiss Me Deadly". Michael Connelly's no-nonsense Hollywood Homicide cop, Harry Bosch was there in his 6th book, named "Angels Flight" after the funicular, as well as Season 4 of the TV show that bears his name. It's a mysterious murder on the "world's shortest railway" that gets the whole thing started. And America's most famous fictional criminal defense lawyer Perry Mason has been there at least twice, once in 1966 for the classic series (the only episode shot in color) and again in the 2021 HBO series.

The Tragedies at Angels Flight

But reality has been much crueler to Angels Flight than its depiction on the silver screen. The first major mishap transpired in 1913, a little more than a decade after the opening. A derailment led to several injuries among the passengers. A resident of the Lovejoy Apartments at Third and Grand, a Mrs. Hostetter, broke her collarbone when in a moment of panic, she decided to leap from the derailed car. Although other passengers sustained injuries, they were comparatively less severe, and all passengers survived this incident.

In 1937, a 54-year-old salesman by the name of Jack Claus decided to take a midday nap on the railway tracks. Upon encountering an unanticipated obstacle, a descending car abruptly halted, forcing the operator to reverse the motors, only to discover Jack in his path. Despite the poor salesman being dragged for fifteen feet and his clothing ripped from his body, he survived. His chest was severely crushed, but he recovered. 



A more lethal incident occurred in 1943, when sailor John Gaddy unwisely chose to walk up the tracks and according to the Los Angeles Times, "was crushed to death... when he was hurled by one ear under the wheels of the descending tram. Firemen worked for 20 minutes before his body was extricated from the wheels of the car halfway up the steep tracks."

When the fashionable Bunker Hill homes of the early Nineteenth Century gave way to the downtown blight of the mid-60s, Angels Flight was shut down in 1969. Many of the buildings had fallen into disrepair and were scheduled to be demolished. Angels Flight was meant to be shelved while the city engaged in an urban renewal project and then rebuilt two yaers later. However, it took twenty-six years for the city to reopen the "hillevator". 

And in 1996, after strenuous test runs with 9,000 pounds of beer and soft drinks, Angels Flight ran again. But calamity struck soon after. 

In February 1st. 2001, an 83-year-old New Jersey resident, Leon Praport and his wife, Lola, were in Los Angeles to celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary. They were riding Angels Flight when it slipped its cable and crashed. Leon was killed that day. Lola suffered a skull fracture and chest injuries, and passed away less than a year later. Leon, originally from Poland, was the sole survivor of his family from the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

The man who headed the 1996 rebuild of Angels Flight before that tragedy was Yanek Kunczynski, the owner of the engineering firm Yantrak Company, and he had a history of fatal accidents. Kunczynski's firm , which also designed ski lifts, had been linked to multiple fatal accidents and has settled numerous lawsuits totaling nearly $10 million. Despite his (lack of) safety record, his firm was hired to design and build Angels Flight. Of course, Yantrak was blamed for the deadly 2001 crash that killed Leon Praport and injured seven others, but Kunczynski ended up fleeing to Mexico shortly after the accident. The city was left holding the bag for millions of dollars of settlements with the victims.



However, the local foundation that reopened Angels Flight in 1996 was determined to bring it back and they raised the three and a half million dollars it took to rebuild a safe drive system. Angels Flight reopened in 2010 and celebrated its 109th anniversary that year. During the event, passengers could travel for the original 1901 fare of one penny. 

The Ghost of Angels Flight?

Befitting any landmark with such a long and deadly history, its also a place where spirits seem to linger. According to James Bartlett's downtown Los Angeles haunted restaurant guide, "Gourmet Ghosts" , he interviewed the Angels Flight operator and the operator claimed that riders and bystanders alike have reported seeing a phantom figure seated alone in the cars, especially in the early morning. When the car reaches the top, the figure is gone. They cannot tell if its specifically a man or a woman and they've reported the sighting in both cars, Olivet and Sinai. So pinning it down to the ghost of John Gaddy or Leon Praport has been difficult. 

The funicular has seen a series of temporary closures and reopenings in the years following 2010. Citing safety concerns, the railway was closed intermittently from 2013 to 2017. Indeed, "La La Land" had to reopen it specially for filming because it was closed during their production window. After extensive repairs and upgrades, it was reopened again (permanently?) in 2017. For only a dollar each way, you can ride one of the two bright orange cars up and down the 33% slope and currently, it is estimated that about one thousand passengers ride it each day. At the time, Mayor Eric Garcetti heralded its return as a testament to the city's commitment to preserving its historic (and we say haunted) landmarks.

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