The steep ascent up Bunker Hill, made effortless in a little 1901 rail car.
Angels Flight: World's Shortest Railway
Los Angeles, California
In the early 20th century the most fashionable neighborhood in Los Angeles was atop Bunker Hill. Its streets were lined with upper-class Victorian homes, but getting from those homes to the shops and offices at the bottom of the steep hill was a hassle.
Old postcard shows the hill and Angels Flight soon after it opened.
So on New Year's Eve 1901 a tiny cable car railroad was opened: Angels Flight. It ran straight up and down the hillside and cost a penny to ride. Its two wooden passenger cars were named Sinai and Olivet, after hills in the Holy Land.
Angels Flight instantly became an attraction. On its first day the railway was ridden by over 2,000 people, which in 1901 was a significant chunk of the city's entire population. When Angels Flight reached its 50th birthday it had, according to a commemorative plaque, hauled over 100 million passengers.
The passenger view down Bunker Hill.
The little railway remained popular, but its surrounding neighborhood fell on hard times. The fashionable people on Bunker Hill moved away. The Victorian homes became dilapidated. Angels Flight began appearing in grimy, smog-stained Los Angeles noir films such as Cry of the Hunted and Kiss Me Deadly.
By the 1960s the city had condemned Bunker Hill as a slum and a health hazard, and began literally scraping the entire hill down to its bedrock. Angels Flight gave passengers their final rides on May 18, 1969. Its tracks were removed. Sinai and Olivet were put into storage. City officials said that the railway would be rebuilt in a couple of years.
It actually took 27 years, and when Angels Flight reopened on February 24, 1996 -- a half-block south of its previous spot -- it was not engineered to its previous standards. The public found that out in 2001 when a cable snapped, sending one car crashing into the other and killing the only passenger in the railway's history. Angels Flight was shut down -- then reopened, then shut down again.
By this point Los Angeles, usually careless about its past, cared too much for its "World's Shortest Railway" to let it die. Sinai, Olivet, and the rest of the railway's antique fixtures were restored. The mechanical parts of Angels Flight were re-engineered, this time to not be potentially lethal. With Hollywood-worthy fanfare, as well as new warning lights and safety klaxons, Angels Flight resumed regular service on August 31, 2017.
Angel's Flight station. In the background: skyscrapers replaced the homes of the railway's first riders.
One car goes up while the other goes down.
Angels Flight has since remained open, and continues to operate every day. The 300-foot-long ride takes less than a minute. Although it now costs $1.50, it's still a bargain compared to the alternative: walking up or down the hill's adjacent 189 steps.