LA funucular

[cteno4]

Never knew it was there! Back again.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/us/california-today-angels-flight-railway.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

 

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-angels-flight-20170301-story.html

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_Flight

 

https://angelsflight.org

[bill937ca]

Once a Bunker Hill landmark.

 

http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/bunkerhill.htm

 

http://la.curbed.com/2017/3/1/14784932/angels-flight-railway-los-angeles-video-history

 

Shortest Railroad in the World.  Video by PeriscopeFilm.

 

 

Chaz Smith film.

 

Edited March 3, 2017 by bill937ca

[velotrain]

How can they call this the shortest in the world, when the one in Quebec City is only 210' ?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Quebec_Funicular

 

Is it on the lame basis of their calling it a railway/railroad and not a funicular - which it is in fact?

[cteno4]

Marketing Charles, marketing!

 

Damn you bill, now I have to watch The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. You have taken 1hr 20min of my life...

 

Jeff

 

[bill937ca]

Ha ha ha!!!!  Hope you don't end up a Goji eating zombie!!!!

Edited March 4, 2017 by bill937ca

[tossedman]

How can they call this the shortest in the world, when the one in Quebec City is only 210' ?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Quebec_Funicular

 

Is it on the lame basis of their calling it a railway/railroad and not a funicular - which it is in fact?

Fake news!

[cteno4]

Which charle's?

 

Jeff

[enodenlover]

I've seen INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES... once and that was quite enough. Lots of bad low budget sci-fi and horror movies in my DVD collection but that one is beneath even my low standards. :confused3:

[westfalen]

I had a ride on in in 2012 while riding the light rail and subway around LA in between flights from Brisbane to Dallas.  It may not be the shortest as the sign says but it is short, even as far as funiculars go (pardon the pun).

[velotrain]

But is it short as far as funuculars go  ;-)

 

I suspect there may be other shorter ones around the world, as L.A. isn't even the shortest one on the continent.

[bill937ca]

The Falls Incline is 196 feet. But it was built long after Angels Flight.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falls_Incline_Railway

 

The original Angels Flight was 315 feet. Current length is 298 feet. There was another funicular in Los Angles, 1904-1943, called Court Flight that was 180 feet.

Edited March 4, 2017 by bill937ca

[velotrain]

N.B. - I wrote the below before reading Bill's latest post, which means that Niagara Falls, Canada, is the current world winner of this perhaps dubious title, and making L.A. a lowly fourth.  Looking at the link, I see that this has another world's record - equally dubious:  "The Niagara Parks Commission claims that the funicular is the world's slowest."

 

I did a search for World's shortest funicular and discovered that the misinformation about  Angel's Landing is widespread.

 

http://www.worldrecordacademy.com/transport/shortest_funicular_railway_world_record_set_by_Angels_Flight_101624.htm

 

I've written the so-called academy and the folks in Quebec to inform them of this error.

 

In fact, L.A. is third at best, as Zagreb is in 2nd place with 217 feet, just a tad longer than Quebec City.  I noticed that apparently Zagreb also touts theirs as the shortest, as that was mentioned in a TripAdvisor review.  I send them a correction, but they may dismiss it as I wasn't actually there - although, I did make this clear in a statement to them.

 

Apparently Valpariso, Chile, is "is teeming with incline railways".  "At one point home to nearly 30 funiculars (a majority built in the 1890s and early 1900s), Valparaíso has only a handful of its famed ascensores (elevators) still in active use."

http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/eco-tourism/stories/14-fabulous-funiculars-from-around-the-globe

 

Here's some other surveys, with many fine photos: 

 

https://10mosttoday.com/10-best-funiculars-in-the-world/

 

http://www.europeanbestdestinations.com/top/best-funiculars-in-europe/

 

On the second link, I was intrigued by the one coming out of a building in Zurich.

I recognized it immediately from an old B&W photo I saved years ago showing it passing over a tram track - I'll try to dig this up.

 

Now I'm on a mission to correct all the sites I found spouting incorrect information, but then again La La Land is indeed all about marketing ;-)

[velotrain]

Zurich - then and now

 

Then:

 

https://tinyurl.com/jy69kbl

 

Now:

 

http://www.bahnbilder.de/bild/Schweiz~Standseilbahnen~Polybahn+Zurich/793837/polybahn-faehrt-ueber-den-viadukt-bzw.html

[kvp]

Been on the Zurich one and it's really convenient if you don't want to go around with the tram. It was fully automated a few years ago and the old high voltage high current tram controller that was used to drive it manually from the hill station is now an exhibit piece next to the enterance.

[velotrain]

I found myself wondering how much vibration was transmitted to the flats above the bottom station.

[kvp]

Not much as the winch motor is at the top station, the cars leave and enter the stations very slowly and the bottom rail carrying pillar is essentially separate from the house walls. (the last meters are on a bridge that ends inside the house. Essentially the vibration and noise is less than what a standard vertical elevator generates.

 

On a different note, the Vienna ubahn has an elevated terminus at Ottackring that ends on the 1st floor of a very narrow building that is sandwiched by two residential houses. The driving cabs are about a meter away from the street front and the 1st floor rooms left and right.