Dateline>City of Angels

This Week’s Source for the most interesting, offbeat and/or entertaining web video sharing key words or themes with this blog: YouTube!

Search Criteria: Los Angeles + Angel’s Flight.

The Result: A January 2007 KTLA-5 report on the scheduled summer reopening of the historic Angel’s Flight funicular depicted in this blog’s banner, featuring of all people, Star Trek’s George Takei. (Not to be impatient or anything, George, but here we are coming up on Summer 2008, and still no 25-cent ride up Bunker Hill in sight.)

Some Added History…

One of L.A.’s most celebrated relics, Angel’s Flight consists of two rail cars, Olivet and Sinai. First opened on New Year’s Eve, 1901, the steep railway carried Victorian Era commuters to and from their posh Bunker Hill homes to the commercial district below, saving them a breathless walk. The service, which took a full minute, was dubbed the “world’s shortest paying railway,” and cost a mere 5 cents to ride a century ago.

In 1926, Angel’s Flight was designated a city cultural landmark, but in 1969, Bunker Hill redevelopment forced its closure. The track and cars were shipped off to languish in storage amid years of broken promises of restoration. In 1996 the railway was finally re-erected within a block of its original site, and remained a popular downtown attraction until a 2001 mechanical failure resulted in a tourist’s death. Once again Angel’s Flight was taken offline, this time for drive and braking upgrades.

So what’s kept the trains derailed? Apparently everything from fundraising woes, to bickering between the funicular’s private ownership and city officials, to public safety certifications.

For those keeping score, this means that throughout their 107-year history, the trains have run about 65 years and have been sidelined for a period equaling roughly half that. Not a very good track record, but par for the course when it comes to mass transit in L.A.