Los Angeles has the shortest trolley track in the world. It is only 315 feet long, but it runs at a 33% grade. It is for a tiny funicular railway called Angel's Flight. 
Angel's Flight was originally built in 1901 to connect the rich neighborhood at the top of the hill with the Central Market at the bottom. We discovered it one day when we went to find the Market. 
A funicular railway is basically 2 cars connected by a rope on a pulley and as one car goes up, the other comes down. Angel's Flight's cars actually share their inside tracks with each other until they reach the very center of the incline when the tracks split so they can pass each other.
When we got to the top we checked out the ticket booth. 
And then we decided to ride back down. At 25 cents a ride, it was in the budget.
Heading back down. 
The cars get pretty close to each other before the track splits.
Angel's Flight was originally built in 1901 to connect the rich neighborhood at the top of the hill with the Central Market at the bottom. We discovered it one day when we went to find the Market. A funicular railway is basically 2 cars connected by a rope on a pulley and as one car goes up, the other comes down. Angel's Flight's cars actually share their inside tracks with each other until they reach the very center of the incline when the tracks split so they can pass each other. The seats are stacked inside like stairs.
When we got to the top we checked out the ticket booth. And then we decided to ride back down. At 25 cents a ride, it was in the budget.Heading back down. The cars get pretty close to each other before the track splits.For more info, check out wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel%27s_Flight
2 comments:
neat-O!! so could you imagine what the trolley car would look like off the track? say for repairs and such? wonder how that works out? and amazing that the travel fee is only 25 cents, awesome! thanks for sharing!
cool! Even the wealthy people knew they only had an alotted number of steps! Why waste so many of 'em "climbin up and down" a hill, right? With two or three bags of market goods climbing back up the hill would be....well, let's say a lift back up would be worth a lot more than 25 cent!
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