Trolley Thursday 9/9/21 - Angel's Flight

Deep in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, among all of the modern skyscrapers and historic Beaux-Arts buildings, lies a rather unsuspecting and quite strange railway. It's the shortest public railway in Los Angeles, at just 298 feet in length, and has since been superseded by a concrete stairwell that travels right beside it up the side of Bunker Hill. And yet, it remains one of the city's most popular and well-traveled tourist attractions (if you count being "well-traveled" as "moving about 300 feet south of its original site". Yes, on today's (delayed) Trolley Thursday, we drop all pretenses and take a magnifying glass to Los Angeles' longest running "rapid" transit railway, Angel's Flight! Grab your La-La Land DVD and join us as we ascend through this unique funicular's histo-oh, we're already at the top.

  

A Ride Up Bunker Hill

The Second Street Railway's Spring Street line to Bunker Hill, 1889.
(Los Angeles Public Library)

Prior to the creation of the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railways, and before the enormous earthworks that flattened many of Los Angeles' famous peaks and hills, it was often an impossible sell to get new residents to buy land in many places. For Bunker Hill, which used to tower some four hundred feet above the Downtown Valley, real estate moguls were able to sell land thanks to the addition of a cable car line up Second Street and Temple Streets. However, by the 1890s, these cable car lines fell under control of land developer Moses Sherman and, later, Henry E. Huntington, and were converted to electricity. The new streetcars that powered LA were often incapable of climbing the steep grades to Bunker Hill and this left the then-wealthy residents quite isolated compared to the rest of the city.

First Flight

Angels Flight's announcement in 1901, featuring
what appears to be a longer track and a pedestrian garden.
(Cable Car Guy)

Colonel J.W. Eddy (1832-1916) was one of these concerned citizens of Bunker Hill. By the time he had moved to Los Angeles in 1895, the retired Union Colonel was already a noted former Illinois Senator and friend of President Abraham Lincoln. In the southwest, he helped build the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway's south Flagstaff branch and the Arizona Mineral Belt Railroad in the 1880s, but the time he retired to Los Angeles, he was now faced with a new issue. As a resident of Bunker Hill's wealthy elite, he could not stand to see his fellow man be stranded by the new streetcars, and he had accumulated enough wealth to do whatever the heck he wanted anyway. So, in 1901, he established the Los Angeles Incline Railway with his own cash and set about solving the problem.

The railway's site was established on the southwest corner of Hill and Third Streets at the foot of Bunker Hill, and ran just shy of three hundred feet (298 feet, or 91 meters) up a 33-percent grade to the top. Coincidentally, Col. Eddy's house was just a short walk from the top station on Olive Street. The operating design was a simple funicular, with two cars counterbalancing each other on a shared line of track with a passing loop. The four-wheeled cars (named "Olivet" and "Sinai") were simple wooden affairs with downhill-facing seating, and were protected by a second "safety cable" in lieu of track brakes like modern funiculars. The station arches, main cable building, and the cars were decorated in the then-popular Beaux Arts architecture style, designed by Merceau Bridge & Construction and Train & Williams. The track supports were built to a "Jacob's Ladder" standard, that is the track followed a trestle bridge all the way uphill on wooden pilings. 

Angels Flight in the early 1900s, with houses dotting Bunker Hill and an observation tower in the back.
(Finding Lost Angeles)

An LA Railway car at the foot of Third Street, 1900s.
(Martin Turnbull)

The short one-minute ride officially opened in early 1902 as the bigger streetcars were growing in their reputation and popularity. Col. Eddy charged just one cent for a one-way ride and citizens flocked to and from Bunker Hill on his little train. Ten years later, having enjoyed his last great project and knowing he was getting on in years, Col. Eddy sold the Los Angeles Incline Railway to the Funding Company of Los Angeles (a local investment firm). While the Funding Company only owned the Incline Railway for two years, they were instrumental in renaming the railway to "Angels Flight", after the small message on the Hill Street entrance archway. Angels Flight was then sold to the Continental Securities Company in 1914 and remained mostly the same as Bunker Hill changed around it. New buildings went up, old buildings went down, and pretty soon even Bunker Hill itself came down as new development forced out its wealthy residents and flattened the once-famous peak.

An empty Angels Flight car meets its sister on the passing track in this
mid-late 1960s view. Note the parking lot on the right.
(Curbed LA)

Angels Flight in the mid-1950s, with
passengers waiting under the famous 
Beaux-Arts arch.
(Couple of Travels)

And yet, Angels Flight remained. It had survived the scrap drives of World War II that would have stripped it of all wooden features and operated with almost no incident (save for a drunken sailor walking up the tracks being flattened by one of the cars in 1943) and, by the end of the war, was in need of a new owner. That new owner ended up being Robert W. Moore of the Continental Securities Company, who operated Angels Flight between 1946 and 1952. In 1952, Moore was offered to sell the railway by LA local Lester B. Moreland and Byron Linville, a banker working for First National Securities. Moreland later bought out Linville's share a year after Moreland's own death, with his family and estate handling the railway. 

"Sinai" and "Olivet" meet at the cross-over track in this 1948 view.
Note that the gardens and beautiful houses have been replaced with 
apartments and paved alleys.
(BizarreLA)

Angels Flight in 1962, during the redevelopment
of Bunker Hill. No skyscrapers in sight.
(Joe Lacey)

However, by this point, Angels Flight was beginning to show its wear. Edifices were cracking, timbers were splitting, and the cars' paints were faded and their bearings squealing. In 1962, just after the mighty Pacific Electric Railway fell, the city forced Moreland's estate to sell the condemned railway to them and hired the Oliver & Williams Elevator Company to run the railway for the rest of the 1960s. On May 18, 1969, Angels Flight ascended its last and was shortly after dismantled. Its large artifacts (the cable house, archway, and drinking fountains) were placed on outdoor display in Gardena, while its two cars were off to be stored in a warehouse at 1200 S. Olive Street. This ends the first life of Angels Flight.

Order in the Court Flight!

Court Flight Cable Railway on Broadway, undated,
before the 101 freeway destroyed everything to the right.
(Los Angeles Public Library)

One thing not well known about Angels Flight was that it was not the only funicular in town. There was, of course, the Great Incline at Echo Mountain's Mount Lowe Railway that carried passengers 1,900 feet above the Los Angeles skyline and was operated by the Pacific Electric Railway. However, there was one more that could claim to be Angels Flight's little sister. On Broadway, just east of Angels Flight, sat "Court Flight", a ground-level, concrete-based funicular built by the Observation Tower Company in 1904 for ferrying people up to Bunker Hill between Broadway and Hill Streets. Court Flight replaced a rather steep staircase that many Hill residents refused to use on their commutes downtown, and its closer proximity to the heart of Bunker Hill meant that more people found it useful and, thus, paid more for it. 

Unlike Angels Flight, Court Flight
had two separate lines instead of one shared.
(Lost Infrastructure)

Indeed, when it first opened on September 24, 1905, Court Flight charged a mean nickel to ride compared to Angels Flight's penny (but it also allowed free downhill rides). However, despite the steeper grade (42 percent!) and the increased usefulness by Hill residents, Court Flight suffered into the 1930s as the Great Depression and land development forced its wealthy clientele out. By the 1940s, Court Flight was mostly dependent on shuttling employees of the local Hall of Justice and its owners appealed to the city for its closure as Los Angeles had labeled Court Flight a "public utility". Unfortunately, Los Angeles needn't wait long to grant Court Flight's closure. On the night of October 20, 1943, a stray cigarette lit up the hillside and took Court Flight with it, burning the entire thing to the ground. Today, its site is taken up by the "County of LA Internal Services" building. 

Accident-Prone Angels

Sid Kastner stands on the platform of one of the 
Angels Flight cars as it's moved into his "Bandstand" museum.
(Darren Jacobs)

Angels Flight's eviction came with sharp criticism from Los Angeles' nostalgic citizens, as the 1969 redevelopment of Bunker Hill displaced 22,000 working-class families in historic buildings in favor of mixed-use high-rises. A sign placed on the railway told riders that not only was the railway to "temporarily discontinue service", but that the last week of operations were entirely free in either direction. When the railway was dismantled, "Olivet" and "Sinai" were stored at 1200 S. Olive Street, which was home to Sid and Linda Kastner's "Bandstand" museum of mechanical musical instruments. As the Bunker Hill redevelopment was only planned to take two years, the Kastners charged the city no rent for temporary storage. Unfortunately, that two years soon turned into twenty-seven years, and it was not until 1996 that the angels took flight once again.

Angels Flight gets back on track in 1996.
(Curbed LA)

Under the new "Angels Flight Railway Foundation", a significant effort was undertaken to reconstruct the tiny funicular in full at its original location on Hill and Third. Unfortunately, a 1990s parking garage now took up the space right next to the Third Street Tunnel, so the railway site was moved 350 feet south along Hill Street. The new rebuilt railway featured a winding staircase along its south side, enabling would-be marathon runners and bored businessmen to race Angels Flight on foot. The new railway's designs also featured updated infrastructure and operating systems, such as separate haulage systems for the "Olivet" and "Sinai" (instead of a single cable) connected to one-another through a gear train and an entirely-concrete trestle up the side of Bunker Hill. It maintained the same 300-foot (91 meter) length and 33-percent grade.

The big crunch between the Olivet and the Sainai in 2001.
(The Consultants' Bureau)

Unfortunately, the new modifications to Angels Flight also proved to be its downfall. After opening in 1996, and after the railway was added to the "National Register of Historic Places" on October 13, 2000, the railway suffered its first catastrophic accident. On February 1, 2001, the "Sinai" broke from its cable at the top station and ran uncontrollable downhill into the "Olivet", injuring seven and killing 83-year-old tourist Leon Praport. When investigated by the NTSB, it was discovered that the new haulage system, designed by Lift Engineering/Yantrak, was to blame as the gear train failed and disconnected "Sinai" from being balanced by "Olivet". The worst part was that the only brakes the railway had were only on the cable drums, not on the cars themselves, and even then the emergency brakes were inoperable for almost two years due to a burned-out and ill-fitting solenoid. 

A ground-level view of the Angels Flight accident.
(The Consultant's Bureau)

With no safety cable, no emergency brakes, and absolutely no sign that Lift Engineering was still in business or its current location and status, the NTSB was forced to conclude that the operators of Angels Flight were in serious negligence due to the many design oversights that left plenty to be desired. Angels Flight closed shortly after the NTSB report and "Sinai" and "Olivet" were taken to be repaired, with the railway modified to have a new single-cable drive system with emergency cable replacing the much-maligned "modified" one. Other redundancies included an independent evacuation motor to get the cars to the station in case the main motor failed and independent rail brakes in both cars. Angels Flight reopened on March 15, 2010 to massive fanfare and a more-expensive 50-cent one-way ride (25 cents if one shows their Metro Tap Card). 

Unfortunately, three years later, disaster struck Angels Flight... again. On September 5, 2013, a routine ascension turned to horror as one of the cars derailed near the middle passing loop. While there were no injuries, the NTSB was forced to conclude that Angels Flight's operators were again not only bypassing basic safety procedures (like bypassing the brakes with a tree branch "intentionally") but also plenty of unidentified (and unannounced) shutdowns made Angels Flight's status as a tourist funicular perilous. The NTSB also concluded that the basic design of the cars, where the axles were fixed in place on a line that had four curves in one direction, meant that wheel flanges could wear away easily and break, derailing a car. Angels Flight closed for another four years, finally reopening on August 31, 2017 with upgraded car doors (now sliding plastic screens), electric lights, and an evacuation walkway on the tracks' north side, courtesy of ACS Infrastructure Development. 

The "Sinai" (or "Olivet") sits funny after derailing in 2013.
Notice the lack of a safety stairwell on the right side.
(San Diego Union Tribune)

Stuck in La-La Land

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone share a tender ride uphill on Angel's Flight.
(Lionsgate)

Angels Flight features in the 1949 film noir, "Act of Violence",
with star Van Heflin running underneath.
(Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Angels Flight's 2017 opening was cause for much celebration in Los Angeles, as by that point Angelinos were so used to seeing the railway down for maintenance or service that many, young and old, thought they'd never be able to ride it. That changed in 2016, when Angels Flight appeared in the musical film "La La Land", an intentional throwback film that celebrated Los Angeles. In one scene, actors Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone shared a tender moment aboard the still-closed Angels Flight, and this spurred other romantic Angelinos to try and recreate that movie scene. However, "La La Land" is not the first film Angels Flight has been in. Between its 1902 opening and its closure in 1969, Angels Flight had appeared in such films as the 1932 film "The Impatient Maiden" (where the female leads live next to Angels Flight), 1949's "Act of Violence" starring Van Heflin, the 1951 remake of Fritz Lang's "M", "The Glenn Miller Story" from 1954, and a 1966 color episode of Perry Mason, "The Case of the Twice-Told Twist." 

It's the 1930s again as HBO's "Perry Mason" films in downtown
 Los Angeles in 2019. Note the false drug store edifice.
(Angels Flight Railway)

After reopening in 2010, the railway has been a constant fixture of Los Angeles-located films, including the HBO Miniseries of "Perry Mason" in 2020 and the aforementioned "La La Land". Literature has also immortalized the famous funicular as its name has been used for many novels (the first being Don Ryan's "Angel's Flight" in 1927) and even famous detective Raymond Chandler visited the railway in 1938's "The King in Yellow" (not to be confused with the cosmic horror story about a book that drives people mad) and 1942's "The High Window". Finally, for the younger readers and viewers, Angels Flight has even made the leap into video games, as it's featured as a landmark location in Team Bondi and Rockstar Games' 2013 detective procedural, "LA Noire", as well as Carlsbad, CA native Tony Hawk's own "American Wasteland" video game, where one can skateboard down the funicular tracks. But please, before you get any ideas, don't try this at home.

LA Noire's handsome reconstruction of Angels Flight in its original location and form, 
complete with a very plain but eyecatching pedestrian park.
(Team Bondi/Rockstar Games)

Still Climbing

Angels Flight, now with Metro connections!
(Myself)

Angels Flight celebrated its 110th birthday in 2012 and it is planned to celebrate its 120th in 2022. Of all the anachronisms left behind in Los Angeles' downtown core, Angels Flight certainly stands out as the only one that still moves and its bright Beaux Arts vermillion color certainly sets it apart from the dark blues, greens, and purples that dominate Los Angeles' skyline. Even today, the railway sees a healthy line of tourists either waiting for the cars to rise or deciding "screw it, I'm being healthy today" and climbing up the stairwell. It's also unique in being the only Los Angeles "street railway" (if it can even be called that) to survive intact, compared to the absolute decimation inflicted on its contemporary interurban and streetcar lines. It's hoped that the Angels keep flying forever, both for the nostalgic few that can still remember it as it originally was, and the younger generation who want a taste of old Los Angeles for a one-way dollar's ticket. Long live Angels Flight.

  

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included the official website of Angels Flight, an LA Curbed article on Court Flight's short history, the Electric Railway Historical Society's page on Angels Flight, the Cable Car Guy's page on Angel's Flight and the many image credits in each caption. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Tuesday, For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!