Angels Flight Railway: The Shortest Railway in the World
Why is it significant?
Stand before the charming Beaux-Arts wooden ticket arch of Angels Flight on Hill Street and watch the two orange-and-black wooden funicular cars, named Olivet and Sinai, pass each other along the steep hillside tracks.
Key Facts
| Place | Angels Flight Railway: The Shortest Railway in the World |
|---|---|
| Address | 351 S Hill St, Los Angeles, CA 90013 |
| Geo Coordinates | 34.05140, -118.25050 |
| Part of Walk | Downtown LA & Historic Broadway: Movie Palaces, Bradbury Iron, and Angels Flight |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand before the charming Beaux-Arts wooden ticket arch of Angels Flight on Hill Street and watch the two orange-and-black wooden funicular cars, named Olivet and Sinai, pass each other along the steep hillside tracks. At just ninety-one meters long, this landmark holds the proud title of the Shortest Railway in the World.
Engineered by Colonel J. W. Eddy in nineteen zero one, the counterbalanced cable funicular carried residents of the lavish Victorian mansions perched atop Bunker Hill down to the shopping district below for a fare of just one copper penny. Over its operational lifetime, Angels Flight has carried more than one hundred million passengers, making it statistically one of the most traveled rail lines per mile on Earth!
The railway was completely dismantled in nineteen sixty-nine when the entire top of Bunker Hill was excavated and flattened for modern skyscrapers, sitting in storage for twenty-seven years before being painstakingly rebuilt and reopened in nineteen ninety-six.
Walk south along South Broadway into the Historic Theater District.