Western Railroad Discussion > Angels Flight Accident

News Flash: Angels Flight in LA had a accident this morning in the noon hour. Appearently the cable broke, causing one of the cars to crash into the other at the bottom of the hill. Six critical injuries....

Since EVERYONE doesn't live in LA, what the
heck are you referring to "Angels Flight"?

That would be a funicular (spelling).

funic'ular rail'way
a short, very steep railway having two parallel sets of tracks, upon each of which runs a car or train raised or lowered by means of a cable that simultaneously lowers or raises the other car or train in such a way that the two are approximately counterbalanced

Hope that helps.

While the Flight was balanced originally per the definition above, my understanding is that when it was rebuilt last century each car cable is powered by its own motor. They may be interconnected electrically but not physically like in the 'olden days'.

Wow! That's serious bad news. I rode Angels Flight back a month ago with my wife and kids. Those cables looked like good sturdy wire ropes over an inch in thickness. Such things don't break very easily. The hill is so steep you could get a lot of speed up in a hurry without anything to restrain the car. You could get pretty well busted up and thrown off the elevated track in an accident, the cars are configured like a stairway with seats on each stair, and only a couple of handles to hang on to. Man, that's a little too close to home.

Angels flight is/was the only "Train" ride for 25 cents anywhere, as far as I know.

I hope the folks that got injured come out ok in the end.

CS

There is some great info on Angles Flight at:

http://www.wgn.net/~elson/larail/angelsflight.html

Click on the following links for TV photos and news story on today's Angeles Flight accident. Best photo is on the KNBC TV web site.

<a href=http://www.knbc.com/>KNBC TV Photo</a>

<a href=http://www.knbc.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=FutureTense/Apps/Xcelerate/Render&c=NBCArticle&cid=NBCY1BCMNIC&preview=true>KNBC TV Story</a>

<a href=http://www.channel2000.com/>KCBS TV Photo</a>

<a href=http://www.channel2000.com/news/stories/news-234820010201-140217.html>KCBS TV Story</a>

<a href=http://cnews.tribune.com/news/story/0,1162,ktla-local-86826,00.html>KTLA TV Story</a>

Greetings Western Board Members,

I was wondering if the cables on the angels flight were ever x-rayed
to check the condition of the cable strands? Allthough I am arm chair quarterbacking it seems like the cables were broken internally and eventually snapped. At the mine where I worked for almost 23 years we had to regularly replace our hoisting cables as a matter of preventative Maintenance. Would any of you know the diameter of the hoisting cable and whether it had a rope core or wire core?

Did the incline railroad on Echo Mountain north of Pasadena ever suffer a major accident,barring brushfires?

Here's the LA Times link on the story.

http://www.latimes.com/news/state/updates/ap_angels010201.htm

Chnl 9 news just broke back in and had the NTSB rep announcing that they don't know what happened as of about 3:55. Said the cable didn't6 break. Channel 7 News just led of 4:00 news with live coverage and showed the 2" cable intact. Sound like it may have come off the drum. No obvious rupture in the cable. They haven't gotten underneath the station to inspect the mechanism or at least reported it. Sounds like 4 critical, 2 serious, 4 other injuries. Expect that the local news tonight will be filled with reports and video. Cable on "Sinai" (one of the cars) is reportedly still taut.

Here is my posting from Amtrak and Transit Discussion:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?f=4&amp;i=7255&amp;t=7225

Bad news, KCAL 9 News just reported (2125 pst) that one man died in this incident. He was apparently thrown from the car. No word yet why the two cars got together.

Work and Play Safely,

Greg

Something must have gone awry in the winding machinery.
The two cars are not on the same cable, so are not counterbalanced.
The restored Angels Flight project engineered a dual cable powered by separate motors and winding machinery, interlocked so that the cars would 'always' meet at the turnout in the middle.

I also rode the Last Car on the Last Night of the old Angels Flight.
It was a Special Fan Trip 'charterded' by the ERHA-SC in 1968/69.
We used to have a lot of fun back on the 'OLD DAYS'.

Jim Baker

Goes to show ya that they way they did it originally was probably better! "Modern" safety ain't what its cracked up to be! Aside from the obvious tragedy of a death and a critical injury, plus other injuries, it'll probably take 'em another 20 or 30 years to get it going again.

Reports tonight indicate the cable (may have) slipped off the right spool. If they are interlocked??, separate cables, then would we be correct in no longer calling it a funicular? It seemed the funicular method on a single cable seemed the reasonable way to work one of these operations