Train Station #46 -- May 8, 2012

I took this photo of the upper station of Angels Flight when we visited in July, 2011.

The original Angels Flight (no apostrophe) opened in 1901. Colonel J W Eddy, an old associate of Abraham Lincoln, built the line to carry passengers up to the splendid homes on Bunker Hill in Los Angeles. The fare was one cent. The two cars carried passengers without a single fatal accident until 1969, when the city redeveloped the area. The city saved the cars and other relics and promised to rebuild the line. The new line, operated by the Angels Flight Railway Foundation, opened in 1996, about a block away from the original site. Critics charged that the new system left out some of the safety features of the old. A fatal accident in 2001, when one of the cars ran away, proved that the critics were right. The line sat in limbo for almost ten years, but finally reopened in 2010 with safety improvements.