LA’s popular Angels Flight about to reach for heavens again
LOS ANGELES — Angels Flight, Los Angeles’ beloved little railroad, is about to start reaching for the heavens again.
The funky little funicular that carried Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling to the top of downtown L.A. in the movie “La La Land” is scheduled to reopen to the general public Thursday morning.
After a ceremonial first ride by the mayor, the transit system the city proudly calls the world’s shortest public railroad will resume doing what it first did on New Year’s Eve 1901, ferrying riders up and down the city’s stunningly steep Bunker Hill. A funicular, it operates by using the counterbalancing weights of its cars to pull one up while the other descends.
It was closed four years ago after a derailment left a handful of passengers perched precariously above a downtown street for hours. No one was hurt, but a subsequent investigation revealed numerous safety flaws and the state Public Utilities Commission shut the railway down.