In "Preservation Briefs" of the July 2010 issue there is a story about the Angels Flight funicular railway in Los Angeles. It noted the 2001 accident that had shut down the railway. It also noted that the "cable operation that moves the cars was redesigned."
The reason I am prompted to write about this is because of the redesign and the omission of any notice of the redesign that was done in 1995 which was at the center of the accident in 2001. The original mechanism to move the cars consisted of a single shaft with bullwheels which had cables wrapped in opposite directions. It was a system which had never failed anywhere it had been used but the restorers decided that it was not good enough and spent large amounts of money redesigning the mechanism which had never failed. The new cable drive had a separate shaft for each car and relied on a gearbox to keep the shafts in the correct relationship with each other. If the gears failed the higher car could fall and hit the lower car and that was exactly what happened. They collided near the mid point and a man was killed.
It was simple arrogance that the original machinery was discounted and new and flawed machinery was built. I understand that the present machinery is built along the lines of the original. Also brakes have been added to the cars for additional safety.
Your synopsis of the failure of the operating system is correct, the original system was a true funicular, the cars were connected to a common cable and the weight of the cars balanced each other out, the motor pulled to difference in passenger weight inside the cars, it works for over 60 years until the trains were dismantled in the late 1960's.
The "new & improved" restored line had independant motors and cable but was a flawed design and it indeed failed. there is still a lawsuit going on against in this case as it wasnt the first time this kind of accident happened with this particular fabricators installations. If I remember right the fabricator of the control system was partly or wholey owned by one of the principal backers of the initial restoration.
The "new" control system in the recent reactivation, is completely new from a company with decades of experience building funiculars in Europe and returns to the original counterbalance design the worked so well for so long.
Pic taken shortly after reopening
Have fun with your trains
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.