LA’s popular Angels Flight reaching for the heavens again

LOS ANGELES — Angels Flight, the beloved little railroad that’s almost as much a symbol of Los Angeles as the Hollywood Sign, began pulling people toward the heavens and back down again on Thursday after four years of idleness triggered by a 2013 derailment.

Mayor Eric Garcetti and other supporters and admirers of the funky little funicular turned out on a hot downtown morning to see the train’s two wooden antique cars, Olivet and Sinai, officially return to service.

“This is a railway that always had a little engine that could,” Garcetti said of the 116year-old railway that stretches only 90 meters up downtown’s stunningly steep Bunker Hill.

“It is one of the last relics of Victorian Los Angeles, an iconic LA landmark and it’s right up there with the Griffith Park Observatory and the Hollywood Sign.”

He added that just like those landmarks it’s made frequent cameo appearances in movies, including last year’s Oscarnominated film La La Land when Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling climbed aboard for a romantic ride.

Later, with a thumb’s up, Garcetti led a small delegation

of officials and longtime riders onto the train and up the hill.

“It was great,” he said afterward, dismissing concerns of a couple of first-time riders that the old cars seemed to shake and shimmy unnervingly, especially as they passed each other.

A veteran rider, Garcetti noted the train’s two cars have always done that, particularly when they pass on a threetrack section of railway in the middle.

“Those are just a couple of historic bumps,” he said with a grin. “Don’t be alarmed.”

Roundtrips cost a penny when Angels Flight opened in 1901. They cost $1 now, with a $0.50 discount for those who pay with a transit card.