Historic railway from ‘La La Land’ is rolling again
LOS ANGELES — Angels Flight, Los Angeles’ beloved little railroad, is reaching for the heavens again.
The colorful narrow-gauge railroad that carried Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling to the top of downtown L.A. in the movie “La La Land” reopened Thursday with a ceremony that drew about 100 people despite a heat wave.
After a ceremonial first ride by the mayor, the transit system the city proudly calls the world’s shortest public railroad resumed doing what it first did on New Year’s Eve 1901, ferrying millions of 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.
To the surprise of the public and the commission — which didn’t know the funicular would be used in “La La Land” — Stone and Gosling climbed aboard for a scene that depicted a romantic nighttime ride.
By the time the Oscar-nominated film was released last year, officials were considering plans to reopen Angels Flight. But the movie seemed to give them added incentive. While it was closed, the public had to use an adjacent steep, smelly, trash-strewn stairway.
“‘La La Land’ was the last straw,” laughed local historian and preservation activist Richard Schave. “It was like, ‘OK, we have to get a yes on this now.’ “
Schave and his wife, Kim Cooper, had launched a popular petition drive to reopen the railway after an ugly graffiti attack damaged its two antique rail cars in 2015.
Round trips cost a penny when Angels Flight opened in 1901.
Round trip rides will now cost $1 while those who use transit cards will pay just 50 cents.