Moving people and freight up and down steep terrain has always been a difficult problem, and beginning in the 1860s, the funicular railway became a solution that has been tried in hundreds of locations around the world. One part elevator, one part streetcar, these counterbalanced cable railways have been built on mountaintops for tourists, on hillsides for mines, along rivers to reach ports, and in cities for public transport. Each unique setting provides its own set of challenges, and funicular designs are rarely standardized. Gathered here for your enjoyment, if you are so inclined, is a collection of images of some of these varied and intriguing steep railways.
That Escalated Quickly: Putting the Fun in Funiculars
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Read moreA cable car on the Duquesne Incline climbs a hill overlooking downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 22, 2009. #
Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty -
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Read moreTrolleys and horse carts are shuttled up and down a hill on the Mount Adams Incline, sometime between 1900 and 1910, in Cincinnati, Ohio. #
Detroit Publishing Co / Library of Congress -
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Read moreTourists travel on the NH Prague City Funicular to Mrazovka Park in Prague, Czech Republic, on November 24, 2017. #
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Read moreA 2008 photo of the lifts used to deliver people to and from the Chaotianmen ferry in Chongqing, China. #
Alessandro Rizzi / Getty -
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Read moreLocal residents travel in a railcar in Chongqing Port in China's Sichuan province on June 28, 2010. #
Sam Yeh / AFP / Getty -
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Read moreThe Funival, a funicular railway that transports skiers to the top of the Bellevarde rock in the French ski resort of Val d'Isere, prepares to enter its tunnel through the mountain on January 11, 2018. #
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Read moreThe historic Angels Flight funicular cable cars sit wrecked after an accident on February 2, 2001, after one car went into a free fall and crashed into another below, killing one person and sending seven other people to area hospitals in Los Angeles, California. The Angels Flight funicular originally operated from 1901 to 1969 and reopened in 1996 after a a complete refurbishing. #
David McNew / Getty -
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Read moreCanal boats are transported up and down a hill along hydro-powered cable railways between waterways on Poland's Elblag Canal, a unique feat of 19th-century engineering, on July 17, 2008. Boats travel nearly 100 meters uphill or downhill over a nearly 10-kilometer (6.2 mile) stretch using a system of counterbalanced hydro-powered cable tracks running along five inclined planes, or slipways, like steps between canals. #
Janek Skarzynski / AFP / Getty -
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Read morePassengers ride up to the Ljubljana Castle in a funicular railway on September 13, 2018, in Ljubiljana, Slovenia. #
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Read moreCars of the Lavra funicular pass each other in the streets of Lisbon, Portugal. #
Viennaslide / Construction Photography / Avalon / Getty -
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Read moreThe Hartkaiserbahn funicular, photographed on Hartkaiser Mountain in Ellmau, Tirol, Austria, on August 8, 2012. #
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Read moreLooking up the Duluth Incline from Superior Street, in Duluth, Minnesota, circa 1908. The lift system was in operation from 1892 until 1939. #
Detroit Publishing Co / Library of Congress -
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Read moreThe Kurobe Cable Car passes along an interchange in a tunnel in Tateyama, Toyama, Japan, on September 20, 2014. #
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Read moreA flatbed truck carries a standard streetcar with passengers on the Oberweissbacher Bergbahn in Thuringia, Germany, photographed on June 19, 2005. #
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Read moreLooking down on Hallstatt, Austria, from atop the Hallstatt Salt Mine funicular, on October 26, 2015 #
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Read moreThe barrel-shaped carriages of a funicular line are seen on the illuminated track before the opening ceremony of the Stoosbahn near the Alpine resort of Stoos, Switzerland, on December 15, 2017. #
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Read morePassengers travel up the grand viaduct at Murren, Switzerland, on a steep funicular railway, photographed circa 1890. #
Hulton Archive / Getty -
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Read moreThe Saltburn Cliff Lift in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire, England, photographed on May 22, 2011. #
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Read moreOriginal caption: Valparaiso, Chile, 1940 - At about one penny per trip, one can take the cable car up the city's steep hills. #
Hulton-Deutsch Collection / Corbis via Getty -
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Read moreA lift carrying tourists goes downhill on Cerro Alegre (Alegre Hill) on August 17, 2010, in Valparaiso, Chile. #
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Read moreA cable car transports passengers down from Corviglia Mountain on the St. Moritz–Corviglia funicular in the resort of St. Moritz, Switzerland, on March 17, 2016. #
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Read moreThe Verticalp funicular arrives at Emosson Dam, which produces electricity for Swiss Rail, in Emosson, Switzerland, on August 9, 2017. #
Denis Balibouse / Reuters -
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Read moreA view of Bergen, Norway, with a car of the Fløibanen in the foreground #
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Read moreA tramline climbs Victoria Peak on a foggy morning in Hong Kong, China, on March 1, 2012. #
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Read moreA car of the Peak Tram, photographed near the upper terminus on Victoria Peak, with the Hong Kong skyline in the background #
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Read moreA funicular operates in the favela of Santa Marta on November 15, 2015, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. #
Frédéric Soltan / Corbis via Getty -
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Read moreA sunny autumn day in Mürren with the Allmendhubel funicular railway (Allmendhubelbahn) in the background, photographed in Switzerland's Jungfrau region on October 9, 2018. #
David Hajes Hajek / Shutterstock
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