Angels Flight

OLIVET & SINAI COME HOME! (Pt. 1) 11/1/08 This will turn out to be one of the biggest days since the press conference back in 2007. I arrive in the dark, as do the men from Bragg. I am feeling SO fortunate! Yesterday my camera went insane from getting rainwater on the circuit boards. I had to ship it out for repair; luckily I was able to buy another camera body at half off, an exact duplicate of the original. Thank God for Samy's. So I am out here ready to go. The Bragg team slowly begins to gather, and then, [...]

GETTING READY TO COME HOME! 10/31/08 Today was a big day, surpassed only by the next day, when Olivet and Sinai were brought back home after eight years in the MTA rail yards! Another early call: sunrise. And as it was Halloween, I got tricked: it rained, and the rain got into my camera, causing some temporary shorts. I had a devil of a time getting decent exposures and color renditions, and when I got home, it took Photoshop to bring them into halfway decent condition. I took the camera to Samy's for shipping out to repair. While I was there, [...]

LAYING THE CABLE, 10/30/08 I was told to report really early this day, around 7 AM. That was good; it was cool, and I had a chance to photograph the sunrise. I found there were two projects going on that day: the stringing out of the temporary cable configuration for the cars, and the wiring of the Station House gates. Legal Notice The name "Angels Flight" and the images of the Angels Flight® Railway and cars are copyrights and registered trademarks of the Angels Flight® Railway Company and are used with permission. The content of this website, www.picturetrail.com/afrp (this "Site"), including [...]

MURRAY-LATTA IN LOS ANGELES, 10/28/08 The Canadian team has come to Los Angeles to oversee the installation of their equipment. All the wiring and connections must be done right. All the parts of the Drive Assembly must mesh perfectly. Everything must coordinate and act as one. It will take time to get rid of the occasional snarls, unexpected situations and wrong turns, but it will be done, and everything will be perfect. Legal Notice The name "Angels Flight" and the images of the Angels Flight® Railway and cars are copyrights and registered trademarks of the Angels Flight® Railway Company and are [...]

MURRAY-LATTA COMES TO TOWN, 10/27/08 A very busy day today: the Bragg team arrives to prep the tracks for stringing the cables that will haul the cars up and down, and the team of Canadians from Murray-Latta arrive to advise on connecting the Drive Assembly to the Electric Control Package (a long and complicated procedure requiring days and days). These pieces of equipment are their babies: they and their subcontractors built the electric controls, and they know more about them than anyone else. It's exciting to think that soon, power will be applied to the Drive Assembly! The Canadians The Murray-Latta [...]

ELECTRIC CONTROL PACKAGE, 10/14/08 Today is a special day. It begins normally enough with Jimmy and James from R&R Electric continuing their work of installing all the conduits for the wires to control the Drive Assembly. But we are waiting for something special: the arrival of the Electric Control Package: two large cabinets containing all the electronics necessary to make the Drive Assembly work properly, and therefore to make Olivet and Sinai do their work. And then we hear word: the truck has arrived at the Two California Plaza loading dock directly from Vancouver, and we rush down to bring its [...]

R&R ELECTRIC, 10/7/08 One day near the beginning of October, strange things began to happen in the Machine Room. Mysterious grey metal snakes of various diameters and thicknesses began to appear and wend their way all over the ceiling, the walls, and the Drive Assembly. Black and grey boxes began to appear on the walls. Dozens of mysterious lengths of string began to appear winding their way through and around the Drive Assembly, and numbered labels were seen pasted all over it. What was going on? R&R Electric had come to town! It was Jimmy and James, who began plotting the [...]

Goats Galore! It doesn't get much crazier than this. The goats were brought in to eat away the overgrown vegetation on the hillside at the Angels Knoll Temporary Garden (the green space just south of Angels Flight). It was decided that, since the goats were already there anyway, they could eat up Angels Flight's under-track vegetation as well. Legal Notice The name "Angels Flight" and the images of the Angels Flight® Railway and cars are copyrights and registered trademarks of the Angels Flight® Railway Company and are used with permission. The content of this website, www.picturetrail.com/afrp (this "Site"), including but not [...]

TURNSTILE PREP, 6/11/08 Another two months goes past before I was called in again. Nothing goes without its due attention! This day it was the turnstiles at the Hill Street Arch that would be worked upon. Angels Flight's Bob Sutton and Art Bailey of TIG/m (manufacturers of modern streetcar rail systems such as can be seen in Los Angeles' The Grove) came together to not only get the historic turnstiles working, but to install special equipment that will automatically count the passengers as they file through. Legal Notice The name "Angels Flight" and the images of the Angels Flight® Railway and [...]

TRACK REPAIR; GATE REFURBISHMENT, 4/23/08 It has been four months since the last photographic assignment, and the last album. We're into a new year. Not that work didn't take place! The Angels Flight office was as busy as ever, but not with the kind of thing that would benefit from being photographed. Much paperwork, many phone calls, meetings, decisions, etc. Plans for the Electric Control Package were just one of the things being discussed, and there will be a picture showing the places where blue tape on the east wall of the Machine Room indicates where some of the electrical cabinets [...]