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The Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway |
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For anyone who might be tempted to describe funiculars as some kind of rather long escalator/elevator, the water powered Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway will come as a complete revelation. James Waite writes "I've known this line pretty well all my lifetime. I went to prep school just outside Barnstaple and used to pressurise my poor long-suffering Mum to take me to Lynton to ride on the line on visiting weekends - not an easy journey in those days before the roads were improved. Had I been there 25 years earlier, of course, we could have made the journey by narrow gauge train! I suspect that my collection of the line's tickets from the late 1950's and early 1960's may be unrivalled!! Nowadays they don't sell tickets at all, just a small computer-printed receipt for the money you've paid them." The pictures are interesting but give little indication of how this masterpiece of Victorian engineering functions. It's about as green as public transport gets, see the first link below for a superb explanation.
Funicular's don't have to be simple, this is taken from Michel Azéma's amazing Funimag pages - it's well worth reading - http://www.funimag.com/funimag19/Lynton04.htm
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