Only seven funiculars remain: Polanco, Concepcion, El Peral, Espiritu Santo, Artilleria, Reina Victoria and Cordillera, the last of which will close on July 31. 

The funiculars were built by placing metal train rails on the hillsides; then a short railroad car, divested of seats, would be pulled by a cable up (or gently lowered by cable down) between a station high on the hill and another station down in the city. People rode the funiculars for pennies a trip to avoid the hard work of walking Valpo’s extreme hills.

The first elevator built, inaugurated on Concepcion Hill on December 1, 1883, is astonishingly one of the seven still running. It’s also the most used funicular and hence the most profitable. During the summer high season, as many as 1,000 people ride it a day.

The success of the Concepcion funicular led to maybe as many as 30 being built over the next 28 years. All but one used train rails attached to a hill. The elevator at Polanco Hill has no tracks – what elevator does? – and is the youngest funicular, built in 1915. It is known for its imposing tower, a bridge connecting the tower to the hill and a 150-meter tunnel connecting the lower station to Simpson Street. The Polanco elevator was the first funicular to be named a national historic monument. 

When other means of transportation began arriving to Valparaiso, most famously the trolley, the number of funicular users fell considerably, but in the early 1990s tourists started falling in love with them. According to Reinaldo Berdugo, the engineer of the Concepcion Hill funicular, tourists “come in [the station] and ask how the system works, take pictures, and they love it.”

Because of their raffish architecture, the funiculars helped Valparaiso become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 1996, they were also included in the World Monuments Fund 100 most endangered historical treasures list.

More recently, there was a push to restore the funiculars to their former glory. But a fire consumed the lower station of the Lecheros Hill funicular in 2007, and lack of enough customers led to the closing of three elevators last year. So the city is just waiting for the remaining six to stop working so it can do away with an important part of Valparaiso’s cultural history.

SOURCE: LA TERCERA
By Sebastian Leon ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )