Lisbon Funicular crash

Oh no! We did this as part of our RS Portugal tour as a group. Prayers for all those involved!

That's so sad. When we spent a week in Lisbon, we walked by this funicular everyday since our apart-hotel was within a few feet of it. I wonder how many pedestrians were injured since there would be a lot of people who would be walking alongside this particular funicular to get up the hill. We walked that hill many times and would smile at everyone riding it. I loved that street.

At least 15 people have been killed after Lisbon's world-famous Gloria Funicular cable railway derailed and hit a building
Eighteen others have been injured

Truly sad

When I was in Lisbon, my hotel was close and I walked by every day.

The funicular was very popular.

I assume that mot of those killed and injured were tourists.

We never know .......

Thinking of the deceased, the injured, family and friends ......

We went on this funicular numerous times while we were on the Rick Steves Portugal tour in April, 2024. Our thought and prayers for those who lost their lives or were injured. Its humbling to note that this could have happened anytime.

This is so sad for everyone involved. A sad day for Portugal. I think of the poor driver.

I’ve heard stories about poor maintenance and overcrowding. Won’t know for sure but I’m wondering if it was another case of Lisbon growing too fast and the infrastructure not being built accordingly. Many part of the city were not designed for the waves of tourists that have descended on this city. Hopefully this might be a wake up call to modernize its public transit systems to reflect the increase in passengers.

I’ve heard stories about poor maintenance and overcrowding. Won’t know for sure but I’m wondering if it was another case of Lisbon growing too fast and the infrastructure not being built accordingly. Many part of the city were not designed for the waves of tourists that have descended on this city. Hopefully this might be a wake up call to modernize its public transit systems to reflect the increase in passengers.

The funicular was built in 1885. So it was historic, not so easy to just replace with something more modern. The hill that is serviced is not hard to just walk up, but the fun was riding this historic form of transportation, something from the past. It was also classified as a heritage site and a national monument.

I don't believe it is yet known the cause, so everything is just speculation at this point.

News reports are that at least one pedestrian was injured after being struck by the vehicle. From the coverage so far it appears that the cable snapped, but the investigation will be into why the emergency brakes were so ineffective.

He could not confirm how many people were on the carriage at the time, but said Carris believes it was fewer than the maximum capacity of 42
At least 16 people died in the crash on Wednesday night, at least five of whom were Portuguese nationals, while more than 20 others were injured.
( Up dates from the OP link)

Friday, reportedly, some sort of preliminary accident report will be made.

OK, this is pure hypothesising, but it seems from news reporting, confirmed by reliable engineering sources describing the situation before the accident, that this was caused by unusually bad design decisions made when this specific funicular was electrified, and shouldn't put anyone off using funiculars in general.
- A funicular is a hill-climbing cable railway with two cars which are permanently connected to each end of the cable, so that as one descends an incline its weight helps draw the ascending car up the gradient. (Or for some smaller funiculars, there may be a single car with a simple balance weight at the other end of the cable, as is usually true for vertical elevators.)
- Most funiculars (apart from the so-called water balance type, which is powered purely by gravity, altering the cars' relative weight by filling or emptying water tanks built into them) have the cable moved by a single steam or diesel engine, or electric motor, usually at the summit. This funicular, however, reportedly had self-propelled electric cars, like normal tramcars -- an arrangement which seems to me to be inherently risky if you consider the basic physics for a little while.
- Eyewitnesses talk about the uphill car briefly starting to climb the hill, before suddenly running back and hitting the buffer with an impact big enough to derail it. This suggests to me that the downhill car was under power and hauling the uphill car, presumably because the uphill car was significantly heavier.
- If the downhill car was under power, it would immediately have started accelerating when the cable broke (the description of the funicular suggests that there was some kind of electrical link between the cars that was supposed to stop that from happening, presumably that will be a major issue in the investigation). The brakeman of the car was killed in the accident so won't be able to provide any information on what happened. However, I suspect either that the acceleration of the car was so violent that he didn't have time to do anything, or he may possibly have been knocked away from the controls by panicking passengers trying to jump off the car (something which definitely happened in some of the several British cases of normal electric tramcars running away down steep hills).

perhaps we could wait for the initial report due out shortly...

Early findings point to a design flaw

According to the preliminary notice from the Gabinete de Prevenção e Investigação de Acidentes com Aeronaves e de Acidentes Ferroviários (GPIAAF), the cable failure occurred at the point where it anchors to the uphill car. When the link snapped, the downhill carriage lost its counterweight and accelerated to roughly 60 km/h—six times normal speed—before derailing. The onboard brakeman did activate both pneumatic and manual systems, but investigators now concede that those brakes were never engineered to halt a free-falling car without the balancing tension of the cable. In other words, the supposed redundancy wasn’t redundant at all.
https://theportugalpost.com/posts/cable-failure-blamed-as-initial-probe-details-lisbon-funicular-crash

The thought that the cable might break didn't ever occur to someone, so that a braking system would be installed that would be able to stop an un-tethered car?