funicular

The Funicular: Humanity’s Quietly Desperate Uphill Climb
by “Correspondent at Large, Altitude Varies”

From the cliff-hugging cars of Valparaíso to the sweat-soaked rails of Hong Kong’s Peak Tram, the funicular is the planet’s most honest confession: we are tired, we are late, and gravity has won again. While diplomats haggle over carbon targets and billionaires race to exit the troposphere, the rest of us—billions strong—still queue for a glorified box on a string to haul us up a gradient we could, in theory, walk. Civilization, it turns out, is less a march of progress than a wheezing mechanical sigh.

The concept is elegantly medieval: two counterbalanced carriages yoked by cable, like a pair of drunk diplomats leaning on each other for balance. Yet the modern funicular has become a geopolitical Rorschach test. In Switzerland, they’re spotless and punctual, because nothing says “neutrality” like synchronized mountain climbing. In Naples, the Centrale funicular doubles as an unofficial referendum on municipal graft: will the brakes fail before the city budget does? Meanwhile, the new Cascais line outside Lisbon is marketed as “eco-mobility,” which is Portuguese for “we’ve run out of coast road and political will.”

Global finance has taken note. Private-equity tourists now circle aging systems like vultures wearing Patagonia. The 2023 acquisition of Pittsburgh’s Monongahela Incline by a Luxembourg fund—renamed “VertAscend Infrastructure Partners”—was celebrated as “unlocking synergies between heritage tourism and yield.” Translation: ticket prices tripled, Wi-Fi still doesn’t work, and the graffiti now comes with a QR code. On the Pacific Rim, Japanese conglomerates are exporting “Smart Funicular AI” that promises predictive maintenance and “emotional passenger analytics,” presumably so the car can apologize in advance for your vertigo.

Climate diplomats adore the things. At last year’s COP29 in Yerevan, delegates rode the Tsaghkadzor funicular to cocktail hour while debating methane leakage. The symbolism was delicious: a diesel-powered antique ferrying climate negotiators uphill to discuss decarbonization. A German delegate was overheard calling it “Schwarzfahrer Kabuki,” which loosely translates to “freeloading theater.” He wasn’t wrong: every delegate badge doubled as a free pass, proving once again that the best way to beat gravity is with a laminated credential.

Yet the broader significance is darker. The funicular is the rare transport mode that exposes class strata in real time. First-class cabins in Rio’s Sugarloaf system feature chilled champagne and a red carpet literally stapled to rock. Ten meters behind, the service carriage hauls kitchen waste and underpaid staff wearing the same fixed smile as the cable. Hong Kong’s Peak Tram now sells “Fast Track” tickets to tourists while domestic workers queue for the pleb carriage. If you listen closely, you can hear neoliberalism humming in the winch motor.

Refugees ride them too, though the brochures omit this. On Lesbos, an abandoned mining funicular has become an informal elevator for Afghans heading to night-shift farm labor, proving that even obsolete infrastructure can be repurposed for the gig economy. In Medellín, the Metrocable (a bastard offspring of the funicular and a ski lift) has become a UN case study in “social urbanism,” which is development-speak for “we ran out of flat land and patience.” The system works, mostly, unless it rains, in which case the motors short and passengers dangle like piñatas of municipal promise.

All of this returns us to a single, uncomfortable truth: the funicular is the ultimate metaphor for the 21st century. We are all, in some sense, strapped into a shared compartment, rising or descending together, pretending the cable won’t snap, pretending the summit is worth the fare. One day the motors will stop, the lights will flicker, and we will look out at the void between us and the next station. Until then, we ride, eyes forward, clutching our souvenir tickets like indulgences.

The doors are closing. Mind the gap—and the abyss.