Devon's Unique Funicular Railway
CREDIT: © Michel Azéa/Funimag.com
WHERE: Lynmouth-Linton, Devon, England. WHAT: water powered funicular railway.
MAP: Lynmouth-Linton. Thumbnail pops-up larger image from source web site.

The Boscastle floods, seen in yesterday's item, reminded many of earlier events in the neighboring county of Devon. More than half a century before in 1952, similarly in the middle of August, a devastating flood of the same kind hit the village of Lynmouth. Pages from the [1] BBC, [2] David Huxtable, and the [3] Exmoor National Park Authority cover the disaster. Both floods were particularly shocking, because such events are unusual for the UK terrain and weather.

Today we visit an interesting engineering attraction that connects Lynmouth with its twin village of Linton, which sits six hundred feet above on the top of the cliff.

Michel Azéa claims his Funimag.com is the world's first web magazine about funiculars. We visited the Lynton & Lynmouth Cliff Railway presentation to find out about this unique subtractively water powered funicular railway. Regular readers will by know by now how much we like sites that give in-depth coverage, and Michel's presentation is both satisfyingly comprehensive and finely detailed.

Funimag.com has pictures of the furnicular cars, track, operating equipment, local area, staff, passengers, and a map. Technical specifications and an explanation in layman's terms of how it works, complete with graphic illustration, round out the presentation. The detail that tickled us was that the two sets of tracks are laid so close together that a spread apart is necessary where the cars pass one the other.

There is also an official site.

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