The Overground Underground

One thing I wanted to see while we were in Lyon in July was the funicular underground railway. The railways were built to carry goods and passengers up the incredibly steep cliffs that suround old Lyon and are very early - the first was built in 1862. They start at ground level and climb a very steep ramp to enter the tunnel. For the people of Lyon that may be normal, but for me...

There were once five funicular lines, but only two exist now, a line climbing the Fourvière hill linking Saint-Jean to Saint-Just with an intermediate station at Minimes, and a line from Saint-Jean to the Basilica. Both lines were modernised in 1986 and 1987. A new station at Saint-Jean was built in 1991 to serve a new line of the Metro and both funicular lines, and the whole complex named Vieux-Lyon. The Fourvière funicular was refurbished at the start of 2018, and the St Just funicular at the start of 2019.

We rode on the line up to the Basilica. It isn't very long, only 404 metres (1,325 ft), but it climbs 116 metres (381 ft). There's only 2 stops, one at each end, and two cars. They balance each other out, so it's actually quite an efficient mode of transport. Each car carries 70 passengers, and the journey takes 2 minutes.

That's the facts, now for the pictures:

The train is at the station

The funicular crosses a bridge to enter the tunnel

The same view from inside

The mechanism that hauls the carriage up the hill

One thing we weren't expecting (so we didn't get any photos) is Roman artifacts in niches in the tunnel.