‘Angels Flight’, the 90-metre rail line featured in ‘La La Land’, is running again in Los Angeles

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A pedestrian walks a steep flight of stairs next to the Angels Flight railroad in downtown Los Angeles. The 298-foot funicular, closed since a 2013 derailment, reopened on Thursday, August 31, just in time to ferry thousands of holiday weekend visitors up and down downtown's steep Bunker Hill, something it first did on New Year's Eve 1901. Photo: AP

Published: 4:46am, 1 Sep 2017Updated: 4:47am, 1 Sep 2017

Angels Flight, the beloved little railroad that’s almost as much a symbol of Los Angeles as the Hollywood Sign, began pulling people toward the heavens and back down again on Thursday after four years of idleness triggered by a 2013 derailment.

Mayor Eric Garcetti and other supporters and admirers of the funky little funicular turned out on a blazingly hot downtown morning to see the train’s two wooden antique cars, Olivet and Sinai, officially return to service.

“This is a railway that always had a little engine that could,” Garcetti said of the 116-year-old railway that stretches only 298 feet (90 metres) up downtown’s stunningly steep Bunker Hill. “It is one of the last relics of Victorian Los Angeles, an iconic LA landmark and it’s right up there with the Griffith Park Observatory and the Hollywood Sign.”

He added that just like those landmarks it’s made frequent cameo appearances in movies, including last year’s Oscar-nominated film “La La Land” when Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling climbed aboard for a romantic ride.

The Angels Flight railroad in downtown Los Angeles. Photo: AP

Later, with a thumb’s up, Garcetti led a small delegation of officials and long-time riders onto the train and up the hill. A few minutes later he returned in the other car.