Heaven-Sent : Heritage: Groundbreaking ceremony at Bunker Hill celebrates the planned restoration of Angel’s Flight, ‘the shortest railway in the world,’ which has been closed since 1969.

Linda Valles became teary-eyed Thursday just seeing the orange-and-black Olivet, a wooden cable car from the Angel’s Flight funicular she often rode as a teen-ager.

“When I see it here, I almost cry because of all the memories. A lot of memories. A lot of fun,” said Valles, a 68-year-old retired hospital worker who grew up on Bunker Hill. She was distraught, she recalled, when the inclined railway was dismantled in May, 1969, in the Downtown Los Angeles redevelopment fever that also destroyed her childhood home.

“We hated to see Angel’s Flight go, but now here it is again,” she said Thursday at a groundbreaking ceremony for a $4-million restoration of the two-car system. Valles said she expects to shed tears of joy during her first ride when the shuttle--”God willing”-- resumes its 315-foot climb from Hill Street in mid-1996.

It’s been a quarter-century wait, littered with delays, red tape, real estate squabbles and money woes. But officials promised that this time, unlike so many others in the past, what Angelenos once called “the shortest railroad in the world” is indeed coming back.

The original cars--the Olivet and the Sinai--were in storage all these years, along with the station house and the archway of the lower entry. The cars, named after mountains in the Holy Land, will be restored, as will those structures. New tracks, supports and cables will be installed between 3rd and 4th streets, about half a block south of the original 1901 location. The Olivet, looking a little battered Thursday, was on display during a ceremony that attracted about 250 people.

The CRA is the main financial backer, using tax funds generated by construction of Bunker Hill skyscrapers that first displaced the beloved funicular. City officials hope that Angel’s Flight will be a major tourist attraction and a link between the isolated corporate hilltop and Downtown’s more economically troubled flatlands. Pueblo Contracting Services is the project builder and Harris & Associates is the project manager.

In addition, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has given the project $785,000, expecting that Angel’s Flight will take riders from the 4th Street subway station up to California Plaza.

Roland Welton, 75, a resident of the nearby Angelus Plaza senior citizen apartments, was showing off his collection of Angel’s Flight tickets he saved and attached to a sketchbook. “I decided to keep the tickets because one day, I thought it would be back, and that day has finally come,” said the retired janitor and seaman, who last rode the funicular two days before it closed and wants to be among the first passengers next year.

Guillermo Acosta, a fifth-grader at the 49th Street Elementary School whose class helped with the artwork for Thursday’s ceremony, is anxiously awaiting his first ride.

“I want to feel what it’s like when you are going up and going down,” Guillermo said. “I think it will be cool.”