Angels Flight Cars to Be Stored at Warehouse

With the investigation of the fatal Angeles Flight accident focusing on mechanical failure, investigators moved Wednesday to lift the two antique cable cars from their Bunker Hill tracks and truck them to a warehouse.

A huge, 150-ton overhead crane was brought from Long Beach and outfitted with special sling devices to hoist the cars onto flatbed trucks, said Ted Turpin, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator. The operation was expected to be completed this morning.

John H. Welborne, president of the Angels Flight Railway Foundation, said the state Public Utilities Commission and the national safety board cleared the cars for removal and storage at a warehouse in the 1300 block of 6th Street downtown.

“The cars were ruled out as a cause, and so they are being protected from the elements and anything else,” such as vandalism, Welborne said. “They are going to be secured, and put in a warehouse.”

The cars had not been moved since the accident last Thursday on the historic railway, which reopened in 1996.

“We are focusing on the mechanical area,” the so-called power house, Turpin said. “We are still tearing parts apart, pieces apart, and looking inside.”

One item the investigators intend to examine is a huge gear housing. “We hope to be tearing it apart soon and looking into the guts of the machine,” he said.

A small group Wednesday watched workers prepare the cars for removal. Among them was Michael Perez, a state employee who was one of the first on the accident scene.

Perez, 40, said he couldn’t sleep for two days after the crash and has returned to the scene every day since.

When the upper car rushed backward into the car below it, Perez was having lunch at Grand Central Market across Hill Street from the funicular.

“We heard the impact and people screaming,” he said. Eight people on the two cars were injured, and one, 83-year-old Leon Praport, died soon afterward.

Perez said he can’t shake the memory of looking into Praport’s eyes or his pleas to be close to his wife, Lola, 80. The couple, from Old Bridge, N.J., were in Los Angeles to celebrate their 54th anniversary.

“Leon, I think he knew he was critically ill,” Perez said. “He wanted to hold his wife. I was able to put both their hands together.”