Douglas Head Funicular Railway was a short line consisting of two cars that ran from the foot of Douglas Head on the Isle of Man, to a site near to the Camera Obscura on the head itself. It was installed in 1896, at a time when the island was rapidly expanding as a holiday destination, and finally closed in 1954, by which time the amount of attractions on the headland had dwindled considerably. The line was operated by two "toastrack" type cars over two tracks, whereby as one ascended the other descended and vice versa. Nothing of this line remains today but the trackbed, which is clearly discernible from the bottom terminus, which once housed a penny amusement arcade, and is now a small car park and turning bay.
Famous quotes containing the words douglas, head and/or railway:
“If you want to know about a man you can find out an awful lot by looking at who he married.”
—Kirk Douglas (b. 1916)
“Piece by piece I seem
to re-enter the world: I first began
a small, fixed dot, still see
that old myself, a dark-blue thumbtack
pushed into the scene,
a hard little head protruding
from the pointillist’s buzz and bloom.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)