Six months after crash, Lisbon’s heritage funiculars remain closed

On the 3rd of September last year, 16 people died after a crash on Lisbon’s Elevador da Glória funicular railway, operated by Carris. Six months later, all the heritage funiculars in the city remain closed, with no reopening expected yet. The Office for the Prevention and Investigation of Accidents in Civil Aviation and Rail (GPIAAF) is still analysing the situation. “The functional tests of the elevator components are already happening”, the GPIAAF office told RailTech.

A preliminary report, released a month and a half after the crash, denounced several failures, such as the lack of a redundant braking system and the unknown weight of the rail vehicle. The investigation started the day after the accident, in the field. The office wants to understand what caused the tragedy and avoid a similar situation in the future. There are two GPIAAF investigators in charge of the process.

The second investigator was only hired after the accident, following six months of waiting for the Governmental authorisation and after the office publicly acknowledged the lack of human resources. There is a ‘green light’ to hire a third expert, finally guaranteeing the minimum human resources necessary to conduct these high-level procedures.

Six months after the accident, the office is trying to understand how the maintenance procedures were applied over time, reconstitute the technical drawings of the funicular vehicle, and then run laboratory tests, in partnership with the University of Coimbra. The GPIAAF investigation, for preventive purposes only, is separated from the Judiciary Police process and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which might have some criminal components.

System evolution

Elevador da Glória (Gloria’s funicular) opened in 1885 under a water balance system, which lasted only one year. The following year, the vehicles became steam-powered, with a rack-and-pinion system for braking purposes. In 1914, the system was electrified; the rack was removed. Both cabins are connected by a cable, which balances their weight through a large-diameter pulley located at the top of Calçada da Glória in an underground technical compartment.

Unlike the most common system used in funiculars, this pulley is not powered to drive the cable and thus move the cabins. This is a “very rare, if not unique, variant of the type sometimes referred to in the literature as a self-propelled funicular”, according to GPIAAF’s preliminary report, released on October 20th.

In this system, each of the two cabins is equipped with two 18 kW electric motors, which, through the wheels and their adhesion to the rails, provide the necessary traction force to overcome the internal forces resisting movement and those resulting from the weight difference between the cabins, resulting from their respective passenger loads.

The system’s four motors (two in each cabin) are all electrically connected in series through overhead conductors through which the two cabins are in contact. This means that the two cabins and their haulage cable only start moving when the control system in each cabin is moved to the drive position by the respective brakeman.

A 20-second accident

On September 3rd, at 6.03 pm, three seconds after the departure, the haulage cable failed inside the trolley of cabin 1, coming from the top of Calçada da Glória. Since a funicular always depends on a counter-weight system, both cabins suddenly lost the balancing force provided by the connecting cable. For safety reasons, power was cut to both vehicles. Without mechanical and engine traction, cabin 2 rolled back abruptly from the bottom of Calçada da Glória. The brakeman (funicular’s driver) immediately activated the circuit breaker that engages the emergency brake, halting the cabin’s movement after approximately seven metres, following a partial overrun beyond the end of the track.

At the same time, cabin 1 continued its downward movement, suddenly increasing its speed. The brakeman did everything possible, immediately setting the traction control to zero and activating the pneumatic brake valve to its maximum setting. Nothing happened. Another three seconds later, the brakeman gave 12 full rotations on the manual wheel brake and applied downward pressure to keep it tightly engaged.

The impact of cabin 1 actions was minimal, since the acceleration slightly decreased. It is, the vehicle was still increasing speed down the slope. Approximately 180 metres after the start of its descent, at the beginning of the right-hand bend in the final section of the Calçada, the vehicle derailed due to its speed and the bend’s tight radius. The cabin completely lost its guidance and caused the accident: the impact occurred at a speed estimated to be between 41 and 49 km/h, only 20 seconds after the start of the movement.

Preliminary findings

On a railway-based system, accidents occur from a combination of several factors. The most immediate was the rupture of the haulage cable connecting the two cabins. The cable in place, however, “did not comply with the specification in force” at Carris for use on this funicular, because it could not be used with a swivel.

Investigators also found that the cable, first installed in December 2022, was “significantly more flexible and easier to handle”. During the installation and once the cable was subjected to the weight of the cabins, “it underwent a considerable elongation compared to its nominal length, requiring a 4.5-metre section to be cut off”, to ensure the cabins align correctly. Also, “the personnel involved did not have the technical expertise to identify the cable as being noncompliant with the specification”, said the preliminary report.

The technicians’ training process was also under scrutiny, since it was “based on on-the-job” procedures, with “no use of theoretical training or specific technical courses for the various types of equipment covered by the contracts”. Also, “knowledge had been passed down over the years from Carris technicians to the contractor’s workers, and subsequently between workers”.

Even if there were written procedures, known by workers, the execution of their tasks was based partly on the guidance transmitted directly by Carris supervisors, “rather than formal training based on written procedures”. Also, the maintenance procedures were not updated over the years, and the contractor did not have “a sufficiently qualified engineering team with the necessary technical knowledge or resources to develop, update, or adapt maintenance actions to operational realities”.

Unknown braking and weight

The lack of a redundancy system to break the cabin on the rail was one of the main questions that arose right after the accident. According to GPIAAF, “there are no known calculations regarding the braking capacity of the cabin’s brake systems”. Worse than this, “there was a perception that the safety of the system relied entirely on the cable”; it is, “the brake system was not capable of stopping the cabins without the cable link between them”.

The perception “was never formally translated into an organisational reassessment of the system’s overall safety conditions”. Such a situation “led to extremely strict monitoring of the cable’s use and condition, limiting its operational lifespan to 600 days – far below the typical service life of a funicular cable”, says the report. There is also “no recollection within Carris of the emergency brake having ever been tested in a scenario simulating cable failure”.

The vehicle’s weight is also unknown, even for operator Carris. With “conflicting documentation reporting their current weight as 14, 18 and 19 tonnes”, the investigators will weigh the cabin that escaped from the accident to determine its actual weight.

No supervision

In Portugal, the Mobility and Transport Institute (IMT) is the railway safety authority, which includes trains, light rail, metro and funicular trains. However, Lisbon’s heritage funiculars, such as Glória, Lavra and Bica, were only under the supervision of Carris, which was also their operator. IMT excluded itself from this task because the vehicles were built before January 1st, 1986, and were classified as national monuments.

An unusual situation, according to GPIAAF: “through contact with its counterparts in other European States or jurisdictions subject to the same rules, the situation in Portugal contrasts sharply with the reality in those States, where all funiculars are subject to compliance with technical rules and periodic supervision by national or regional authorities, regardless of their date of commissioning or historical interest”.

This issue will be fixed soon. Last January, the Portuguese Government demanded that IMT must supervise all the funiculars. The resolution, however, is not in force yet, since it was not officially published.

Independent evaluation

Since 3rd September 2025, all of Lisbon’s heritage funiculars have stopped, with the municipality demanding a safety and technical evaluation. Also in that month, an independent and technical commission was created, with experts from the Civil Engineering National Laboratory (LNEC), the Engineers Order, Higher Technical Institute (IST) and representatives from Carris and EMEL (Lisbon’s mobility enterprise, responsible for the modern Graça funicular).

After six months, however, there are no major updates. “The Commission keeps studying, testing and evaluating the heritage funiculars, towards its advisable reopening”, said Carris on statement from yesterday. In January, Carris signed a contract with IST to study the future of Lisbon’s heritage funiculars, develop a new technological system and model for Gloria’s Funicular and the safety validation for the remaining vehicles. Valid for at least six months, the contract can be extended up to three years from the signature date, according to the tender’s national database.

The contract was signed by the new Carris chairman, Rui Lopo, who started his mandate at the beginning of this year. The predecessor, Pedro Bogas, resigned two days after the release of the preliminary report.

Uncertain future

In the meantime, the funiculars were replaced by alternative small buses, serving Gloria’s, Lavra and Bica funiculars, Carris told RailTech. This is the only public transport alternative for people with limited mobility.

The reopening of the more modern Graça funicular is expected in April. This system was opened in 2024 and is equipped with the latest safety equipment, including a solution preventing any movement if the cable breaks: a rail brake enters into force if this occurs, and passengers can leave the cabin through a side stair. There is no forecast for reopening of the Gloria, Bica and Lavra funiculars.

Next September 3rd, a new report from GPIAAF will be published. Depending on the progress of the investigation, it can be an intermediate document or the final report to advise and prevent future tragedies.

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