Ascensor El Peral

Ascensor El Peral connects Plaza Justicia with Paseo Yugoslavo, lifting passengers thirty-nine meters up the slope of Cerro Alegre. Two cars run on two rail tracks: one rises while the other descends, helping it with its weight. Brick from the old intendant’s office, demolished on Sotomayor Square, was used in the line’s foundation. The steam engine has long given way to another motor, and during the restoration workers replaced the rails and sleepers, reinforced the supports, and made an emergency staircase.

On December seventh, nineteen oh one, residents who had to climb this slope on foot every day gathered at the foot of Cerro Alegre. At four o’clock in the afternoon, Fernando Edwards and Juan Segundo Naylor opened a funicular here. Edwards pressed for the project to be carried out, while Naylor, who headed Sociedad Ascensores Cerro Alegre, was responsible for building the line. For their private enterprise, the ascent was an investment: its costs were to be recovered through fares.

The calculation relied on the neighbors. Foreign merchants, entrepreneurs, and specialists lived on Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción, while their offices and business remained below, near the port and the financial streets. Houses were already climbing the slope, but there was no direct transport to Plaza Justicia. Edwards and Naylor chose a short route fifty-five meters long: one car goes up while the other descends at the same time and serves as its counterweight.

Earlier funiculars in Valparaíso were powered by water, which was filled into tanks and drained away. Ascensor El Peral became the city’s first lift with a steam engine. Balfour, Lyon & Co. installed it. Material for the supports was available very nearby: bricks from the old intendant’s office, demolished on Sotomayor Square a year earlier. From the rubble of the administrative building, Edwards and Naylor assembled the foundation of the transport line.

The next day, El Mercurio de Valparaíso reported that the opening had taken place with particular enthusiasm among those who were to use the lift. The residents of Cerro Alegre did indeed provide its passengers, and after Ascensor El Peral, Naylor continued designing funiculars for other hills. His bet on paid ascents became his profession; for city residents, the route between home and the business center was reduced to one ride.

Ascensor El Peral is named after the slope along which the line runs. The cars are different now, and the engine has long since ceased to be steam-powered. During the restoration from nineteen fifteen to two thousand sixteen, workers replaced the rails and sleepers, repaired the supports, and built an emergency staircase. The connection chosen by Edwards and Naylor remains: the lower station is by Plaza Justicia, and the upper one is by today’s Paseo Yugoslavo, thirty-nine meters higher.