Bridgnorth Cliff Railway / Castle Hill Funicular Railway, Bridgnorth, Shropshire, England - Sep 2013

Bridgnorth is a small town on the River Severn in the glorious County of Shropshire in the Midlands of England. It is the northern terminus of the iconic Severn Valley Railway. The river at this point has steep sandstone cliffs and the town is on two levels. In 1891 the townsfolk decided to build a funicular railway to link the Low Town with the High Town, a vertical rise of 34 m (111ft) and a distance of 61m (201 ft). The incline is 33.52% (1:81) making it the steepest inland funicular railway in Great Britain. It operates two cars on parallel tracks which are connected by steel ropes and counterbalance each other. When the railway was built it was driven by a system of water balance with each car carrying water ballast in a tank beneath it but nowadays the railway is powered by an electric winding engine.