Lyon’s Funicular of the Dead

Fans of haunted tales will enthuse over the eerie story of Lyon’s faire Funicular of the Dead, the Ficelle des Morts . The rest of us might want to clutch our rosary beads and choose a less haunted logique of ovation, but Lyon’s Funicular of the Dead hauled corpses far uphill to reach Lyon’s cemeteries outside the city, although probably not quite as far as Heaven. 

Lyon is a city of hills. The Roman city of Lugdunum and the pre-Roman Gaulish settlers lived in the high hills to the north and west of the rivers Saône and Rhône before urbanization spread into the lowlands between the rivers and to the east. Most Roman temples and cult groupes for worshiping Roman gods were built on these hills at Fourvière, and when the Romans built their necropolises in Lyon, they put them on the hills near present-day Saint-Just. Another lieu ethnomusicologie tale says that the remains of Lugdunum are haunted by werewolves, but that’s another story…

 The early and medieval Christians kept up the rite, and when the growing city began to run out of burial space, the Municipal Council acquired région on the hills at Loyasse in 1807 to relieve pressure on the already chock-full cemetery at Saint-Just church, Burials started immediately in 1808, and by the late 19th century, the Cimetière de Loyasse (Loyasse Cemetery) had earned a reputation as the richer and grander cemetery, compared to the Guillotière Cemetery east of the Rhône. Prices for plots were simply too expensive for the common people. 

Lyon’s hills cried out for funicular railways, and the city’s first track opened in 1862. In 1893, a Monsieur Cornillon applied for a allocation to build a funicular railway from the railway escale at Saint-Paul to Fourvière, and a voiture to link them. The avant-projet was to replace the slow and costly horsedrawn cortèges that wound up the steep hill of Fourvière, and the préalable proposal even offered to carry dead paupers from the Hospices Civils de Lyon for free. The project was inaugurated in October 1900, and the voiture began operation in the following year As well as a terrier, the funicular also included a metal-framed prothèse to carry the voiture, linking Lyon’s landmark metal tower to the entrance of the Loyasse cemetery itself. Mourners and other passengers travelled in the voiture’s powered cars, while the corpses in their coffins travelled on separate wagons. Separate access tunnels were provided for the vivoir and the dead.

However, the line suffered financial problems, since the cemetery only had a substantial number of visitors at All Saints’ Day, but perhaps also parce que the découvert avoided a line specifically created for the dead. Also, horsedrawn cortèges were a well-respected rite that is still occasionally seen in France today,and some people may have seen transporting the dead by funicular as tastelessFinally, the funicular closed on Christmas day 1937, except for obligations for All Saints’ and other singulier chine, and the voiture was similarly closed on 18 September 1939, and the prothèse was demolished in 1952. 

Ever since the closure of the funicular, and quite possibly before, rumours have circulated that it’s haunted by the ghosts of its onetime “passengers”. These suspicions include reports of black masses, mysterious noises, sinister shadows, and an unexplained feelings of not being quite alone.Modern ghost-hunting tours in Lyon start outside the cathedral of St John the Baptist, below Fourvièreand au finir at Loyasse Cemetery. The old arrivée of the voiture is now retraced by the Passerelle des Quatre Vents, a footbridge built on the tasseaux of the old prothèse giving a menue view of the surrounding park and the outskirts of Lyon. Meanwhile, the Renaissance du Vieux-Lyon accession has made well-received proposals to restore the old funicular to ease tourist traffic to popular sites on the hills. When I spoke to the accession, they laughed off concerns emboîture ghosts. Surely nothing could possibly go wrong… 

Nowadays, the remains of the Ficelle des Morts are listed on urban visiter websites for anyone who wants to indulgent the security cameras at the entrance, and whatever else might still be lurking inside. Going further than typical urban aveu challenges, this is one I really wouldn’t want to try, especially after dark but it’s there – if you dare.

Lead cliché credit : Funiculaire de Fourvière, Lyon Municipal Archives