In 1885, Lisbon built a cable railway up one of its steepest streets; the Glória line later became a national monument and carried about 3 million passengers annually

For 140 years, two mustard-yellow cable cars ferried tourists and office workers up and down the same 275-metre stretch of cobblestone on one of the steepest hills in downtown Lisbon. That run ended in September 2025, when one of those cars derailed mid-descent, crashed into a building, and killed 16 people. But the cause was not something bound to happen with 140-year-old engineering; it was a steel cable that had been installed less than a year earlier, was not certified for use on public transport, and was not fitted according to the manufacturer's own instructions, according to a 2025 CNN report citing the official preliminary investigation. Old bones didn't kill the Glória. A shortcut in modern times did.

A solution to a 19th-century dilemma