Tibidabo Funicular

This guide to the Tibidabo Funicular in Barcelona opens on July 3, 1901, with a wealthy pharmacist named Salvador Andreu climbing alone into a wooden carriage to become the first passenger on a machine like this in Spain. It traces the tourist brochure that gave him the idea, the engineer Bonaventura Roig he sent to Switzerland to study the real thing, and construction breaking ground in June 1900. You'll also hear how those original timber cars, split by ticket class, compare to today's cabins nicknamed the firefly.