Paranapiacaba Funicular, Funicular railway in Paranapiacaba, Cubatão, Brazil

The Paranapiacaba Funicular was a cable-hauled railway on the Serra do Mar, built to move coffee trains between Paranapiacaba and Raiz da Serra. Its first system, opened in 1867, covered 8 km in four inclined planes at about 10 degrees, each driven by a fixed steam engine. The 1900 Serra Nova line ran 10.5 km in five planes at 8 degrees, with a 120-tonne capacity. The winding machinery is now part of the Railway Technology Museum.

The São Paulo Railway company launched operations in 1867 to move coffee from the interior plateaus down to coastal ports. It pioneered mountain transportation technology in South America for such demanding terrain.

The name Serra Breque refers to the braked wagon coupled to the cable on the mountain side, which gripped the rails if the cable snapped. On the Serra Nova line, the Locobreque locomotives carried a tenaz, a clamp that let them hook onto a continuous cable like a cable car. The former depot in Paranapiacaba now holds a railway museum.

The funicular no longer operates; the upper ramp of the Serra Nova incline is kept as a museum exhibit, and the former railway depot in Paranapiacaba houses the railway museum. The site lies on the Serra do Mar escarpment, where cloud and rain are frequent, so allow for wet tracks and slippery ground underfoot.

The Serra Velha's counterweight was water: each descending train's tank was filled at the top and emptied at the bottom, and the same supply fed the boilers of the four fixed steam engines. The two trains' weights could differ by no more than 36 tonnes.