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48-469: This cable car replaced the original Eibsee Cable Car which closed on 2 April 2017 leaving no service for eight and a half months (access to Zugspitze was still possible via the rack railway and the Gletscherbahn Cable Car). The original Eibsee Cable Car, which opened in 1963, was a cable car which connected the lower station (973 metres or 3,192 feet above sea level ) near lake Eibsee with

96-472: A grip on the cars was the Fawdon Wagonway in 1826, a colliery railway line . The London and Blackwall Railway , which opened for passengers in east London , England, in 1840 used such a system. The rope available at the time proved too susceptible to wear and the system was abandoned in favour of steam locomotives after eight years. In America, the first cable car installation in operation probably

144-422: A cable-pulled street tramway with detachable vehicles (e.g., San Francisco's cable cars ). As such, careful phrasing is necessary to prevent confusion. It is also sometimes called a ropeway or even incorrectly referred to as a gondola lift . A gondola lift has cabins suspended from a continuously circulating cable whereas aerial trams simply shuttle back and forth on cables. In Japan, the two are considered as

192-482: A car would leave the terminal every 15 seconds. A few funicular railways operate in street traffic, and because of this operation are often incorrectly described as cable cars. Examples of such operation, and the consequent confusion, are: Even more confusingly, a hybrid cable car/funicular line once existed in the form of the original Wellington Cable Car , in the New Zealand city of Wellington . This line had both

240-516: A combined goods and passenger carrying cableway was installed at Gibraltar . Initially, its passengers were military personnel. An 1893 industry publication said of a two-mile system in Hong Kong that it "is the only wire tramway which has been erected exclusively for the carriage of individuals" (albeit workmen). After the pioneer cable car suitable for public transport on Mount Ulia in 1907 ( San Sebastián , Spain ) by Leonardo Torres Quevedo and

288-492: A continuous loop haulage cable that the cars gripped using a cable car gripper, and a balance cable permanently attached to both cars over an undriven pulley at the top of the line. The descending car gripped the haulage cable and was pulled downhill, in turn pulling the ascending car (which remained ungripped) uphill by the balance cable. This line was rebuilt in 1979 and is now a standard funicular, although it retains its old cable car name. The best-known existing cable car system

336-510: A period, economics worked in favour of cable cars even in relatively flat cities. For example, the Chicago City Railway , also designed by Eppelsheimer, opened in Chicago in 1882 and went on to become the largest and most profitable cable car system . As with many cities, the problem in flat Chicago was not one of incline, but of transportation capacity. This caused a different approach to

384-458: A system in that its cars are not permanently attached to the cable and can stop independently, whereas a funicular has cars that are permanently attached to the propulsion cable, which is itself stopped and started. A cable car cannot climb as steep a grade as a funicular, but many more cars can be operated with a single cable, making it more flexible, and allowing a higher capacity. During the rush hour on San Francisco's Market Street Railway in 1883,

432-534: A third moving rope provides propulsion. With this form of lift, the grip of an aerial tramway cabin is fixed onto the propulsion rope and cannot be decoupled from it during operations. In comparison to gondola lifts , aerial tramways generally provide lower line capacities and longer wait times. Cable car is the usual term in British English, where tramway generally refers to a railed street tramway . In American English, cable car may additionally refer to

480-421: Is a type of cable railway used for mass transit in which rail cars are hauled by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed. Individual cars stop and start by releasing and gripping this cable as required. Cable cars are distinct from funiculars , where the cars are permanently attached to the cable. The first cable-operated railway, employing a moving rope that could be picked up or released by

528-479: Is due to the economy of centrally located power stations, and the ability of descending cars to transfer energy to ascending cars. However, this advantage is totally negated by the relatively large energy consumption required to simply move the cable over and under the numerous guide rollers and around the many sheaves . Approximately 95% of the tractive effort in the San Francisco system is expended in simply moving

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576-625: Is in Sussex, England. It was built to connect a newly opened clay pit to the local railway station and opened in 1885. There are aerial tramways with double deck cabins. The Vanoise Express cable car carries 200 people in each cabin at a height of 380 m (1,247 ft) over the Ponturin gorge in France. The Shinhotaka Ropeway carries 121 people in each cabin at Mount Hotaka in Japan. The CabriO cable car to

624-425: Is not possible to operate the system with one gondola as each gondola counter-balances the other. Installing a temporary counter-weight would necessitate recertification of the system. This was a previously unknown failure scenario and has required other similar aerial tramway systems to review their safety assessments. In particular: to devise a method by which the rescue vehicle is restrained while being lowered onto

672-573: Is often known as the Hallidie Cable Car . In 1881 the Dunedin cable tramway system opened in Dunedin , New Zealand and became the first such system outside San Francisco. For Dunedin, George Smith Duncan further developed the Hallidie model, introducing the pull curve and the slot brake; the former was a way to pull cars through a curve, since Dunedin's curves were too sharp to allow coasting, while

720-416: Is relatively constant depending on the number of units gripping the cable at any given time. The cable car begins moving when a clamping device attached to the car, called a grip , applies pressure to ("grip") the moving cable. Conversely, the car is stopped by releasing pressure on the cable (with or without completely detaching) and applying the brakes. This gripping and releasing action may be manual, as

768-750: Is the San Francisco cable car system in the city of San Francisco, California . San Francisco's cable cars constitute the oldest and largest such system in permanent operation, and it is one of the few still functioning in the traditional manner, with manually operated cars running in street traffic. Other examples of cable powered systems can be found on the Great Orme in North Wales, and in Lisbon in Portugal. All of these however are slightly different to San Francisco in that

816-449: Is used in a funicular railway. The two passenger or cargo cabins, which carry from 4 to over 150 people, are situated at opposite ends of the loops of cable. Thus, while one is coming up, the other is going down the mountain, and they pass each other midway on the cable span . Some aerial trams have only one cabin , which lends itself better for systems with small elevation changes along the cable run. The first design of an aerial lift

864-617: The Rakavlit cable car in Haifa, Israel and the Portland Aerial Tram are examples where this technology has been successfully adapted for public transport purposes. The telpherage concept was first publicised in 1883 and several experimental lines were constructed. It was designed to compete not with railways, but with horses and carts. The first commercial telpherage line was in Glynde , which

912-662: The Wetterhorn Elevator ( Grindelwald , Switzerland) in 1908, others to the top of high peaks in the Alps of Austria, Germany and Switzerland resulted. They were much less expensive to build than the earlier rack railway . One of the first trams was at Chamonix , while others in Switzerland, and Garmisch soon followed. From this, it was a natural transposition to build ski lifts and chairlifts. The first cable car in North America

960-417: The cabins while the haulage rope, by means of a grip, is solidly connected to the truck (the wheel set that rolls on the track cables). An electric motor drives the haulage rope which provides propulsion . Aerial tramways are constructed as reversible systems ; vehicles shuttling back and forth between two end terminals and propelled by a cable loop which stops and reverses direction when the cabins arrive at

1008-535: The cable, the Minimetro system from Poma /Leitner Group and the Cable Liner system from DCC Doppelmayr Cable Car both have variants that allow the cars to be automatically decoupled from the cable under computer control, and can thus be considered a modern interpretation of the cable car. The cable is itself powered by a stationary engine or motor situated in a cable house or power house. The speed at which it moves

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1056-402: The cable. Because of the constant and relatively low speed, a cable car's potential to cause harm in an accident can be underestimated. Even with a cable car traveling at only 14 km/h (9 mph), the mass of the cable car and the combined strength and speed of the cable can cause extensive damage in a collision. A cable car is superficially similar to a funicular , but differs from such

1104-415: The car. As many early cable car operators discovered the hard way, if the grip is not applied properly, it can damage the cable, or even worse, become entangled in the cable. In the latter case, the cable car may not be able to stop and can wreak havoc along its route until the cable house realizes the mishap and halts the cable. One apparent advantage of the cable car is its relative energy efficiency. This

1152-501: The cars into and out of the terminals. After 1896 the system was changed to one on which a motor car was added to each train to maneuver at the terminals, while en route, the trains were still propelled by the cable. On 25 September 1883, a test of a cable car system was held by Liverpool Tramways Company in Kirkdale , Liverpool . This would have been the first cable car system in Europe, but

1200-449: The cheaper to construct and simpler to operate electrically -powered trolley or tram started to become the norm, and eventually started to replace existing cable car systems. For a while hybrid cable/electric systems operated, for example in Chicago where electric cars had to be pulled by grip cars through the loop area, due to the lack of trolley wires there. Eventually, San Francisco became

1248-483: The combination of grip car and trailer. Rather than using a grip car and single trailer, as many cities did, or combining the grip and trailer into a single car, like San Francisco's California Cars , Chicago used grip cars to pull trains of up to three trailers. In 1883 the New York and Brooklyn Bridge Railway was opened, which had a most curious feature: though it was a cable car system, it used steam locomotives to get

1296-413: The company decided against implementing it. Instead, the distinction went to the 1884 Highgate Hill Cable Tramway , a route from Archway to Highgate , north London, which used a continuous cable and grip system on the 1 in 11 (9%) climb of Highgate Hill. The installation was not reliable and was replaced by electric traction in 1909. Other cable car systems were implemented in Europe, though, among which

1344-706: The company operating the rack railway and most cable cars, gondola lifts and chairlifts in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen area. It is thus possible to make round trips using both the rack railway and the cable car. On the Austrian side, there is the Tyrolean Zugspitze Cable Car which starts at Ehrwald and meets the Seilbahn Zugspitze at the top. The technical details of the Eibsee Cable Car and

1392-434: The end stations. Aerial tramways differ from gondola lifts in that gondola lifts are considered continuous systems (cabins attached onto a circulating haul rope that moves continuously). Two-car tramways use a jig-back system: a large electric motor is located at the bottom of the tramway so that it effectively pulls one cabin down, using that cabin's weight to help pull the other cabin up. A similar system of cables

1440-417: The four cables at 15.3 km/h (9.5 mph). Electric cars with regenerative braking do offer the advantages, without the problem of moving a cable. In the case of steep grades, however, cable traction has the major advantage of not depending on adhesion between wheels and rails . There is also the advantage that keeping the car gripped to the cable will also limit the downhill speed of the car to that of

1488-529: The latter forced a wedge down into the cable slot to stop the car. Both of these innovations were generally adopted by other cities, including San Francisco. In Australia, the Melbourne cable tramway system operated from 1885 to 1940. It was one of the most extensive in the world with 1200 trams and trailers operating over 15 routes with 103 km (64 miles) of track. Sydney also had a couple of cable tram routes. Cable cars rapidly spread to other cities, although

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1536-422: The major attraction for most was the ability to displace horsecar (or mule -drawn) systems rather than the ability to climb hills. Many people at the time viewed horse-drawn transit as unnecessarily cruel, and the fact that a typical horse could work only four or five hours per day necessitated the maintenance of large stables of draft animals that had to be fed, housed, groomed, medicated and rested. Thus, for

1584-489: The only street-running manually operated system to survive – Dunedin, the second city with such cars, was also the second-last city to operate them, closing down in 1957. In the last decades of the 20th-century, cable traction in general has seen a limited revival as automatic people movers , used in resort areas, airports (for example, Toronto Airport ), huge hospital centers and some urban settings. While many of these systems involve cars permanently attached to

1632-404: The replacement Seilbahn Zugspitze are summarised in the following table. On 12 September 2018, during an emergency training exercise, the chain of the chain hoist used to lower the rescue vehicle onto the running ropes broke dropping the vehicle onto the ropes before the hoisting rope could be attached. Consequently, the rescue vehicle ran down the ropes unrestrained into the passenger gondola that

1680-400: The running ropes rather than afterwards . 47°27′21.86″N 10°59′30.25″E  /  47.4560722°N 10.9917361°E  / 47.4560722; 10.9917361 Aerial tramway An aerial tramway , aerial tram , sky tram , aerial cablecar , aerial cableway , telepherique , or seilbahn is a type of aerial lift which uses one or two stationary ropes for support while

1728-469: The same category of vehicle and called ropeway , while the term cable car refers to both grounded cable cars and funiculars . An aerial railway where the vehicles are suspended from a fixed track (as opposed to a cable) is known as a suspension railway . An aerial tramway consists of one or two fixed cables (called track cables ), one loop of cable (called a haulage rope ), and one or two passenger or cargo cabins. The fixed cables provide support for

1776-591: The second cable lift, this newer version equipped with iron wire cable. Tramways are sometimes used in mountainous regions to carry ore from a mine located high on the mountain to an ore mill located at a lower elevation. Ore tramways were common in the early 20th century at the mines in North and South America. One can still be seen in the San Juan Mountains of the US state of Colorado . Another famous use of aerial tramways

1824-476: The summit of the Stanserhorn in Switzerland carries 60 persons, with the upper floor accommodating 30 people in the open air. Despite the introduction of various safety measures (back-up power generators, evacuation plans, etc.) there have been several serious incidents on aerial tramways, some of which were fatal. Cable car (railway) A cable car (usually known as a cable tram outside North America)

1872-557: The top station at 2,950 metres (9,678 ft) above sea level next to the summit of Zugspitze , Germany 's highest mountain on the border to Austria . The cable car from Lake Eibsee was built to provide a faster access to the Zugspitze from its German side, as the rack railway from Garmisch-Partenkirchen does not go directly to the summit and takes much longer. Both the original Eibsee Cable Car and its replacement Seilbahn Zugspitze belong to Bayerische Zugspitzbahn Bergbahn AG ,

1920-612: The world market: Doppelmayr Garaventa Group , Leitner Group, and Poma , the last two being owned by one person. Some aerial tramways have their own propulsion , such as the Lasso Mule or the Josef Mountain Aerial Tramway near Merano , Italy . While typically used for ski resorts, aerial tramways have been ported over for usage in the urban environment in recent times. The Roosevelt Island Tramway in New York City,

1968-429: Was approximately 280 m (919 ft) below the mountain station. As both the rescue vehicle and the gondola were empty during the exercise, nobody was hurt. The gondola was damaged beyond repair (there is no information on the fate of the rescue vehicle, but there is no indication that a replacement is required). The tramway remained closed until a replacement gondola was available. It reopened on 21 December 2018. It

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2016-477: Was at Cannon Mountain in Franconia, New Hampshire in 1938. Many aerial tramways were built by Von Roll Ltd. of Switzerland, which has since been acquired by Austrian lift manufacturer Doppelmayr . Other German, Swiss, and Austrian firms played an important role in the cable car business: Bleichert , Heckel, Pohlig, PHB (Pohlig-Heckel-Bleichert), Garaventa and Waagner-Biró. Now there are three groups dominating

2064-580: Was at the Kennecott Copper mine in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park , Alaska . Other firms entered the mining tramway business—Otto, Leschen, Breco Ropeways Ltd., Ceretti and Tanfani, and Riblet for instance. A major British contributor was Bullivant who became a constituent of British Ropes in 1924. In the beginning of the 20th century, the rise of the middle class and the leisure industry allowed for investment in sight-seeing machines. Prior to 1893,

2112-533: Was by Croatian polymath Fausto Veranzio and the first operational aerial tram was built in 1644 by Adam Wybe in Gdańsk , Poland. It was moved by horses and used to move soil over the river to build defences. It is called the first known cable lift in European history and precedes the invention of steel cables. It is not known how long this lift was used. In any case, it would be another 230 years before Germany would get

2160-509: Was issued U.S. patent 97,343 . Other cable cars to use grips were those of the Clay Street Hill Railroad , which later became part of the San Francisco cable car system . The building of this line was promoted by Andrew Smith Hallidie with design work by William Eppelsheimer , and it was first tested in 1873. The success of these grips ensured that this line became the model for other cable car transit systems, and this model

2208-741: Was the Glasgow District Subway , the first underground cable car system, in 1896. ( London , England's first deep-level tube railway, the City & South London Railway , had earlier also been built for cable haulage but had been converted to electric traction before opening in 1890.) A few more cable car systems were built in the United Kingdom , Portugal , and France . European cities, having many more curves in their streets, were ultimately less suitable for cable cars than American cities. Though some new cable car systems were still being built, by 1890

2256-522: Was the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway in New York City , as its first-ever elevated railway which ran from 1 July 1868 to 1870. The cable technology used in this elevated railway involved collar-equipped cables and claw-equipped cars, proving cumbersome. The line was closed and rebuilt, reopening with steam locomotives . In 1869 P. G. T. Beauregard demonstrated a cable car at New Orleans and

2304-420: Was the case in all early cable car systems, or automatic, as is the case in some recent cable operated people mover type systems. Gripping must be applied evenly and gradually in order to avoid bringing the car to cable speed too quickly and unacceptably jarring passengers. In the case of manual systems, the grip resembles a very large pair of pliers , and considerable strength and skill are required to operate

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