Cable transport is a broad class of
transport modes that have
cables. They transport passengers and goods, often in vehicles called cable cars. The cable may be driven or passive, and items may be moved by pulling, sliding, sailing, or by drives within the object being moved on cableways. The use of
pulleys and balancing of loads moving up and down are common elements of cable transport. They are often used in mountainous areas where cable haulage can overcome large differences in elevation.
Rope-drawn transport dates back to 250 BC as evidenced by illustrations of aerial ropeway transportation systems in
South China.[12][13]
Early aerial tramways
The first recorded mechanical ropeway was by Venetian
Fausto Veranzio who designed a bi-cable passenger ropeway in 1616. The industry generally considers Dutchman
Adam Wybe to have built the first operational system in 1644. The technology, which was further developed by the people living in the Alpine regions of Europe, progressed and expanded with the advent of wire rope and electric drive.[14]
The first use of
wire rope for aerial tramways is disputed. American inventor
Peter Cooper is one early claimant, constructing an aerial tramway using wire rope in
Baltimore 1832, to move
landfill materials. Though there is only partial evidence for the claimed 1832 tramway, Cooper was involved in many of such tramways built in the 1850s, and in 1853 he built a two-mile-long tramway to transport
iron ore to his
blast furnaces at
Ringwood, New Jersey.[15]
World War I motivated extensive use of
military tramways for warfare between Italy and Austria.[14]
During the industrial revolution, new forms of cable-hauled transportation systems were created including the use of steel cable to allow for greater load support and larger systems.
Aerial tramways were first used for commercial passenger haulage in the 1900s.[12]
The first cable railways
The earliest form of
cable railway was the gravity incline, which in its simplest form consists of two parallel
tracks laid on a steep gradient, with a single rope wound around a winding drum and connecting the trains of
wagons on the tracks. Loaded wagons at the top of the incline are lowered down, their weight hauling empty wagons from the bottom. The winding drum has a
brake to control the rate of travel of the wagons. The first use of a gravity incline isn't recorded, but the
Llandegai Tramway at
Bangor in North
Wales was opened in 1798, and is one of the earliest examples using iron rails.[16]
The first cable-hauled street railway was the
London and Blackwall Railway, built in 1840, which used fibre to grip the haulage rope. This caused a series of technical and safety issues, which led to the adoption of
steam locomotives by 1848.[17]
The next development of the
cable car came in California.
Andrew Hallidie, a Scottish emigre, gave
San Francisco the first effective and commercially successful route, using steel cables, opening the
Clay Street Hill Railroad on August 2, 1873.[20] Hallidie was a manufacturer of steel cables. The system featured a human-operated grip, which was able to start and stop the car safely. The rope that was used allowed the multiple, independent cars to run on one line, and soon Hallidie's concept was extended to multiple lines in San Francisco.[21]
The first cable railway outside the
United Kingdom and the United States was the
Roslyn Tramway, which opened in 1881, in
Dunedin,
New Zealand. America remained the country that made the greatest use of cable railways; by 1890 more than 500 miles of cable-hauled track had been laid, carrying over 1,000,000 passengers per year. However, in 1890, electric tramways exceeded the cable hauled tramways in mileage, efficiency and speed.[22]
A steam-powered toboggan tow, 950 feet (290 m) in length, was built in
Truckee, California, in 1910.[24] The first skier-specific tow in North America was apparently installed in 1933 by Alec Foster at
Shawbridge in the
Laurentians outside
Montreal,
Quebec.[25]
The modern J-bar and T-bar mechanism was invented in 1934 by the Swiss engineer Ernst Constam,[26][27] with the first lift installed in
Davos, Switzerland.[28]
The first chairlift was developed by
James Curran in 1936. The co-owner of the
Union Pacific Railroad,
William Averell Harriman owned America's first ski resort,
Sun Valley, Idaho. He asked his design office to tackle the problem of lifting skiers to the top of the resort. Curran, a Union Pacific bridge designer, adapted a cable hoist he had designed for loading bananas in
Honduras to create the first
ski lift.[29]
More recent developments
More recent developments are being classified under the type of track that their design is based upon.[citation needed] After the success of this operation, several other projects were initiated in
New Zealand and
Chicago. The social climate around pollution is allowing for a shift from cars back to the utilization of cable transport due to their advantages.[30] However, for many years they were a niche form of transportation used primarily in difficult-to-operate conditions for cars (such as on ski slopes as lifts). Now that cable transport projects are on the increase, the social effects are beginning to become more significant.[31]
In 2018 the highest 3S cablecar has been inaugurated in
Zermatt,
Switzerland after more than two years of construction. This cablecar is also called the "Matterhorn Glacier ride" and it allows passengers to reach the top of the
Klein Matterhorn mountain (3883m)[32]
When compared to trains and cars, the volume of people to transport over time and the start-up cost of the project must be a consideration. In areas with extensive road networks, personal vehicles offer greater flexibility and range. Remote places like mountainous regions and ski slopes may be difficult to link with roads, making cable transport project a much easier approach. A cable transport project system may also need fewer invasive changes to the local environment.
The use of Cable Transport is not limited to such rural locations as skiing resorts; it can be used in urban development areas. Their uses in urban areas include
funicular railways,[33]gondola lifts,[34] and
aerial tramways.[35]
Safety
Accidents
A
cable car accident in Cavalese, Italy, on 9 March 1976 is considered the worst aerial lift accident in history. The car crashed off the rails and fell 200 meters down a mountainside, also crashing through a grassy meadow before coming to a halt. The tragedy caused the death of 43 people, and four lift officials were jailed for charges regarding the accident.[36]
On April 15, 1978, a cable car at
Squaw Valley Ski Resort in California came off from one of its cables, dropping 75 feet (23 m) and violently bouncing up. It collided with a cable which sheared through the car. Four people were killed and 31 injured.[37]
The
Singapore cable car crash of 29 January 1983 occurred when a drilling rig passed beneath the cable car system linking the Singapore mainland with
Sentosa island. The derrick of the drilling rig aboard the ship MV Eniwetok struck the cables, causing two of the gondolas to fall into the sea below. There were 7 fatalities.
On February 3, 1998,
twenty people died in Cavalese, Italy, when a
United States Marine CorpsEA-6B Prowler aircraft, while flying too low, against regulations, cut a cable supporting a gondola of an
aerial tramway. Those killed, 19 passengers and one operator, were eight Germans, five Belgians, three Italians, two Poles, one Austrian, and one Dutch.[38] The United States refused to have the four Marines tried under Italian law and later
court-martialed two of them with minimal charges in their country.
The
Kaprun disaster was a fire that occurred in an ascending train in the tunnel of the Gletscherbahn Kaprun 2 funicular in Kaprun, Austria, on 11 November 2000. The disaster claimed the lives of 155 people, leaving 12 survivors (10 Germans and two Austrians) from the burning train. It is one of the worst cable car accidents in history.[39][40]
A cable car derailed and crashed to the ground in the Nevis Range, near Fort William, Scotland, on 13 July 2006, seriously injuring all five passengers. Another car on the same rail also slid back down the rails when the crash happened. Following the incident, 50 people were left stranded at the station whilst the staff and aid helped the passengers of the crashed car.[41][42]
On Wednesday 25 July 2012, passengers of the
London cable car were stuck 90 meters in the air when a power failure caused the gondola to stop over the River Thames. The fault happened at 11:45am and lasted for about 30 minutes. No passengers were injured, but this was the first problem to ever hit the London's new cable car link.[43][44]
^
abInformation Center for Ropeway Studies (2006-03-17).
"About Ropeways". Colorado School of Mines – Arthur Lakes Library. Archived from
the original on 2006-09-04. Retrieved 2006-11-30.
^Le VittimeArchived 2007-10-07 at the
Wayback Machine (list of the names of the victims) by the Comitato 3 Febbraio per la giustizia (3 February Committee for Justice), from valdifiemme.it (in Italian)