Great Orme Tramway

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Lower section of the Great Orme Tramway: Car 4 has just entered the siding from the valley station.
The upper section switches, which are moved into the correct position for car 6 or 7 by the wheels.

The Great Orme Tramway ( Welsh Tramffordd y Gogarth ) in Llandudno is a funicular railway that consists of a tram part and a mountain railway part, both of which are operated by cable cars. Despite the tram-like construction, it is not a cable car because the trolleys cannot be detached from the rope during operation.

The train runs in seasonal operation and carries around 160,000 passengers annually.

investment

This train connects the Victoria Train Station of Llandudno with the 200 meter high Great Orme (Welsh: Pen y Gogarth ) on the peninsula of the same name. It was put into operation in 1902. Besides the facilities in Lisbon, the Great Orme Tramway is the only still existing tramway funicular.

Cars 4 and 5 run in the lower section of the line, and cars 6 and 7 in the upper section. Cars 1 to 3 were freight cars that could be introduced to passenger cars, but were decommissioned as early as 1911. In the upper section the cables are visible, in the lower section the cables are located under the road surface. The coaches are 11.28 meters long and have 48 seats; Standing places are no longer permitted due to safety regulations.

Originally the railroad vehicles ran with pantograph poles . The associated overhead line did not provide any current for the drive , but served as a telephone line between the driver and the winch operator to signal the drive control. In 1991 this telephony procedure was replaced by radiotelephone . However, the trolleys kept their trolley bars locked in the lower position.

The machine house is located in the “Halfway” middle station, from where the rope of the upper and lower sections is driven. This requires a rope running all around in the upper section, i.e. there is also a rope underneath the car. In contrast to normal funicular railways, this train could not be equipped with Abt turnouts because the wagons had to be equipped with normal wheel flanges for travel on the grooved track . With their flanges, the wagons set the points in the right position for them, so that on the return journey they are guided back into the track where their cable runs. Setting the wrong course can lead to serious accidents such as those that occurred in 2000 and 2009.

  • In April 2000, the staff found that the lower switch did not always fall into the correct position when descending. Therefore, an additional person was used to monitor. According to the investigation report, however, on April 30, neither this person nor the driver noticed that the switch had been set incorrectly and that car 7 was directed onto the track of car 6 when it was traveling uphill, which led to the collision.
  • On September 15, 2009, when wagon 6 was traveling uphill, the rear bogie was guided onto the track of wagon 7 without the wagon derailing. The braking system was triggered, but it did not react quickly enough to prevent a collision. The investigation after the accident showed that the forces of the wheels in the leading bogie were great enough to lift the switch lever. This was made possible by wear of the rails and the switch rods as well as inaccuracies in the position of the track. It was also determined that the risk of such an accident was not known up to then, which is not least due to the uniqueness of this facility.

There was already an accident on 23 August 1932 when the drawbar on car no. 4, with which the car was connected to the cable, broke while driving downhill. The car derailed at the next bend and hit a wall. The driver and a 12-year-old girl were killed. When the accident was investigated, serious omissions by the railway administration were found. For reasons of economy, the drawbar was made of an unsuitable steel alloy and the emergency brakes had already been disconnected in 1906 and had not been reconnected until the accident.

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  • Keith Turner: The Great Orme Tramway - over a century of service. Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Llanrwst 2003, ISBN 978-0-86381-817-2
  • Individual evidence:
  1. ^ Collision on the Great Orme Tramway, September 15, 2009 . Rail Accident Investigation Branch. October 16, 2010. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  2. ^ The Great Orme Tramway - Significant Events in the History of the Line with brief notes on its construction, equipment and operation

Web links

Commons : Great Orme Tramway  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 53 ° 19 ′ 50.4 "  N , 3 ° 50 ′ 38"  W.