Cable tram
A cable tram , cable car or street cable car is a cable car on rails , the carriages of which are not permanently connected to the rope, but are pulled by a continuously revolving rope as soon as they connect to it. In contrast, the carriages of funicular railways , which run in pairs, are firmly connected to the hauling rope in order to create a balance between their masses and thus limit the tensile load on the payload.
History and dissemination
Cable cars were built before electric trams to replace horse-drawn trams and were originally powered by steam engines. In the United States , cable cars in some major cities bridged the period of increased urban traffic at the end of the 19th century. Around 1890 there were around 800 kilometers of cable tram routes there. In Europe , such routes have only been built in a few cities, for example in London , Lisbon and Paris . In Zurich in 1886 there were plans to build a cable tram as the second section of the Zürichbergbahn , but these were abandoned in favor of the electric tram.
Most cable tram companies were converted to electrical operation with overhead lines after a few years. The Paris cable tram was in service between 1891 and 1924. As one of the last cable trams in Europe, the Douglas cable tram was discontinued in 1929. In Melbourne , Australia , the last cable car route was converted to overhead line operation in October 1940.
Worldwide there is only one cable car of this type in San Francisco , California , where three lines of the San Francisco Cable Cars operate. The vehicles can be coupled with the revolving rope running under the road. When it was erected, the rope was not powered electrically but by steam engines.
In Scotland it was out with the Glasgow Subway and a 1896-1922 subway operated as a cable car.
Related systems
People movers
In addition to the classic cable cars of the late 19th century, new cable-driven rail systems developed in the late 20th century - the cable-drawn cabin or gondola lifts for urban public transport are mostly fixed to the cable like funiculars, but there are also drive concepts such as the MiniMetro whose vehicles can be coupled with the circulating rope.
Funiculars in the street
In some cases, funiculars have been set up in very steep street sections in cities, the appearance of which is reminiscent of cable cars, but whose vehicles are firmly connected to the rope. Such railways are still in operation in two cities:
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Llandudno ( Wales , UK ), Great Orme Tramway
- Llandudno's Great Orme Tramway consists of two funiculars; The upper runway has an exposed rope like most mountain railways, while the lower runway has the pulling rope under the pavement and gives the impression of a tram operation. Because of the grooved rails, the carriages run on standard wheel sets. therefore there are no Abt switches .
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Lisbon ( Portugal ), several lines of funiculars in Lisbon
- The ropes of the three funiculars that are still in operation lie in canals under the pavement. At the Elevadores do Lavra and da Glória, the rope of the vehicles running in opposite directions is not driven by a hoisting machine in the mountain station, but is only used to balance the masses between the uphill and downhill trolleys. As with adhesion trams, they are driven by traction motors in the vehicles. The closed road surface and the overhead lines create the impression of a tram that can negotiate the steep incline. The wheel sets of the cars on all three railways are also regular tram wheel sets that run on grooved track superstructures. Each car runs on its own track, outside of the meeting points there are looping tracks. Regular caliper brakes cannot be used either, the safety brakes act on the cable duct.
literature
- Charles Smallwood, Warren Edward Miller, Don DeNevi: The Cable Car Book. Bonanza Books, New York 1983, ISBN 0-517-40878-3 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cable tram in London. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 256, 1885, pp. 428-433.
- ↑ a b c Victor von Röll (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Railway System . 2nd Edition. tape 9 . Berlin / Vienna 1921, cable operation on trams ( online [accessed November 7, 2014]).
- ↑ Zürichberg Railway: Project by Ruge & Cie. in Zurich . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . 1886, doi : 10.5169 / SEALS-13600 .
- ↑ Thomas Vogel, Patrick Fehlmann, Thomas Wolf, Emil Honegger: Ingenieurbauführer StrucTuricum: 51 remarkable buildings in Zurich . 2nd Edition. Vdf Hochschulverlag AG, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-7281-3563-6 , p. 180-183 ( google.ch ).
- ↑ Yarratrams: Trams in Melbourne ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 27, 2016
