Sandia Peak Tramway

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Sandia Peak Tramway

The Sandia Peak Tramway is a cable car that travels from the northeastern outskirts of Albuquerque , New Mexico , USA , at an altitude of approx. 1600 m , to the Sandia Mountains , which descend steeply towards the city . Depending on the weather, the summit offers a wide view of the surrounding plain and some medium-difficulty ski slopes on the flat sloping eastern side. The cable car is open in the summer and winter seasons. The journey time is 15 minutes each.

technology

The cable car leads from the 1999 m high valley station over two supports to the 3163 m high Sandia Peak. The aerial tramway with a (diagonal) length of 4467 m is considered the second longest one-section passenger ropeway in the world. The first post, inclined by 18 ° and 71 m high, is near the valley station, the second post is already on a mountain spur after about 2/5 of the way, so that a height of 24.4 m (80 ft) is sufficient here to guide the gondola over the spur. From there it goes with a span of 2353 m over steep valleys directly to the mountain station. The greatest height above ground is 274 m.

The two gondolas of the railway each hold 55 people and travel at a speed of around 6 m / s (19 km / h). They were replaced by new vehicles in 1986 for the 20th anniversary.

The gondolas run on two suspension ropes with a diameter of 40 mm, which are tensioned by counterweights of 47 t each, which hang in shafts over 20 m deep in the valley station. The gondolas are pulled by a 32 mm thick rope that is driven by an electric motor. In 1997 all ropes were renewed within seven weeks.

Building history

Sandia Peak Tramway with a gondola in the center of the picture

The Sandia Peak Tramway goes back to the initiative of Robert Nordhaus, who was enthusiastic about the cable cars in the Alps on a European trip. The preparations took two years until the actual construction work. The cable car was built between 1964 and 1966 by the now defunct Swiss Bell Maschinenfabrik AG Kriens. The construction sites for the first support and the mountain station could be reached by vehicles, the construction site for the second support on a steep mountain spur is only accessible to mountaineers, so that the individual parts of the support had to be flown in by helicopter. It took five thousand helicopter flights to build this support and to assemble the ropes. The cable car went into operation on May 9, 1966.

Long before the construction of the cable car, a passenger plane had flown against the mountain in the area of ​​the upper cable car route, the debris of which could not be completely removed and can still be seen from the gondola for those in the know.

See also

Web links

Commons : Sandia Peak Tramway  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://sandiapeak.com/index.php?page=history-technology
  2. ↑ The coordinates refer to the valley station.
  3. ↑ 2,776 miles
  4. ↑ apart from the 13 km long Norsjö cable car , which emerged from an old, disused material cable car .
  5. ↑ The 6.2 km long Grindelwald – Männlichen gondola lift has two sections, each around 3 km diagonal in length
  6. ↑ at about 530 m horizontal distance at an altitude of 2137 m (7010 ft)
  7. ↑ at about 1830 m horizontal distance from the valley station at 2677 m (8750 ft) altitude
  8. ↑ This (diagonally measured) span of 2353 m (7720 ft) was the third longest span in the world after the Aiguille du Midi (upper section: 2,867 m) and the small cable car Vallée Blanche (2831 m), up to the Peak 2 Peak Gondola (3024 m) on Whistler Mountain and the 3S cable car near Kitzbühel (2507 m) was built
  9. ↑ http://sandiapeak.com/index.php?page=history-technology

Coordinates: 35 ° 11 ′ 26 "  N , 106 ° 28 ′ 46"  W.