Cable car to the Sugar Loaf
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The cable car to the Sugar Loaf , Portuguese officially Teleférico do Pão de Açúcar , colloquially Bondinho do Pão de Açúcar , mostly just O Bondinho ( Eng . "The little train") is a two-section cable car to the Morro do Pão de Açúcar, the Sugar Loaf in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil .
description
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The valley station of the cable car to the Sugar Loaf is located at Praça General Tibúrcio next to Praia Vermelha (Red Beach) directly under the rock face of Morro da Babilônia (Babylon Hill) at a height of only 14 m above sea level. From there, a column-free goes aerial tramway to the 226 m high first mountain station on the steep, yet almost completely overgrown Morro da Urca (Urcahügel) on which a theater with retractable roof for 700 to 1100 people, restaurants, a nightclub, gift shops and a helipad are located. On the opposite side of this system, a few steps lead down to the lower station of the second section at a height of 220 m. From there, another pillarless aerial tramway leads up to the Sugar Loaf, a 395 m high granite rock rising directly from the sea. Because of the exposed location, there are only a few kiosks and a viewing platform on the summit, apart from the mountain station. From there the view wanders from the Atlantic over the bays and hills of Rio to the Copacabana behind the Morro da Babilônia and to the Cristo Redentor on the Corcovado, which is more than five kilometers away .
The two 65-person cabins in both sections are similar. The current models were delivered by CWA in 2008 . They have the slightly rounded shape of their predecessors, are also clad all around with now slightly tinted acrylic glass , so the aluminum framework is no longer so prominent from the inside.
The cabins travel in the 528 m long lower section at 6 m / s (21.6 km / h), the 735 m long upper section at 10 m / s (36 km / h), in order to achieve the same travel time and transport capacity of a good 3 minutes or 1170 people per hour. The drive for both sections is located on the Morro da Urca , on which the hydraulic tensioning devices for the respective suspension ropes are also located. The pulling rope of the first section is tensioned in the valley station with a counterweight of 7.3 t, that of the second in the mountain station with a counterweight of 17 t. The carrying ropes are 50 mm thick, the pulling ropes 24 mm thick.
The four stations were built in 1972 according to plans by the Brazilian architect and urban planner Harry James Cole , who was influenced by modernism . In the style of the time, they were designed with exposed concrete and rounded roofs.
Next to the cable car run a few meters apart the route of the supply cable car, a comparatively simple aerial tramway with rectangular, open metal baskets, and a power cable attached to its own rope.
The cable car and the facilities on the Morro da Urca and Morro do Pão de Açúcar are operated by the private company Companhia Caminho Aéreo Pão de Açucar (CCAPA) .
history
First cable car 1912/13
In 1908 there were already material ropeways built by Adolf Bleichert & Co. and Julius Pohlig all over the world, but hardly a pure passenger ropeway. The Transbordador of Leonardo Torres Quevedo at the Monte Ulia in Donostia-San Sebastián was put into operation in 1907, 1,908 were Kohlerer train and the weather horn elevator opened.
This year, the Brazilian engineer Augusto Ferreira Ramos had the idea of building a cable car over the Morro da Urca to the Sugar Loaf. In 1909 he received the concession for construction and operation and with some friends founded the Companhia Caminho Aéreo Pão de Açucar , so that in 1910 construction work could begin under Julius Pohlig. Two years later, on October 27, 1912, the first section on the Morro da Urca was ceremoniously opened. On January 18, 1913, the opening of the second section on the Sugar Loaf followed, a facility that was unique at the time. Their red and yellow painted, rectangular cabins for 16 passengers drove at a speed of 2 m / s on two suspension cables and were moved by two pull cables. The drive of both sections was already on the Morro da Urca , so that the second section was the first aerial tramway that was driven in the valley station. Accordingly, the tension weights for the first section were in the valley station, but for the second section they were in the mountain station. The suspension ropes were 44 mm thick, the pull ropes 20 mm thick. This cable car remained in operation largely unchanged until 1972. A yellow cabin that remained on the Morro da Urca can still be viewed today , as can the mechanics of the valley station of the second section.
Second cable car in 1972
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Over the decades, both the number of passengers and the safety requirements had risen, so the decision was made to build a completely new building. The 1969 tender was won by the Italian company Agudio , which had just completed the cable car to the Marmolada . Agudio built the new cable car in cooperation with Christóvão Leite de Castro , chief engineer of CCAPA , and the Brazilian architect Harry James Cole in the years 1970–72. The new stations and the cable car were built right next to the old cable car, which is currently in operation. 60 years after the opening of the first section, the new cable car opened on October 29, 1972. The cabins were supplied by the Italian company Nardo . They had transparent walls made of acrylic glass, which was only interrupted by the shiny grids of the aluminum construction. They were exchanged for the current cabins in 2008, with two of the previous cabins being left in front of the valley station. The old ropes of the second section were replaced by new ones from Fatzer .
Disruptions
On October 21, 2000 at around 5 p.m., the lower section's pull rope broke. The two cabins hanging from the two suspension ropes were blocked by the safety brake . The evacuation of the cabins, during which 65 passengers were brought to safety by the fire brigade , took about two hours. The approximately 350 tourists on the Morro da Urca and on the Sugar Loaf were brought back with the 8-person supply cable car. Two people over 70 years old were flown off the mountain by helicopter.
On April 24, 2010, around 40 tourists had to stay in the cabins for an hour because a security switch blocked operations.
Trivia
Famous passengers on the cable car included Albert Einstein , John F. Kennedy , Gina Lollobrigida , John Paul II , Lech Wałęsa and Brooke Shields .
In March 1977, the American tightrope walker Steven McPeak climbed one of the ropes from Morro da Urca to Sugar Loaf with a balancing pole .
In the James Bond film Moonraker - Top Secret from 1979 with Roger Moore, there is a spectacular car chase at the cable car , in which James Bond only narrowly escapes his adversary "Beißer".
Web links
- Operator's website (Portuguese)
- Description with photo documentation on Remontées Mécaniques (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brockhaus. The encyclopedia in twenty-four (24) volumes . FABrockhaus Verlag, Leipzig Mannheim 1997.
- ↑ In each case inclined lengths. The length and height information on the official website and in the Remontées Mécaniques report are slightly different.
- ↑ Homepage of the Fatzer company → References → Year: 2008 → 29th position, accessed on April 1, 2013
- ↑ cablecar.ch ( Memento of the original from November 15, 2012 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. → Railway technology → Seilbahnlexikon → 11th term, accessed on April 1, 2013
- ↑ Folha Online , report of October 21, 2000 (Portuguese), accessed May 27, 2010
- ^ Zero Hora , Report of April 24, 2010 (Portuguese), accessed May 27, 2010
- ↑ Ben Taverner: Rio's Sugarloaf Cable Car Turns 100: Daily. Article dated October 27, 2012 in The Rio Times
- ↑ Pão de Açúcar ( Memento of the original from January 11, 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. on the website of the Estado do Rio (State of Rio)
- ↑ Sugarloaf on mapa de cultura , a website of the Secretaria de Estado de Cultura (State Secretariat for Culture, Rio)
- ↑ according to the article "Morro do Pão de Açúcar" of the Portuguese Wikipedia
Coordinates: 22 ° 57 '20.2 " S , 43 ° 10' 0.7" W.