Grenoble cable car to the Bastille
The Grenoble cable car to the Bastille ( French Téléphérique de Grenoble Bastille ) is a cable car that connects the city center of Grenoble with the high above the city of Bastille , a fortress from the first half of the 19th century. There you have a wide view of the city and its alpine surroundings from Vercors to Mont Blanc .
First cable car
The cable car, which opened on September 29, 1934, is the world's first inner-city cable car. It was built on behalf of the city by a consortium consisting of the companies Adolf Bleichert & Co. (cable car), Neyret-Beylier et Para (steel construction) and Milliat (civil engineering). The valley station at that time was located directly on the banks of the Isère and spanned the Quai Stéphane Jay behind it. It was an aerial tramway built according to the “Bleichert-Zuegg” system with the twelve-sided cabins for 15 people, which Bleichert often used , which in this case were blue. The drive and anchoring of the two carrying ropes were located in the valley station, while the tension weights for the carrying ropes and the pulling rope were in the mountain station. Like today's one, the track had a 23 m high column in the upper half of the route.
In 1951 these cabins were replaced by larger, rectangular cabins with rounded edges for 21 passengers. These cabins, built by Crouzier , were in the colors of Grenoble, i.e. red and yellow. In 1959, the valley station was expanded to include a waiting room for 100 people, from which one could see the Isère and the Bastille.
Cable car from 1934
Old valley station
Cabin 1934–1951
Second generation cabin
New cable car
In 1976 the cable car was completely renewed. It received a new valley station between Quai Stéphane Jay and Rue Hector Berlioz. In the modern building, the actual cable car station is on the first floor behind a glass facade from which the red-painted guide rails protrude. The mountain station was only slightly modified. The cable car, designed by the French cable car engineer Denis Creissels and built by Pomagalski (based in Grenoble), differs from its predecessors in that it has round aluminum and plexiglass gondolas that are popularly known as soap bubbles ( bulles ). Technically speaking, it is a two-cable group gondola with two suspension ropes and a circulating pull rope, to which two groups with 4 gondolas are attached in winter and two groups with 5 gondolas in summer. As with a gondola lift, the gondolas in the two stations go around a large pane in the other direction. Since the gondolas are firmly clamped on the pulling rope , the pulling rope is stopped when they are in the stations (and slowed down when crossing the cable car support).
The gondolas have drives with four rollers each. Their speed is max. 6 m / s (21.6 km / h). The drive is located in the new valley station, the tension weights of 46 tonnes per suspension rope and 24.4 tonnes for the hauling rope are in turn housed in the mountain station.
Today's cable car begins at a height of 208 m and ends in the mountain station at 472 m. It has a difference in altitude of 264 m. Its inclined length is 700 m.
The cable car is operated by the Régie du Téléphérique de Grenoble Bastille , an établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial .
Cable car in summer with five gondolas
Cable car with four gondolas at the valley station
New valley station
Mountain station
Footnotes
- ↑ Official designation according to the commercial register information ( Memento of the original dated January 7, 2011 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.
- ↑ The cable car from Rio de Janeiro to the Sugar Loaf Mountain , opened in 1912/13, went to an inaccessible mountain outside the city
- ↑ according to a board at the valley station. Other sources give different, slightly different numbers.
- ↑ Public law business enterprise
Web links
- Official website of the cable car (French, English)
- Description with photo documentation on Remontées Mécaniques (French)
Coordinates: 45 ° 11 ′ 35 " N , 5 ° 43 ′ 33.7" E