The Chongqing Cable Car. Image via flickr user Edward Jung.
We’ve known about the Chongqing Cable Car for a while now but have always lacked good information about it. We know it was an Aerial Tram, was around 1 km in length and it served for 29 years. But that’s about it.
Sadly, we’ll never have a chance to witness it in person as the system was officially retired in February of last year.
A new video of the system, however, sheds additional light on this little known oddity of public transportation. The video shows the systems clearly navigating several skyscrapers and dense urban form.
Most interestingly: One of the stations is located on what appears to be the top floor of an approximately 10 storey residential building. Even though the Singapore Cable Car did something similar a decade earlier, this is still an incredibly rare and unique feature with clear implications for urban public transit.
Too bad we’ll never get to see it. Take a look:
2 Comments
Hi there,
I don’t know how much you know about Chongqing cable car system, but I just found out that there are 2 cable cars in that city.
One of them crosses the Jialing river (running north of the city centre peninsula), and the other one goes over the Yangtze river (running south).
That video you posted here shows the journey over the Yangtze, going southwards (but looking northwards, that means towards the peninsula).
4 videos are available on Youtube, showing the 2 systems in both ways. Just search for “Cable Car Ride in Chongqing Part 1” (to 4) and you’ll have a better idea!
I felt like I had to post this comment, as I really got confused to determine which cable car you were talking about.
Anyway, thanks a lot for the amazing work you’re doing! (and pardon my english!)
Vikka
That’s awesome. Thanks for the clarification Vikka. I just did a bit more research and found the locations of the stations and lines on google maps. Unfortunately, the Jialing River Cable Car seems to be scheduled for demolition, but some evidence suggests that it may be rehabilitated. I’ll try to look up some more information.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=%E7%B4%A2%E9%81%93&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=29.556548,106.588283&spn=0.020756,0.036263&sll=29.530151,106.557856&sspn=0.041523,0.072527&hq=%E7%B4%A2%E9%81%93&t=m&z=15