From our time on the Gondola Project, we know that gondola station design is incredibly flexible and can be built in almost any scenario and setting. Let’s take a quick recap:
Skyscraper station? Check.
Underground station? Check.
Light and airy station? Check.
And today, thanks to one of our readers, we can now add “in-mountain cavernous cliff-side” stations to the list.
The cable car terminal is literally carved into the side of the mountain. Image via news.cnwest.com.
This station is part of the newly inaugurated Huashan Xifeng Cable Car (华山西峰索道) in China’s Shaanxi province. Reports in Chinese indicate that it took more than ten years of feasibility study and four years of construction before the 4.2km system was opened to the public in April 2013. This is likely due to the historical, and religious significance of the site in which the cable car is connecting to (i.e. Mount Hua).
A look inside the in-mountain station. Image via news.cnwest.com
Another view of in-mountain station. Image via news.cnwest.com
The cable car line is capable of transporting 1500 people per hour to the peak in 20 minutes. The system is likely a welcome sight to the famous Mount Hua tourist area as it is one of the most visited and famous sites in China.
3 Comments
you gotta be kidding me, its like they dug a hole in a mountain!
didn’t they?
No kidding. I hope somewhere out there that a documentary on this system has been made.