This is Part 2 of a 3 Part series of posts on the Innsbruck Hungerburgbahn. To read Part 1, click here and to read Part 3, click here. Leaving the technology-side of things until tomorrow’s post, let’s talk about the Hungerburgbahn’s station configuration. A common misconception about cable transit is that the stations are large...
Last month I toured the Hungerburgbahn CPT system in Innsbruck, Austria. There is much to say about this system, so I’ve broken the column into 3 parts. This is Part 1. The importance of the Hungerburgbahn in Innsbruck, Austria cannot be overstated. Given its unique Hybrid Funicular technology and elegant organic station design by renowned...
Yesterday, in Lenggries Germany, a gondola system malfunctioned stranding dozens of riders in mid-air. Helicopters were were used in the rescue. There were no injuries. The system was built by a subsidiary of Thyssenkrupp, a manufacturer with little experience in cable transit. Detractors of cable technology – I’m certain – will use this as evidence...
With most traditional transit technologies, there is little consideration about the variations within that technology. A bus is a bus; a streetcar is a streetcar; and a subway is a subway. Sure, there’s variation between suppliers and models, but those differences are negligible compared to the overall technologies themselves. That’s one of the real competitive...
I’ve had a lot of support and interest since The Gondola Project launched a couple months back. As such, I’ve decided to dedicate some resources to upgrading and revamping the site. Namely, I’d like to see the site be a little more user-friendly and have a more customized look. So over the next couple of...
You can say whatever you want about Light Rail, Subways and Buses. We can keep that debate going forever. But when it comes to a transit technology’s saunability… Cable’s clearly got them all beat.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post titled What Do You Hate About Your City’s Transit System? The post was meant to get people thinking about their own local transit system and to contemplate why they just accept what their transit is rather than what it could be. I encouraged people to email...
What a wonderful phrase: “Gadget value.” I just stumbled upon it in an old history text book and instantly fell in love with the term . . . Gadget Value is the intrinsic interest a mechanism generates totally separate from it’s use. It’s why we love cars, trains and any other mechanism. Cable has massive...
(Check out this fascinating video of a San Francisco Cable Car in action, days before the 1906 earthquake. Tnanks to Ron Wm. Hurlbut for pointing it out!) Lot’s of people have asked of me a variation of the following question: If cable’s so great, why did we change all our cable cars to electric ones...
I recently wrote an article for the Architectural League of New York‘s urbanism-themed website Urban Omnibus. The article, titled Off the Road and Into the Skies (click to read it), should provide you with a decent history of New York City’s Roosevelt Island Tram and some analysis of Santiago Calatrava’s botched cable transit proposal for...