Posts Tagged: Funiculars

07
Jul

2010

Valparaiso Ascencors

In February The Gondola Project held a mini-competition. The winner was to receive their $50 prize by email money transfer.

Matt Thredgold of Wellington Cycleways won. But as Matt lives in New Zealand and email money transfers are apparently a uniquely Canadian phenomenon (they’re awesome, by the way), Matt asked that his prize come in the way of two CDs via Amazon Canada.

In exchange for that exception, Matt promised to post images from his recent trip to Valparaiso, Chile. For those unfamiliar, Valparaiso has the largest network of functioning Funiculars in the world, most dating from 100-150 years ago.

Clearly, I was happy to oblige. Click here to see the wonderful results.

This is how research is going to happen more and more. The old model used to be one or two researchers scouring obscure publications and writing obscure publications that no one’s ever going to read. That model is quickly dying if not already dead. And that’s a great thing. The internet’s simply faster, cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than peer-reviewed journals and government reports. Some people will fight to maintain the status quo, but it’s a losing battle because that old model was/is expensive, time-consuming and prone to all kinds of suspect Gate-Keeping.

Nowadays things are very, very different. Now things move at lighting speed and change doesn’t require millions of dollars. You don’t have the time or resources to get to Valparaiso, Chile? No problem. There’s a bicycle advocate in New Zealand whose already been there, done that. Send him a couple of CDs and he’s happy to help out. You’ll have your pictures and research next week.

Here’s the great irony: Matt and I managed to “broker” our deal in nothing more than a few minutes. A couple emails, a couple blog posts and a quick trip to Amazon. The CDs themselves, however, took 5 months (5 months!) to arrive on Matt’s doorstep.

And people wonder while snail mail and compact discs are dying businesses.

Thanks again, Matt!



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

Blogs & Other Sites / Funiculars
2
Comments
05
Jun

2010

Moses Mabhida Sky Car

The Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa. Image by smee.bruce.

In honour of the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, I thought it appropriate to point out a nifty little installation called the Sky Car. The Sky Car is a Funicular running along the central archway of the brand new Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa. The vehicle transports people from ground level up the archway to a viewing platform above center field.

Like Hybrid Funiculars, this Funicular automatically adjusts its inclination, allowing the vehicle’s chassis to change its inclination while the riders stay parallel to the horizon. It’s a whimsical addition to an architecturally stunning building.
Is it Cable Propelled Transit? No. But I’m sure it’s a whole lot of fun!

The Moses Mabhida Sky Car. Image by ethekwinigirl.

There's also bungee jumping and a "stadium swing". Image by South African Tourism.





Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

Installations / Moses Mabhida Stadium
0
Comments
24
May

2010

Lost Toronto Funicular

A Funicular near Toronto's High Park. Image by Edward Dale.

I’ll admit it: One of the things I love about cable transit is the “treasure hunt” quality of the entire thing. It’s a “lost” technology with clues and remnants scattered around the world. Picking those clues up and piecing them together is – for me – one of the most exciting parts of this work.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was to receive an email from my uncle which included the picture to left. He stumbled upon it the other day and snapped a photo of it.

This funicular, unbeknownst to me, is located near High Park in my hometown of Toronto, Canada. I’ve yet to find any research on the system.

Lost or unknown infrastructure is nothing new to Torontonians, but to discover a funicular is almost totally unheard of:

Who built it and when? Why? Is it still operational? Who owns it? What was it used for? Could we use it today? Would we want to use it today?

So many questions, too few answers. So, Toronto: Do you know anything about the High Park Funicular?



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

Funiculars / High Park Funicular
1
Comment
26
Feb

2010

Winner

Well that didn’t take long at all.

Matthew Thredgold of New Zealand was the first to figure out that at one time or another, The Grateful Dead, Rodney Dangerfield, Alvin & The Chipmunks and Andrea Bocelli all sang the famous Italian song Funiculi Funicula.

Congrats, Matthew! 50 bucks is yours!

Why does this matter? Well, apparently the song was originally written by Peppino Turco and Luigi Denza to commemorate the opening of the first funicular on Mount Vesuvius.

It’s one of those songs we all instinctively know as it’s been recorded and used in so many countless ways it’s almost a parody of itself. How many people know, however, that it’s a song about a cable car?

Not me, that’s for sure.

It wasn’t until I stumbled onto Tony Chavira’s excellent blog post over at fourstory.org that I learned about Funiculi Funicula’s somewhat bizarre history. But Tony isn’t just content to leave it at history. He’s got bigger, brighter ideas.

Says Tony: I think we need more epic and awesome songs to celebrate cool transit development projects.  Think about how amazing it must’ve been for a giant choir to sing “Funiculì, Funiculà” right before the Mayor cut the red ribbon and let people onto the Mt. Vesuvius funicular railway for the first time… epic.

What Tony is getting at is the need for us to regain our pride in civic infrastructure, specifically public transit. He wants us to connect deeply with it on an emotional level. During the 1800’s, public transit was more than just a necessary hassle for those who couldn’t afford cars. It was a source of esteem, joy and dignity. Vehicles were designed for style and comfort, not just practicality. Form was every part as important as function.

Epic indeed.

Read the rest of Tony Chavira’s post at fourstory.org.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

Funiculars / Just For Fun / Thoughts / Urban Planning & Design
0
Comments
10
Feb

2010

Sometimes . . .

. . . we miss the little things because we’re too focused on criticizing the big things.

A restaurant critic slams a new local bistro but fails to notice the washrooms. Too bad, because the sinks would’ve fit perfectly in his tiny downtown condo.

A professional football scout skips the Ivy League schools because they’re “too brainy.” Too bad, because a junior at Princeton would’ve filled his need for a place-kicker perfectly.

An entrepreneur’s invention is dismissed wholesale by a team of venture capitalists. Not what they’re looking for. Too bad they didn’t look closer: The invention might have been a dud, but the entrepreneur’s innovative financing strategy would’ve solved a problem the venture capitalists had been struggling with for years.

What Thomas Edison said: To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

Remember that when you look at the  Zurich Polybahn video below. It’s a comically short funicular of only 176m. Barely worth considering from a transportation perspective, except when you look at it’s station design.

More often than not, there’s always something useful in the useless. We just tend not to notice… Too bad for us.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

Funiculars / Zurich Polybahn
0
Comments
28
Dec

2009

The Innsbruck Hungerburgbahn

The Hungerburgbahn "Hybrid" Funicular

I’m in transit today to visit the Innsbruck Hungerburgbahn. This should be a fascinating system to explore given that it is one of only a few so-called Hybrid Funiculars in the world.

As I understand it, the beauty of a Hybrid Funicular is that the chassis and the cabins align themselves separately from one another. That is, while the vehicle’s chassis is parallel to the track below, the cabins are parallel to the horizon. This allows a vehicle to move from a 0 degree gradient up to whatever maximum gradient is required but the passengers, meanwhile, are afforded maximum comfort without excessive leaning either forward or backward.

No spilled coffee in other words.

The embedded video below should help illustrate the concept, especially beginning at around the 0:50 mark. When watching the video, notice that the videographer has placed his camera on the vehicle’s dash; he/she’s not holding it. As the vehicle shifts through various inclinations, the camera is consistently oriented parallel to the horizon. This is only possible because the vehicle’s cabins orient themselves separate from the orientation of the chassis. If not, the camera would tilt forward or backward and fall from the dash.

Creative Commons image by Adam Sporka



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

Funiculars / Innsbruck Hungerburgbahn / Urban Planning & Design
0
Comments
07
Dec

2009

Cincinnati Funiculars

The Mount Adams Incline in Cincinnati, Ohio

The Mount Adams Incline in Cincinnati, Ohio

Way back in the day (we’re talking 1872 here) Cincinnati, Ohio was clustered at the base of several small mountains. As the city grew and expanded up the sides of the mountain city officials had a problem: How were people and goods to be moved up and down the mountains?

This was, of course, before automobiles. People were still using horse-and-wagon and the steep grades surrounding Cincinnati threatened the city’s growth. A series of five inclined railways / funiculars were used to ingeniously solve this problem.

Bellevue Incline in Cincinnati, Ohio

Bellevue Incline in Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati’s funiculars were remarkably unique and simple in concept.  As far as I am aware (and that could change), I believe they were almost entirely new for the time. And as such, I think they deserve their own classification: Let’s just call them “Cincinnati Funiculars.” for ease and simplicity’s sake.

What differentiates a Cincinnati Funicular from a traditional funicular is this: Traditional funiculars were (and continue to be) enclosed vehicles running up and down a mountain. A Cincinnati Funicular, however, was simply a gated platform that was relatively level to the horizon. It’s entrances and exits were aligned not with a sidewalk, but instead with the existing street grid.

Traditional Funicular, The Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, PA

Traditional Funicular, The Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, PA

A Traditional Funicular, the Polybahn in Zurich, Switzerland

A Traditional Funicular, the Polybahn in Zurich, Switzerland

A Cincinnati-Style Funicular; Cincinnati, Ohio

A Cincinnati-Style Funicular; Cincinnati, Ohio

This pared-down design conceit allowed horse-and-wagon teams to move from the street below, onto the funicular, up the mountain and onto the street above with little trouble. As time passed, the system allowed streetcars, trolleys and buses to do the same. It was a rare situation of transit technologies co-operating rather than competing with each other.

So who cares, right? Transit planners and advocates should:

Almost all rail systems (that includes, light rail, streetcar and subways) are limited to their location by how steep they can climb. It’s a limiting factor they can’t avoid. Rail technology simply cannot climb more than a roughly 10 degree incline. This severely restricts their potential for installation in all but the flattest of locations (see Hamilton, Ontario for a modern day example of this situation). When partnered, however, with a Cincinnati Funicular, that problem is alleviated, thereby opening up all new avenues for rail-based systems.

Sadly, like most fixed-link transit in North America, Cincinnati’s funiculars were gone by 1948. Unlike rail transit systems, buses and private automobiles had no troubles ascending the mountains, thereby making the inclines redundant. The design concept of a Cincinnati Funicular was forgotten about almost completely and the funiculars were demolished.

But now, given that the gussied-up streetcar known as Light Rail is king again I have a feeling we’ll be seeing Cincinnati Funiculars sometime soon once more.

Mount Adams Incline.

Mount Adams Incline.

Historical images of the Cincinatti Funicular are public domain. They can be viewed at www.cincinnati-transit.net.

Creative Commons images by JOE M500 and phototram



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

Analysis / Cincinnati / Funiculars / History / Oddities / Uncategorized / Urban Planning & Design
3
Comments