Can cable cars turn corners?

Most aerial cable systems can make turns, although it is difficult, or near impossible, for fixed grip technologies such as aerial trams and pulsed gondolas. (Fixed grip systems, particularly pulsed gondolas systems do sometimes make slight turns along specially designed towers.)



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Cable cars are one of the safest modes of transport in existence. According to a survey, there are 0.35 incidents per billion kilometres. In itself, this figure is already not high, but if you consider only gondola railways used exclusively in cities, then the figure is significantly lower.

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Gondolas, also known as cable cars, consist of different cabins connected to a thick cable that is constantly circulating between its low and high point. Tramways have two large passenger cabins that shuttle up and down on a fixed moving cable.

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There's a motor, of course, but it alone can't simply lug the car up as dead weight, so each cabin going up is counterbalanced by one going down. This is done by mounting each one halfway around a loop of steel cable.

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Despite their good characteristics, aerial cable cars also have certain limitations:
  • Speed limited to 12 m/s or 43,2 km/h.
  • Capacity limited to 4,000 persons/h.
  • Suitable only for distances up to 7 km (gondolas with intermediate stations)
  • Wind resistance, normally up to 18 m/s (65 km/h), bi-cable systems 90 km/h.


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The car will then slowly move forward, and a further, and stronger, pull locks the grip to the cable and brings the car up to its cruising (and maximum) speed, of 9.5 mph. To stop the car, the grip lever is thrown forward to disengage the grip, and the hand brake lever pulled on.

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After an average of 30 years, cable cars reach the end of their life, although some components such as cables have to be discarded considerably earlier. In some cases, legal requirements demand the removal of installations after just twenty years, so it is a good thing that cable cars have multiple lives.

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Don't get me wrong, the cable cars operate safely in the rain all the time. On occasion, though, there are more extreme conditions that argue for the prudent use of bus shuttles. Usually in rainy conditions, grip persons keep an abundance of sand in the cable car sand reservoir to help with braking.

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If by “jump on” you mean board a cable car, of course; that's the sole purpose of their existence. Just be prepared to pay ($6.00 adult/$3.00 senior) your fare when the conductor comes to collect, or hop-off if you fail to pay.

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Out on the street along their routes, the cable cars travel on steel tracks set above a channel enclosing the cable. At the top of the channel is a slot through which the cable car’s grip grabs the cable moving below.

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The Cavalese cable car crash is the deadliest cable car crash in history. On 9 March 1976, the steel supporting cable broke as a fully loaded cable car was descending from Mt. Cermis, near the Italian ski resort of Cavalese in the Dolomites, 40 km (25 mi) north-east of Trento.

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Today, San Francisco's cable cars are one of two National Historic Streetcar Landmarks in operation (New Orleans' St. Charles streetcar line is the other), and both the continued operation and minimum level of service of our cable cars are locked into San Francisco's City Charter.

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