What is a cable car called in America?

In American English, cable car may additionally refer to a cable-pulled street tramway with detachable vehicles (e.g., San Francisco's cable cars). As such, careful phrasing is necessary to prevent confusion. It is also sometimes called a ropeway or even incorrectly referred to as a gondola lift.



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But, there's a simple test to distinguish streetcars from cable cars: If it runs on steel rails with a trolley pole connected to an overhead wire above, it's a streetcar. If it runs on steel rails with an open slot between them, and no overhead wires, it's a cable car.

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A funicular (/fju?'n?kj?l?r, f(j)?-, f(j)?-/) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope.

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Cable cars include chair, cabin and gondola lifts. A fundamental difference here is that you can keep your skis or snowboard on while in the chair lift, but they have to be unstrapped while in the cabin lift. However, there is more to differentiate: Cable cars, for example, operate either in pendulum or orbital mode.

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Humans have engineered several types of cable cars over the years. The most common include gondolas, funiculars, funitels, and aerial trams (French: Téléphérique, German: Seilbahn).

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After all, we're the city that first launched cars pulled along by cables running beneath the street. Invented here nearly 150 years ago and named a National Historic Landmark in 1964, today's San Francisco cable cars are kept in tip-top shape by our agency.

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These aerial lifts are also called cable cars. They look nothing like Venetian gondola boats. They've just borrowed the name. That may be because of their use to ferry tourists to new heights.

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A Funicular Railway is just that, fun. Also known as an inclined plane or cliff railway, a funicular railway normally solves the problem of transporting people up extremely steep slopes. They've been used for hundreds of years and are an extraordinary feat of ingenuity.

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synonyms: cable railway, funicular railway. type of: railroad, railroad line, railway, railway line, railway system.

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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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