What is a Circular cable car?
Several gondolas or chairs are attached to the cable(s) of a circular cable car system. The capacity of an individual gondola is not as large as that of the cabins of a pendulum cable car. In total however it can carry more passengers, faster, up and down. The gondolas keep turning in circles. So they do not go back and forth on the same (funicular) track like a pendulum cable car , but rotate up and down around the cable sheave and then go along with the carrying cable again. This carrying cable consists of 1 whole and runs all the way around via the cable slides.
There are two types of circuit cable cars:
- Variant with fixed grips
- Variant with detachable grips.
Circular cable car with fixed grips
In the 30s and 40s, many drag lifts were used in the emerging winter sports areas. Since many mountain areas did not have the financial resources to build expensive cabin cable cars, a drag lift was an ideal solution. Winter sports enthusiasts were dragged up using a rod that they had to hold. All these rods were fixed to the carrying cable. However, this also means that the speed of a drag lift can never be too high, otherwise people cannot get in and out.
In order to be able to transport more people and offer these people a more comfortable journey, the first chairlifts were gradually created. These replaced the drag lifts in some places. These seats were also mounted to the carrying cable with fixed grips. These cable grips ensure that the seats are properly secured and cannot slide back and forth on the cable. In the early days, these chairlifts could only carry 1 person per chair. To increase capacity, lifts were built where two people could sit next to each other, the double chairlift. It went well in terms of getting in and out. However, it became more difficult at the three-person chairlifts. The elevator did not slow down and always kept running at a constant pace. The middle person had to quickly run to the left or right when getting out. There are also a number of four-person chairlifts with fixed grips, but those were not a great success.
You can still see the circular cable cars with a fixed grip, but they are mainly the drag lifts and the smaller chair lifts.
Chairlift with detachable grips
As soon as a chair arrives at the station, it slides onto a track with wheels and the handle of the grip is pressed so that the chair comes off the cable and continues to roll on the track. The speed of the chair at that moment is slowed down to the speed of the track by means of wheels. The seat remains on this track so that passengers can get off and on quietly. The seat rotates around the cable pulley and is now brought back to the speed of the rotating cable by means of wheels. The handle is released again and the seat automatically grips back to the cable.
Advantages of bypass cable car with detachable grips
The advantage of the system with detachable grips is that the journey takes less time because the cable can rotate much faster. In addition, more people can be taken along at the same time because the speed is adjusted in the stations so that everyone can get in and out quietly.
Multiple cables
Nowadays, in addition to the variant with 1 cable where it serves as a carrying and pulling cable, there are also variants of bypass cable cars with 2 or 3 cables. In the case of 2 cables, there is a separate carrying and a separate pulling cable. The cabin rolls over the carrying cable and is pulled by the pulling cable. The variant with 3 cables has 2 carrying cables and 1 pulling cable. The advantage of multiple carrying cables is that the cabin is less susceptible to wind and floats more stably through the air.
Splitting cables
The cable used in a bypass cable car consists of 1 whole so that it cannot break. To get a loose cable as one whole, it must be spliced. Splicing a cable is a skill in itself. It is heavy work and, when building a cable car, it is carried out by special teams that are trained in splicing cables. See the video to get an idea of how cable splicing works.
