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Funicular (Incline) Railways
#1
It's no secret I'm a fan of unusual transport technologies and I've spent most of my life exploring and reading about them.

So I'm quite surprised that I found a very new-to-me system - one I've dreamed about for quite a long while, a combination horizontal and vertical elevator/funicular!

Such a system exists, in Italy: the Ascensore Castello d'Albertis-Montegalletto.  It was constructed between 2002 and 2004 (but looks much older!).  It has about a 300 m horizontal translation and 70 m vertical elevation.

[Image: Caste02.JPG]

[Image: genova_3.jpg]



At about 3:25, if you listen hard enough, you can hear the gearmotor coupled to the grips that release/clamp onto the haul rope for the horizontal section.
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#2
Basically it's a Blade Runner-style elevator. That's pretty cool.
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#3
Or a turbolift!
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#4
A more basic and confined alignment, but a London Tube station recently put in a diagonal elevator.

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#5
Those are fun! There's at least one DC Metro station with one.
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#6
(01-16-2016, 11:37 PM)KevinL Wrote: A more basic and confined alignment, but a London Tube station recently put in a diagonal elevator.

Although I've never been on an inside inclinator, I have been on 3 inclines this year. One in Pittsburgh, two in Zurich (one of them wasn't working on Friday night and I gave up, but it is generally useful for getting up and down the slope when it's open) and one just today at a ski resort.

https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/vbz/de/inde...blick.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybahn_funicular

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drahtseilb...0%93Iltios

http://www.duquesneincline.org/

Paying for the Duquesne incline was a bit of a pain with a $20 bill, because the US has $1 bills still and the operator didn't have any bigger bills...
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#7
I guess I should change the topic of this thread to Funiculars. Smile
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#8
Genoa, Italy, apparently has lots of funiculars - but one isn't inclined as such; it goes sideways, then up...

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#9
(01-17-2016, 06:56 PM)Canard Wrote: I guess I should change the topic of this thread to Funiculars.  Smile

or it could be called "Shuttlevators"
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#10
This was a small one in Barcelona:
http://www.trenscat.com/funis/guinardo_ct.html
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#11
(05-17-2016, 12:00 AM)tomh009 Wrote: This was a small one in Barcelona:
http://www.trenscat.com/funis/guinardo_ct.html

There's also the traditional funicular in Barcelona going halfway up Montjuic from the Metro. From the top you can choose to take the cable car or, as my friend and I chose unwisely on a rainy Saturday afternoon, walk to the top to see the castle. We took the cable car back down.
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#12
(05-17-2016, 06:48 AM)timio Wrote:
(05-17-2016, 12:00 AM)tomh009 Wrote: This was a small one in Barcelona:
http://www.trenscat.com/funis/guinardo_ct.html

There's also the traditional funicular in Barcelona going halfway up Montjuic from the Metro.  From the top you can choose to take the cable car or, as my friend and I chose unwisely on a rainy Saturday afternoon, walk to the top to see the castle.  We took the cable car back down.

The Montjuic funicular was closed for maintenance while we were there.  We walked up to see the Joan Miro Fundacion museum.
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#13
There is another funicular in Pittsburgh not far from the already mentioned Duquesne Incline.

Monongahela Incline
http://www.portauthority.org/paac/Schedu...lines.aspx

I did visit the station but time constraints prevented us from taking a ride.
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#14
Hamilton used to have two incline railways going up the escarpment. One of the right-of-ways is now pedestrian stairs.
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#15
(05-16-2016, 10:44 PM)KevinL Wrote: Genoa, Italy, apparently has lots of funiculars - but one isn't inclined as such; it goes sideways, then up...


That's the one I posted as the first post in this thread. Smile
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