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Thinking of building a funicular!

11K views 36 replies 14 participants last post by  Piermaster 
#1 ·
I'm trying to design (let alone build) a cliff railway - something like:



Southend Cliff Lift - Built 1912, 4ft 6ins gauge with 1ft 9ins gauge counterbalance track under, 130ft track length, 57ft rise.


One in Ketchikan, Alaska. I saw it, but didn't use it and know nothing about it.




Bergen Floibanen, Norway - Built 1918, metre gauge, 844 metres track length, 302 metres rise.

Might well go for the British style of either two parallel tracks or single track with counterbalance track below (as per Southend) or single track with counterbalance in vertical shaft as per Margate:

This one was unusual in being side-mounted, it was 5ft gauge, 69 feet track length, 50 feet rise and operated from 1913 to 1972 - the trackbed and shaft are still there with some of the winding gear.

I am rapidly losing interest in 'My Physiotherapy Project' (Any buyers?), it seems to have served its purpose.

Dave
 
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#27 ·
QUOTE (dwb @ 20 Jul 2008, 07:41) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Whilst browsing last year's holiday photos, I found this one of the Lugano funicular.
David

Thanks for the photo David - interesting pickup arrangement, which I take is just for lighting, sort of trollybus style, but I take it on the common track sections one of the wires (say positive if DC) is central to the track & then there are two (negative) wires either side !
 
#28 ·
QUOTE which I take is just for lighting

Probably. As you can see from the photo, most of the journey is in tunnel.

David
 
#30 ·
QUOTE Another question - I take it that the "points" have no moving parts similar to how the Brawa model works - double flanged wheels on the "outer rails" (on the passing loop) & a flangelass on the "inner" ?

I've no idea. Whilst the original of this photo is a lot larger than the one I have posted, the points themselves are not visible, so no amount of magnification is going to help
.

I've seen a few funiculars on my holidays in Switzerland - another is at the Rheichenbach falls near Meiringen, and yes it is /those/ Rheichenback falls, Dr. Watson where meringues come from and very tasty they are too - but I've never noticed anything special about the passing places. I don't recall seeing any "remote" moving parts in their vicinity apart from the cable which connects the two cars, so the points must "decide locally", probably based on which side the cable is running. It's not the kind of thing you can leave to "chance" since both cars will arrive at the points at the same time.

David
 
#31 ·
QUOTE (Brian Considine @ 20 Jul 2008, 17:19) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Thanks for the photo David - interesting pickup arrangement, which I take is just for lighting, sort of trollybus style, but I take it on the common track sections one of the wires (say positive if DC) is central to the track & then there are two (negative) wires either side !

*** I suspect most of the power use is actually for traction management and braking....

Richard
 
#32 ·
I've just returned from my trip to Hungary, and while in Budaapest, we took the Funicular there (it was probably the most expensive price/meter trip there ever was! ) and while going up, I thought wouldn't a funicular model railway be nice!
Regards,
Ben
P.S. The Funicular in Genoa is extremely interesting as I believe it has 8 stops some of which were undeground!
 
#33 ·
I took this close up of the upper switch on the modern section of the funicular at Heidelberg last Friday. As far as I can tell there are no moving parts in the rails. There don't appear to be flange ways for wheels either which makes me wonder if only one side of each car has a flange with the other side being smooth?



I have a photo of the switch on the older (~100 years?) section too. It looks pretty similar with no obvious moving parts.

David
 
#35 ·
QUOTE (dwb @ 5 Aug 2008, 19:26) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I took this close up of the upper switch on the modern section of the funicular at Heidelberg last Friday. As far as I can tell there are no moving parts in the rails. There don't appear to be flange ways for wheels either which makes me wonder if only one side of each car has a flange with the other side being smooth?

Presumeably one car has double-flanged wheels on one side which locates it on one track and the other car has the double-flange on the other side which keeps it on the other track?

By the way, there's an interesting article in "The Railway Magazine" for September 2008, just published, on "4ft 8.5in and All That" looking at some 40 different gauges in the UK - many of the odd ones are on cliff railways, it seems, up to 7ft 6in on the St Nicholas Cliff Railway in Scarborough.

Regards,
John Webb
 
#37 · (Edited by Moderator)
Visited Legoland, Windsor yesterday. Unfortunately their resident funicular railway the 'Hill Railway' was out of service with the track receiving a lot of attention from a pest (not children) control contractor.

This was originally part of the Windsor Safari Park and the 3-car trains were the 'Central Africa Tram Co' from opening in 1990 until closure of the safari park in 1992, reopening in 1996 as part of Legoland Windsor and now a 3ft 6in gauge interlaced track with mid loop running approx 1000 feet at 1 in 10 average gradient. Sorry no pics taken, weather was foul yesterday!!!!

Dave
 
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