Funicular - Inclined Lift

Inclined Lift

The inclined lift, or inclined elevator, is a special version of the funicular, since it has only one car carrying payload on the slope. The car is either winched up to the station on the top of the incline where the cable is collected on a winch drum, or the single car is balanced by a counterweight and operated the same way as a funicular with two cars. Many inclined lifts were constructed along the pressure lines of storage power plants for transporting building materials. Examples are the Gelmerbahn leading to the Gelmersee and the Funicolare Piora–Ritom leading to Lago Ritom, both in Switzerland.

The steepest funicular in the world is the incline lift Katoomba Scenic Railway in Australia.

Modern versions resembling an elevator are used in public transport applications, such as at Cityplace Station in Dallas, Texas, and Huntington Metro Station in Huntington, Virginia.

A mixture between an inclined lift and a funicular with two cars was the second Angels Flight in Los Angeles. The funicular closed in 1969 and was reinstalled in 1996 using separate cables for each car, which were winched on separate winch drums in the station at the top. The winch drums were connected to the drive motor and the service brake by a gear train. The system failed because of gear train breakage, causing a fatal accident in 2001. The funicular was then closed until 2010.

Inclined lift is also the term used for inclined elevators that travel at an angle, such as in the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas.