Cars and Propulsion
The Cable Car has two cars, which start from opposite ends of the line and pass in the middle. They are attached to each other by a 30-mm diameter cable, supported by 120 rollers, which runs round a pulley at the top of the hill. A 185-kW 550-V DC motor at the top of the hill drives the pulley. The Cable Car is a funicular rather than a true cable car: the cars are permanently attached to the cable, which stops and starts as required, while a cable car grips and releases a continuously-moving cable. Wheels on the south side of car 1 and the north side of car 2 have double flanges, while the opposite wheels on each car have no flanges, directing the cars to the correct side of the mid-way passing loop at Talavera.
The cars are designed to fit the grade, using internal steps to provide horizontal floors.
The normal operating speed is 18 km/h (5 m/s), with a maximum passenger load of around 100 (30 seated, 70 standing). Each car weighs approximately 13.5 t when empty and 21 t when full.
Read more about this topic: Wellington Cable Car
Famous quotes containing the word cars:
“I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)