Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
August 25, 1912 In northern Spain, operations began for a funicular in the city and municipality of San Sebastián. This cable railway system was built on a steep slope of Mount Igueldo. The Igueldo funicular was designed by engineer Emilio Huizi. Another engineer, Severiano Goñi, supervised the construction of the railway. The Igueldo funicular was... Continue Reading →
May 29, 1884 Europe’s first cable-operated tramway was introduced to the public in north London. This .7-mile (1.1-kilometer)-long tramway ran on Highgate Hill in an area encompassing parts of both the Highgate and Archway sections of England’s capital city. While most of the line was double-tracked, about 1,000 feet (304.8 meters) of it was single-tracked. The... Continue Reading →
April 4, 1901 In Switzerland, a funicular railway in the city of Zurich first went into service. This railway was built to carry people up and down the Zürichberg, a 2,228-foot (679-meter)-high hill in the northeastern part of the city. A key destination on this hill at the time was a restaurant named Rigiblick that... Continue Reading →
July 18, 1924 After more than three decades of service, the Belleville funicular tramway in Paris ceased operations. This railway consisted of cable cars connecting the Place de la la République (Republic Square) in the north-central region of France’s capital city with Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Belleville, a major church on a hill in northeastern Paris’s Belleville... Continue Reading →
May 30, 2014 In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the first part of an aerial cable car transit system serving country’s La Paz- El Alto region officially began operations. This system, known as Mi Teleférico (Spanish for “My Cable Car”), took shape in July 2012. That is when Evo Morales Avma, who was president of... Continue Reading →
August 8, 2021 Line 2 of Mexico City’s cable car service was inaugurated. This occurred only four weeks after the opening of the system’s first line. Cablebús (the Sistema de Transporte Público Cablebús) is operated by Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos (Electric Transport Service), the public transportation agency that also runs the trolleybus and light rail... Continue Reading →
April 18, 1965 A funicular railway serving Greece’s capital city of Athens was inaugurated. Regular operations for this means of public transit began the following day. This railway, which is located in the central section of Athens, was built by the Greek National Tourism Organization to carry people up and down a steep limestone hill... Continue Reading →
November 24, 1998 The Manakamana Cable Car service in the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal was inaugurated. This gondola lift transportation system had been imported from Austria. (In that type of gondola lift transportation system, airborne cars supported and propelled by cables from above are used to carry passengers from one point to another.) The... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 