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Concept
Cable railway
Summary
A cable railway is a railway that uses a cable, rope or chain to haul trains. It is a specific type of cable transportation.
The most common use for a cable railway is to move vehicles on a steeply graded line that is too steep for conventional locomotives to operate on – this form of cable railway is often called an incline or inclined plane. One common form of incline is the funicular – an isolated passenger railway where the cars are permanently attached to the cable. In other forms, the cars attach and detach to the cable at the ends of the cable railway. Some cable railways are not steeply graded - these are often used in quarries to move large numbers of wagons between the quarry to the processing plant.
The oldest extant cable railway is probably the Reisszug, a private line providing goods access to Hohensalzburg Fortress at Salzburg in Austria. It was first documented in 1515 by Cardinal Matthäus Lang, who became Archbishop of Salzburg. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage rope and was operated by human or animal power. Today, steel rails, steel cables and an electric motor have taken over, but the line still follows the same route through the castle's fortifications. This line is generally described as the oldest funicular.
In the early days of the industrial revolution, several railways used cable haulage in preference to locomotives, especially over steep inclines. The Bowes Railway on the outskirts of Gateshead opened in 1826. Today it is the world's only preserved operational cable railway system. The Cromford and High Peak Railway opened in 1831 with grades up to 1 in 8. There were nine inclined planes: eight were engine-powered, one was operated by a horse gin. The Middleton Top winding engine house at the summit of Middleton Incline has been preserved and the ancient steam engine inside, once used to haul wagons up, is often demonstrated. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened in 1830 with cable haulage down a 1 in 48 grade to the dockside at Liverpool.
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