Wellington Cable Car

The theme letter for our ‪‎travel pics this week is R – for Railways.

For Saturday, it’s Wellington, in New Zealand, and its famous Cable Car.

Rising to 120 metres above Lambton Key, the Cable Car gives magnificent views, and access to the city’s Botanical Gardens.

Strictly speaking, Wellington’s service is not a cable car but a funicular railway.

There is a significant difference between cable cars and funicular railways .. and it involves the cable, or rope (funis in Latin)

With cable cars like those in San Francisco, the cable cars grab hold of a cable that is being drawn along underground by a whopping great reel in a central location.

But in the case of a funicular railway like Wellington’s, two cars are attached by a rope – and as one tramcar goes down the slope, it pulls the other up (and vice versa).

It’s a single-track system, so the two cars can only pass each other at the half-way point (where a second bit of track has been laid).

There are two other stops .. and they, of course, have to be an equal distance from the middle – and also have to have two bits of track

The three stops include one near the Victoria University, which is used mainly by students. In fact, the location of the university was chosen partly because of a land donation by the cable-car company which wanted to ensure ongoing patronage!