Great Orme Tramway

The Great Orme Tramway ( walis. Tramffordd y Gogarth ) in Llandudno is a funicular railway, which consists of a tram - part and a mountain railway part, both of which are operated with cables. Despite the tram -like design, it is not a cable car because the car can not be solved by the cable during operation.

The train runs every season operation and transported about 160,000 passengers annually.

Plant

This railway connects the Victoria Train Station of Llandudno with about 200 meters high elevation Great Orme ( walis.: Pen y Gogarth ) on the peninsula. It was taken in 1902 in operation. The Great Orme Tramway is in addition to the facilities in Lisbon, the only remaining road funicular.

In the lower portion of the web drive the car 4 and 5, in the upper section, the carriage 6 and 7 cars 1 to 3 were freight cars that could be presented to the cars, but were scrapped in 1911. In the upper portion of the cables are visible in the lower portion of the cable located under the road surface. The cars are 11:28 meters long and have 48 seats; Standing is no longer permitted under the safety provisions.

Originally drove the vehicles of the train with trolley poles. The associated overhead line provided no driving power, but served as a telephone line between the driver and the winches Machinist for signaling the cruise control. In 1991 this was replaced by radio telephony procedures.

The power house is located at the middle station " Halfway ", from there the rope of the upper and the lower section is driven. This causes the upper section round a running rope, that is, below the vehicle is a rope. Unlike normal funiculars this pathway could not be fitted with Abtschen course, because as cars had to be equipped for driving in the groove track with normal wheel flanges. The car make with their flanges the course in the right position for them, so that they are passed on the way back again into the track, where its cable performs. A wrong turn can lead to serious accidents, as occurred in 2000 and 2009.

• In April 2000, the staff had found that the lower turnout is not always fell on the descent into the correct position. Therefore, an additional person was used for monitoring. But on April 30, neither that person nor the motorman According to the investigation report had noticed that the switch was made ​​wrong and carriage 7 was conducted during the ascent on the track of carriage 6, resulting in the collision.
• On 15 September 2009, the rear bogie was on the same track of carriage 7 during the ascent of 6 cars without the cars derailed it. Although the braking system has been triggered, but this did not respond fast enough to prevent a collision. The investigation of the accident indicated that the forces of the wheels were large enough in the leading bogie to raise the switch lever. This was made possible due to wear of the rails and the turnout linkage and positional inaccuracies of the track. It was also found that the risk of such an accident was not known until then what is owed not least the uniqueness of this plant.

Swell

• Keith Turner: The Great Orme Tramway - over a century of service. Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Llanrwst 2003, ISBN 978-0-86381-817-2
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