Talk:Funicular

message: The external links page is going to balloon if we are not careful-should links to individual funiculars be allowed, or should they just link from List of funiculars? John 18:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: Tagged (without explanation or rationale) on 24 June 2006 with this edit; closed (without archiving) on 8 July with this one. Archived by Moonraker12 (talk) 22:23, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge proposal

message: I have removed the uncited claim that the 66m funicular in Zagreb is the world's shortest. A short web browse found the details of a shorter one here. -- Chris j wood 19:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claim of world's shortest 

message: There is another meaning of funicular, having to do with bridges, that wikipedia should also document.  Some info: http://www.brantacan.co.uk/funicular.htm
64.160.39.153 03:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  another meaning 

message: I have added a section re Private Funiculars, which are certainly funiculars, if not long enough to be a funicular railway. Here in Wellington, New Zealand there are 2-3 hundred to private houses and I certainly don’t want to list them, but the type should be mentioned. I have put in links to 2 manufacturers with good website pictures, as examples. I have no connection with either firm! NB; as discussed previously, many funiculars have 2 coupled cars, but some have one car and a counterweight and some (like these) just have one car perm. attached to a cable. NB: the New Zealand standard (NZS 5270) for safety checks calls them cable cars. The requirement for safety checks was put back after a death on one, and it was realised that the requirement had been dropped during legislative ‘reform’! Hugo999 13:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: She rode the elevators as if they were the grandly upholstered gondolas of a private funicular, swam alone in the undisturbed waters of the two swimming-pools, and strolled about the shopping concourse as if visiting her own personal bank, hairdresser and supermarket. (Ballard, J.G. 1975. High Rise.) Catena (talk) 16:02, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Private Funiculars

message: The Great Incline of the Mt. Lowe Railway was a colaboration of engineering. This article says that the Incline was designed by Andrew Hallidie of the San Francisco Cable Cars. The Incline grading was really engineered by Chief Engineer David Macpherson, The three-rail was conceived by Lowe, and Macpherson implemented the design and layout. Hallidie engineered the mechanisms, cables, pulleys, motorization and all.--Magi Media 14:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great Incline 

message: I'm proposing a small re-organization of articles including this one at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#Cable_railways:_a_proposal. I'd be grateful for your thoughts. Please post comment to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#Cable_railways:_a_proposal to keep the discussion in one place. Many thanks, Gwernol 18:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A proposal 

message: Wasn't the Allegheny Portage Railroad steam powered?  The location is difficult for water power. Pustelnik (talk) 12:16, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: History

message: This article attributes the creation of the passing track to Prof. Thaddeus Lowe in 1893 - although the Tünel in istanbul was completed in 1875 and includes a passing track.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.201.151.146 (talk) 02:10, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prof. Thaddeus Lowe 

message: I don't know its current status, but in the late 1950s, the Hong Kong Peak Tram (that's what it was called) had two cable-operated rail cars counterbalancing each other. As I recall, above the "meeting point", there were two rails, and three or four below, but don't trust my memory. Maximum "tilt" was on the order of 30 degrees. Cars were open, and every seat had outside access. The thresholds of the entries (there were no doors) had an angled section that became more nearly horizontal at stations along the route. Along the trip, one really reclined in one's seat!
When one car stopped at a station (there were a few, perhaps four), the other stopped between stations, of course.
Although starting and stopping were gentle, nevertheless when near the low end, the car would oscillate at roughly 0.5 Hz maybe two inches/five cm or so as the cable stretched and relaxed.
I no longer remember the details at the midpoint, but do recall that they were quite simple and well-thought-out.
I think the (English) name of the mountain was Victoria Peak, but am far from sure. Total elevation change was maybe 2/3 km, but that's just a rough guess. I do know that the view from the top was pretty special.
Machinery was, of course, at the top; huge cable drums, gearboxes, and a drive motor or two.
The ride was quite enjoyable, and not costly. (I was in the Pacific Fleet, US Navy, back then.)
It's conceivable that there was a telephone pair inside the cable, but don't trust that, either! However, there must have been an embedded signaling circuit to tell the machinery operator that it's OK to restart.
By the way, I really like pictures of funicular railways -- they are all different.
Regards, Nikevich (talk) 01:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Hong Kong?

message: Seems there is a funicular in Zakopane, Pl.  Maybe someone would like to research this and add it to the general article?  Cheers...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.13.109.76 (talk) 15:24, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Zakopane

message: Haifa also has a funicular. It's underground, has six stops, measures 8000 meters long, and ascends 274 meters. It also holds a world record for being the shortest underground system in the world. (OK, Istanbul has it's short metro line, but the metro system in the city still covers more area).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.138.41.190 (talk) 14:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Haifa

message: The lead sentence defines a funicular as having a pair of vehicles: there is then the section "Inclined lift" which concerns systems with only one vehicle. There is a separate article Incline elevator (which says that "Unlike a funicular, an incline elevator does not have a passing loop and thus is operated with a single small tram.", which seems an incorrect distinction as plenty of funiculars have two tracks and no passing loops!). 
If Inclined lifts are a special kind of Funiculars, then they should get a mention in that lead sentence. If they are something distinctive, then the section in this article should be merged into the existing Incline elevator, the redirects tweaked (Inclinator leads to Funicular at present), and text of both articles modified to show what the distinction is between the two things.
If it helps in discussion, the word "funicular" comes from a word for rope, and the OED defines it as "funicular railway: one worked by a cable and stationary engine; a cable railway", so it seems that the defining characteristic is that the car or cars is/are pulled up by a rope or cable. (And of course some, like the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway, have no stationary engine but are water-powered.) PamD 07:24, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Then there's Cable railway which says "A cable railway (also known as an incline or inclined plane) is a steeply graded railway that uses a cable or rope to haul trains." and "A specific type of cable railway is the funicular, which is a cable railway with the cars permanently fixed to the cable.[2] Usually funiculars are self-contained and not connected to other railway networks." (with a reference to a German book).  That suggests another defining characteristic. PamD 07:53, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It's all been discussed before, of course: see Talk:Cable_railway#Funiculars.2C_Cable_Cars_.26_Cable_Railways and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains/Archive:_2008,_1#Cable_railways:_a_proposal. PamD 08:05, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is a funicular? 

message: Maybe the "Tram" inside the Gateway Memorial Arch in St. Louis should be considered? --BjKa (talk) 10:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Gateway Arch]] 

message: @Andy Dingley, it may be that as funicular has a Latin root (OED Latin fūniculus, diminutive of fūnis rope.) that the European Continentals adopted it because it translates easier than "cable car".
:comment -- what makes you think "the continentals" needed to "translate" the term from an english source? :p Lx 121 (talk) 04:20, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Another six months and still no definition to tell them apart

message: https://www.google.ca/search?num=100&newwindow=1&client=ubuntu&hs=XdJ&channel=fs&q=Funicular+definition&oq=Funicular+definition&gs_l=serp.3..0j0i22i30k1l9.1147584.1151363.0.1158553.11.10.0.0.0.0.928.2891.0j1j3j2j1j0j1.8.0....0...1.1.64.serp..3.8.2883.iRnWiyfE6fI
also, try the french & german articles on the same subject.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funiculaire
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standseilbahn
Lx 121 (talk) 04:12, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: definitions

message: If I can chip in on this, I would also oppose this merger, as I don't think the subject is best served by having a bloated 55Kb article covering in full some (but by no means all) aspects of cable transport, all on one page. Articles of 5, or 17, or 33Kb seem plenty big enough without being confronted with a wall of text about a whole range of somewhat-related subjects. And 55Kb is about the size we should be thinking of splitting an article up, not aiming for!
I don't see that these two subjects duplicate or overlap each other significantly (or if they do, the overlap can be as easily fixed by trimming as by lumping them together) or that either is too short to stand alone. Contrariwise I think the difference between the means of traction (gripping, or counter-weighting) affects the layout, mode of operation and choice of where to employ them enough to make them discrete subjects.
OTOH I have sympathy with Andy's point about definitions:  The term “Funicular” does have two distinct meanings; a broad definition that covers all rope-hauled transport (from the Latin) and a more strict one referring to the type of cliff railways described above. For that, I have John Woodhams Funicular Railways,John Woodham (1989) Funicular Railways: Shire Albums  which says outright “The term 'funicular' is often associated with the little cliff railways still to be found at a number of seaside resorts, yet strictly it also covers all forms of cable-worked lines”. He then has chapters on The Funicular Principle, The Inclined Plane, Cliff Railways, and Cable Tramways. And the terms funicular, cable railway, incline, cliff lift, and  cliff tramway do seem to be used interchangeably. 
I noticed that there was a discussion (mentioned here) about this at WP:Project Trains some time ago. The conclusion was that we needed an umbrella article on cable-hauled railway in general, with subsidiary articles on (specifically) Incline Railways, Funiculars, and Cable Railways. (see here).
So, Rather than merging stuff into here, maybe it'd be better to split what's here already into something on the funicular principle (a general article on the concept) and something on funicular railways in particular (ie those according to the strict definition here).
Or we could move this page en bloc to “Funicular railway” and redirect Funicular to Cable transport, which is already exists as a general article on the subject (though it includes aerial tramways as well). Anyway that's another story; as far as this proposal goes, I'd be against it. Moonraker12 (talk) 23:10, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Our goal here is not to write an article covering everything that goes by the name "funicular". This is an article about a certain topic, and that topic is "cable-hauled cars that run up and down steep tracks in counterbalanced pairs". Even though "funicular" is the title of the article, there are other things called funiculars that should be covered in different articles such as Cable railway or Incline elevator. –dlthewave ☎ 13:23, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I also oppose this merger. Whilst there is certainly some overlap between different forms of inclined transportation (I, for one, don't really get the distinction between funicular railways and, provided they use counterweights, inclined lifts), we do need to draw boundaries somewhere otherwise we end up with a huge unwieldy article. And there is a clear difference between funiculars and cable cars (in the San Francisco sense) and an even bigger difference between funiculars and cable cars (in the 'dangling off cables' sense). Cable railway is a more general term, that can be used for both funiculars and cable cars (SanFran) and sometimes even for cable cars (dangling), although I'm not sure I buy that. It can also be used for other less common systems, like inclined lifts without counterweights. In the end, this is an editorial decision not an 'I have a rock-solid definition that covers all cases' decision, and in order to keep our article readable we have to make judgement calls. So long as we are up-front in the article about this, and discuss possible overlaps and contrary indications, there is nothing wrong with that. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 11:14, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: And another six months...

message: This extensive book: . 
It contains a rather good chapter the matter in question -- Cable railway systems for steep gradients (ch. 10). 3 distinct classes of transportation are defined there: 
--Vаdiм (talk) 18:01, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  A rather definitive source

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: As per (Strakosch 2010):  and . In this regard when (Pyrgidis, 2016) is saying  then one should read it as "The inclined elevator if variation on the funicular". The rest of its text confirms inclined elevators and funiculars are different categories --Vаdiм (talk) 14:31, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Inclined elevators

message: Or TCQSM, 3rd Edition by the Transportation Research Board ():
One could find there many other useful transportation definitions --Vаdiм (talk) 15:59, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual