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Gondola Grip

If you’ll recall, cable cars, funiculars, aerial trams and urban gondolas are propelled by means of transit vehicles attaching themselves to a moving cable. Hence the term Cable Propelled Transit. But how does that occur?  With Grips, that’s how.

Grips are just what they sound like. They are like a fist grabbing onto a rope and holding on for dear life. But whereas a rope can slide through a fist given a strong enough tug on the rope, a CPT vehicles’ grip on a cable is fixed in place and cannot shift. (There is one exception to that rule, which we will discuss later on in this module.)

Like this only without the rope burn.

There are two major types of grips and cable technology can be subdivided into two categories based on those types: Detachable and Attached. Those terms describe whether or not a gondola is capable of detaching itself from the cable or not.

That may scare you initially, but don’t worry, just because a gondola is detachable doesn’t mean it’s dangerous as you’ll see in the next lesson.

Proceed to Lesson 2: Detachable Grips (Part 1)

Creative Commons images by Alan Cordova, and toffehoff