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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38mm — 1/2000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Eizan Ropeway Car
I didn't take this
Earlier this month I told my tale of out-of-shape hiking woe in “Yesterday’s Hike: The Agony Where Bravado Yields, In Spectacular Fashion, To Painful Reality”. The trip up the mountain was, if you'll excuse the pun, an exercise in pain, but the trip down was a breeze, as I availed myself of a cable car that heads straight up/down the mountain.
In the Japanese vernacular, a “cable car” is a train pulled by a cable. From where that ends near the top, a “ropeway” (as seen above) can bring you the rest of the short distance to the top. The American English in me would have called the ropeway a cable car, and the cable car a train, so I had to relearn those words for Japan.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 42mm — 1/2500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hazy View of Northern Kyoto
from between Eizan's Ropeway and Cable Car
The view from the area where the cable car ends, even though not the top of the mountain, is impressively high, and I was surprised at the sense of height. It feels much higher than from Daimonji, for example (as seen here, here, and here). I want to go back again on a clear day, with a big lens.
And luckily, even out-of-shape me can do so easily thanks to the cable car (though I'm much less out of shape these days, since the exercise the hike prompted me to start).
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 36mm — 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cable Car Station
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cable Car #1
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Completely Lost
The tracks are going down at a precariously steep angle, but it looks almost flat in the photo
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/200 sec, f/13, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Cable
There apparently used to be two until recently
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/200 sec, f/13, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Where #1 and #2 Pass
The temple in the background gives a sense of the steepness
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48mm — 1/200 sec, f/5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Two Ships Passing in the Night
or something like that
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 35mm — 1/200 sec, f/5, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bottom Station
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/200 sec, f/5, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nearby Train Station
to bring me most of the rest of the way home
Continued with next year's hike here...
In “Two Ships passing in the Night”, it appears that there is only cable on the left side and that the right side is unused.
They don’t really need a cable to go down (gravity does the work), but what surprises me is that there clearly used to be a cable. If it had simply been the return, where is the return now? And oddly, there is no cable below the passing point, so the car must run off of batteries or some other power to get to that point. It all seems slightly odd to me. —Jeffy
There’s always been only one cable – it’s connecting the two cars and makes a U-turn at the mountain station. 😉 Above both cars you’d see both ends in their guide wheels; between the cars you see one (because one ends at the car that’s above you); and if you’re beneath both cars there’s no cable to be seen at all …
Nitpicking engineer from Stuttgart, in the Wild South of Germany
Ahhh, I see. Wow, that is so much simpler than I ever thought. I feel like an idiot now… it’s exactly the kind of thing I’d do if I were building this out of LEGO with my boy, but somehow I never considered it. They’re really both just hanging by the cable from the U-Turn wheel. Holy cow, it’s so simple, I must be too smart to have thought of it. 🙂 Thanks, Andreas. Now the comment I added to my mom’s comment just above looks all the more stupid, but I deserve it. —Jeffrey
It’s a very neat design (I’ve used a very similar train in Bad Wildbad, in the Black Forest). Not only do the cars act as a counterweight for the other car; they share a single track as well! You’ve shown that there’s just one point where they have to pass each other; and even that is a fixed installation, with both cars always evading to their respective right.
It just doesn’t scale if two alternating cars weren’t sufficient …
The tricky bit is how do the wheel flanges of one car cross the cable of the other. Also I just can’t work out how that pointwork works. That is frustrating and makes me feel stupid. Perhaps when I am sober I will ‘get it’. Or perhaps a nitt picking engineer from Stuttgart will explain it. We have similar systems in Britain but have not closely examined the passing loop.
I had a look at funicular on Wikipedia. You have a two rail system and how the switch works is obvious when you see how. Very simple and very clever the first time it was done.
Wow, indeed. —Jeffrey
Hi…
Was too late… to add the same comments. As I’am from Switzerland, we have “tons” of Cable car like this in our country. Hope you to come and try them.
Have a nice ride 🙂
Fred