Hong Kong Peak Tram

[Derek Walker]

Seeing as Kevin wants to see this.. here I go.
The peak tram is a double reversibale funicular railway and is 1.4km long with a gradient of between 4 to 7 degrees rising from 28m to 396m above sea level. The haulage rope is 44mm in diameter with a breaking force of 139 tonnes. It was officially opened in may 1888, with wooden trams that had a coal fired steam boiler to run the haulage system, electrically powered haulage replacd the steam gear in 1926 and the tram carried 52 pasengers at a time. In 1948 a 62 seater was introduced to meet the increased demand from the locals and in 1989 the system was extensively overhauled with new tramcars replacing the old and able to carry 120 passengers.

Approaching the bottom level station

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Waiting to collect passengers.

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A tram arrives roughly every 8 minutes and there are 2 using the track at any given time with a loop in place just shortly after the ground level terminal.
There are also 4 stations along the way to the top that can be used to collect and drop off passengers

Drivers view of the tram heading uphill

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[Derek Walker]

The tram arrives at the top terminal.

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This image has been rotated by 8 degrees to see the effect that the steep incline has on the view outside, its very disconcerting to travel in something that is seemingly level and everything else outside is leaning over at a crazy angle.

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a 1948 vintage tram car on display

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The view from the Peak

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On the return journey the passengers face uphill while heading backwards down the slope.

[Tom Macrery]

Thanks Derek. Fantastic photos. From the photos the haulage rope, or cable, is only viable on the uphill side of the tram. Is that right? Tom

[Derek Walker]

Tom, I expect its only viable to have the haulage machinery at the top, but I am no expert in these things and maybe there is a way to have the machinery at the bottom and run a pulley system that goes up and then down, but that could leave half of the cable permanently exposed which could lead to trouble I expect. Unfortunately there was no way to ask anybody about the internal workings of it all.

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Very interesting - have heard about this but not seen it.

As an irrelevant aside I was close to joining the Royal Hong Kong Police in my youth - I chickened out at the last minute!

[Tom Macrery]

"viable" was a typo. I meant "visible". In the photos the double line of cable lying in the rollers is only present on the uphill side of the tram. Thanks, Tom