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Flying Dutchman Funicular
The Flying Dutchman Funicular, also known as the Cape Point Funicular, is a funicular railway located at Cape Point, near the Cape of Good Hope in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The line runs from a lower station at the Cape Point car park, up an incline through dense fynbos to the upper lighthouse. It was the first commercial funicular of its kind in Africa, and takes its name from the legend of the Flying Dutchman ghost ship. History The route that the line follows was originally serviced by a 16-seater ''Flying Dutchman'' bus. Due to the increasing number of visitors to the Cape, Cape Metropolitan Council put out a call for proposals to replace the bus service in early 1995. The proposal by Concor to install an electrically powered funicular was accepted as an environmentally friendly and novel means of transport. It was the first commercial funicular railway of its kind in Africa, and was produced entirely using South African resources. The diesel bus ran the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Funicular
A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite ends of a haulage cable, which is looped over a pulley at the upper end of the track. The result of such a configuration is that the two carriages move synchronously: as one ascends, the other descends at an equal speed. This feature distinguishes funiculars from inclined elevators, which have a single car that is hauled uphill. The term ''funicular'' derives from the Latin word , the diminutive of , meaning 'rope'. Operation In a funicular, both cars are permanently connected to the opposite ends of the same cable, known as a ''haul rope''; this haul rope runs through a system of pulleys at the upper end of the line. If the railway track is not perfectly straight, the cable is guided along the track using sheaves – unpowered pulleys tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concor
Concor Holdings (Proprietary) Limited. is a South African construction and mining services company. It is active throughout Southern Africa, involved in mining, civil engineering, building and road projects. Concor returned as an independent brand in late 2016. Company history Origin Dr F. Piccini, the original founder of Construction Corporation, registered the company in Johannesburg on 28 April 1948. The other four founding members were M. Barnabo, B. Chiozzi, U. Mantelli and V. Cini. The original name Construction Corporation was finally shortened to CONCOR. Dr Piccinni was originally a chairman of Ferrocemento, an Italian construction giant and the emerging Concor received its technical support initially from there. File:Original Concor Logo 1948.png, Original Concor Logo 1948 File:Original Concor Logo up to 2006.jpg, Concor Logo up to 2006 File:CONCOR LOGO.jpg, Concor Logo 2017 to current Initial projects The company's first major project was the construction of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Funicular Railways
This is a list of funicular railways, organised by place within country and continent. The funiculars range from short urban lines to significant multi-section mountain railways. A funicular railway is distinguished from the similar incline elevator in that it has two vehicles that counterbalance one another rather than independently operated cars. Africa South Africa * Cape of Good Hope, Flying Dutchman Funicular (opened 1996) Réunion * Saint-Benoît, Takamaka funicular (opened 1968) industrial funicular for Takamaka hydroelectric power stations employees Saint Helena * Jamestown, Jacob's Ladder (1829–1871) Americas Brazil * Niterói, Niterói funicular (1906- closed before 1950s) * Paranapiacaba, São Paulo Railway (two lines 1867–1982; now rack operated) * Rio de Janeiro: **Outeiro da Glória funicular (opened 1942; modernized 2003) **Paula Mattos funicular (1877-1926) * Salvador: ** (opened 1889) ** (opened 1981) ** (opened 1915) replacing a rack railway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South African Rand
The South African rand, or simply the rand, ( sign: R; code: ZAR) is the official currency of the Southern African Common Monetary Area: South Africa, Namibia (alongside the Namibian dollar), Lesotho (alongside the Lesotho loti) and Eswatini (alongside the Swazi lilangeni). It is subdivided into 100 cents (sign: "c"). The South African rand is legal tender in the Common Monetary Area member states of Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini, with these three countries also having their own national currency (the dollar, the loti and the lilangeni respectively) pegged with the rand at parity and still widely accepted as substitutes. The rand was also legal tender in Botswana until 1976, when the pula replaced the rand at par. Etymology The rand takes its name from the Witwatersrand ("white waters' ridge" in English, ''rand'' being the Dutch and Afrikaans word for 'ridge'), the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built and where most of South Africa's gold deposits were found. In Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wheelchair
A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries ( paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), cerebral palsy, brain injury, osteogenesis imperfecta, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, and more. Wheelchairs come in a wide variety of formats to meet the specific needs of their users. They may include specialized seating adaptions, individualized controls, and may be specific to particular activities, as seen with sports wheelchairs and beach wheelchairs. The most widely recognized distinction is between motorized wheelchairs, where propulsion is provided by batteries and electric motors, and manual wheelchairs, where the propulsive force is provided either by the wheelchair user or occupant pushing the wheelchair by hand ("self-propelled"), by an attendant pushing from the rear using the handle( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grade (slope)
The grade (also called slope, incline, gradient, mainfall, pitch or rise) of a physical feature, landform or constructed line refers to the tangent of the angle of that surface to the horizontal. It is a special case of the slope, where zero indicates horizontality. A larger number indicates higher or steeper degree of "tilt". Often slope is calculated as a ratio of "rise" to "run", or as a fraction ("rise over run") in which ''run'' is the horizontal distance (not the distance along the slope) and ''rise'' is the vertical distance. Slopes of existing physical features such as canyons and hillsides, stream and river banks and beds are often described as grades, but typically grades are used for human-made surfaces such as roads, landscape grading, roof pitches, railroads, aqueducts, and pedestrian or bicycle routes. The grade may refer to the longitudinal slope or the perpendicular cross slope. Nomenclature There are several ways to express slope: # as an ''angle'' of inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passing Loop
A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains or trams travelling in opposite directions can pass each other. Trains/trams going in the same direction can also overtake, provided that the signalling arrangement allows it. A passing loop is double-ended and connected to the main track at both ends, though a dead end siding known as a refuge siding, which is much less convenient, can be used. A similar arrangement is used on the gauntlet track of cable railways and funiculars, and in passing places on single-track roads. Ideally, the loop should be longer than all trains needing to cross at that point. Unless the loop is of sufficient length to be dynamic, the first train to arrive must stop or move very slowly, while the second to arrive may pass at speed. If one train is too long for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single Track (rail)
A single-track railway is a railway where trains traveling in both directions share the same track. Single track is usually found on lesser-used rail lines, often branch lines, where the level of traffic is not high enough to justify the cost of constructing and maintaining a second track. Advantages and disadvantages Single track is significantly cheaper to build and maintain, but has operational and safety disadvantages. For example, a single-track line that takes 15 minutes to travel through would have capacity for only two trains per hour in each direction safely. By contrast, a double track with signal boxes four minutes apart can allow up to 15 trains per hour in each direction safely, provided all the trains travel at the same speed. This hindrance on the capacity of a single track may be partly overcome by making the track one-way on alternate days, if the single track is not used for public passenger transit. Long freight trains are a problem if the passing s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Metropolitan Council
The City of Cape Town ( af, Stad Kaapstad; xh, IsiXeko saseKapa) is the metropolitan municipality (South Africa), metropolitan municipality which governs the city of Cape Town, South Africa and its suburbs and Commuter town, exurbs. As of the 2011 census, it had a population of 3,740,026. The remote Prince Edward Islands are deemed to be part of the City of Cape Town, specifically of ward 115. Cllr. Ian McMahon is the current ward councilor of ward 115. History Cape Town first received local self-government in 1839, with the promulgation of a municipal ordinance by the government of the Cape Colony. When it was created, the Cape Town municipality governed only the central part of the city known as the City Bowl, and as the city expanded, new suburbs became new municipalities, until by 1902 there were 10 separate municipalities in the Cape Peninsula. During the 20th century, many of the inner suburban municipalities became unsustainable; in 1913 the first major unification too ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Point
Cape Point ( af, Kaappunt) is a promontory at the southeast corner of the Cape Peninsula, a mountainous and scenic landform that runs north-south for about thirty kilometres at the extreme southwestern tip of the African continent in South Africa. Table Mountain and the city of Cape Town are close to the northern extremity of the same peninsula. The cape is located at , about 2.3 kilometres (1.4 mi) east and a little north of the Cape of Good Hope on the southwest corner. Although these two rocky capes are very well known, neither cape is actually the southernmost point of the mainland of Africa; that is Cape Agulhas, approximately to the east-southeast. Peaks The peak above Cape Point is higher than that above the Cape of Good Hope. The rugged sandstone (Table Mountain sandstone) ridge that rises from Cape Point at sea level develops into two peaks. There is a major peak that dominates the skyline locally, but there is also a smaller peak about 100 m (328 ft) furthe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flying Dutchman
The ''Flying Dutchman'' ( nl, De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myth is likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and of Dutch maritime power. The oldest known extant version of the legend dates from the late 18th century. According to the legend, if hailed by another ship, the crew of the ''Flying Dutchman'' might try to send messages to land, or to people long dead. Reported sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries claimed that the ship glowed with a ghostly light. In ocean lore, the sight of this phantom ship functions as a portent of doom. It was commonly believed that the ''Flying Dutchman'' was a fluyt. Origins The first print reference to the ship appears in ''Travels in various part of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward'' (1790) by John MacDonald: The next literary reference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fynbos
Fynbos (; meaning fine plants) is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. This area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean climate and rainy winters. The fynbos ecoregion is within the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. In fields related to biogeography, fynbos is known for its exceptional degree of biodiversity and endemism, consisting of about 80% (8,500 fynbos) species of the Cape floral kingdom, where nearly 6,000 of them are endemic. This land continues to face severe human-caused threats, but due to the many economic uses of the fynbos, conservation efforts are being made to help restore it. Overview and history The word fynbos is often confusingly said to mean "fine bush" in Afrikaans, as "bos" means "bush". Typical fynbos foliage is ericoid rather than fine. The term, in its pre-Afrikaans, Dutch form, ''fynbosch'', was recorded by Nob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
