Montmartre funicular - Paris, France
Posted by: 
manchanegra
N 48° 53.136 E 002° 20.556
31U E 451806 N 5414946
The Montmartre funicular is an automatic funicular railway near the famous Sacré Coeur de Montmartre in Paris.
Waymark Code: WMCTM5
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 10/11/2011
Views: 38
The Montmartre funicular is an automatic funicular railway serving the Montmartre neighbourhood of Paris, in the Eighteenth arrondissement. It is operated by the RATP, the Paris transport authority. It was opened on 13 July 1900 and was entirely rebuilt in 1935 and again in 1991.
The funicular carries passengers from the base of the butte (outlier) of Montmartre to the summit, near the base of the Sacré-Cœur basilica, and back down. It provides an alternative to the multiple stairways of more than 300 steps that lead to the top of the Butte Montmartre. At 108 m (354 ft) long, the funicular climbs and drops the 36 m (118 ft) in under a minute and a half. It carries two million passengers a year.
The funicular is open every day from 6 am until 12.45 am, transporting 6,000 people a day, or around 2 million a year, mostly tourists and pilgrims en route to the Sacré-Coeur, and also Parisians and those who love the ambience of the Place du Tertre.[1]
The lower station was built between the Place Saint-Pierre and the Place Suzanne-Valadon, and the upper one on the Rue du Cardinal-Dubois. The funicular runs alongside the Rue Foyatier, a wide 220-step staircase.
Constructed by Schindler Group, the new funicular with electrical traction entered service on 1 June 1991. It has two independent cabins with sixty places each. Its capacity is 2,000 passengers per hour in each direction. A trip in either direction, which covers a vertical distance of 36 m (118 ft) over a track distance of 108 m (354 ft), takes less than 90 seconds. The funicular is double track at standard gauge of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1/2 in) and the gradient is as high as 35.2% (a little steeper than 1:3).
The technology of the funicular is derived from that of standard elevators, which allows each car to function independently, with its own hoist and cables. This allows one car to remain in service if the other must be taken out of service for maintenance. At busy times, both cabins can ascend at the same time (usually, more passengers use the funicular to ascend than to descend).[2]
The see-through stations were designed by the architect François Deslaugiers, while the new cabins with their distinctive glass sections were by the industrial designer Roger Tallon, who also designed the carriages of the TGV Atlantique. The cabin roofs are partly glazed, which allows a view while in transit of the Montmartre Basilica or the panorama over Paris.
From Wikipedia
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