It is like an aerial railroad with two tracks on which the train is as long as the railway, the individual cars a hundred meters apart; a somewhat bizarre railroad because of the paradoxical fact that the cars stop at the loading/unloading stations while the train never stops!

One undertaking of our company is the approximately 40 Km cableway that connects Porto Motril to the city of Granada (Spain). In deciding to do this work, the idea that it was cheaper to develop and operate than a railroad of equal capacity prevailed. Also representative and currently underway is the case of one of the richest Central African colonies, which has begun study of a nearly 400 Km cableway rather than planning to double the existing railroad.

Other tangible evidence favoring a long cableway includes a single-cable cableway of about 200 km which connects the city of Bogota, the capital of Columbia, to the sea and the three-cable cableway of about 60 km that was built in Indochina for the transport of various goods.

The Longest Three-cable Cableway

The Massawa-Asmara cableway was implemented as a three-cable system. That is, with three cables.

Two cables carry the weight: they make up the pathways for the cars moving in opposite directions. The third has a drawing function: it connects the cars and pulls them along.

The Massawa-Asmara cableway is now recognized as the longest three-cable aerial line ever constructed.

For a brief overview of the gigantic work, it is enough to outline the following facts:

• The mechanical components reach a weight of a little less than a thousand tons; the cables weigh the same; and the aggregate weight of the structural steel work amounts to almost two thousand tons.

• The walls and foundations amount to 15,000 cubic meters of concrete.
• The earthworks and the pits for the foundations required the excavation of 45,000 cubic meters, of which about 35,000 were solid rock.

But for two other reasons the great aerial line can be shown off for the admiration of the public:

• Because it represents the best quality the industrial world could provide.