Teide Cableway

Template:Wikidata Infobox Teide Cableway (Spanish: Teleférico del Teide) is a cableway that goes up Mount Teide in Tenerife, Spain. Conceived in 1919, construction of the cableway was started on 5 September 1963 and was completed on 27 July 1971.

Structure

The cableway has two stations. The bottom station, at 2,356 metres (7,730 ft), has a bar and restaurant. The top station at La Rambleta is 3,555 metres (11,663 ft) above sea level, with trails to north-facing La Fortaleza and south-facing Pico Viejo viewpoints. There is also restricted access to the top crater of Mount Teide, 3,718 metres (12,198 ft) above sea level, by the Telesforo Bravo trail. There is a path that connects the two stations.

History

While various proposals were made over the years to construct a cablecar up Teide, the project that led to building the cablecar was initiated by Andrés de Arroyo y González de Chávez. In 1929 he visited Germany and Switzerland and saw the cable cars operating there, and on his return to Tenerife he started working on a project to do the same for Teide. in 1930, José Ochoa Bejumea of Caminos Canales y Puertos presented an initial design, with two sections: one with two cabins each holding 35 people that operated between Montaña Majúa and Montaña Fría, the second with a single cabin taking 15 people to the terminus and back.

The final design was finished some 30 years later, in 1960, by Miguel Pintor Domingo of Caminos, Canales and Puertos and Francisco Trujillo Armas. Based on the 1930s design, it moved the base station to its current location to reduce the cable length and remove a tower. The design used the slope of the terrain to simplify the towers to the intermediate station, and to avoid the use of towers to the terminus.

Land surveys to define the final locations of the stations and four towers was started in April 1962 and completed in 1963. Construction started on 5 September 1963 with the excavations for the road to the base station, and lasted 8 years. The foundations and civil structures were constructed by Entrecanales y Tabora S.A., with the cable car installed by the Italian company Ceretti e Tanfani S.A.. Construction material was initially moved by workers and donkeys until a hoist and auxiliary cable car were installed in 1967.

Construction was inaugurated on 18 July 1971, completed on 27 July 1971, and started operating on 2 August 1971.

The cableway was renovated between 1999 and 2007, with new towers, cables, and cable cars, as well as remodelling of the stations and renewal of the machinery and electrics.

The cable car broke down around 2pm on 15 March 2017, with 60 people trapped in two cable cars around 40 metres (130 ft) above ground until they were individually rescued in the next couple of hours. The breakdown stranded around 200 people at the top of the volcano, 60 of which stayed in the shelter overnight. The previous time the rescue protocols had been used was 20 years earlier.

An engine failure at around 10.20am on 18 August 2018 led to the evacuation of 34 people from the cable cars, with 115 people at the top of the volcano at the time. The cable car was operated manually to transport them back to the base station.

Operation

The cablecar operates between 9am and 5pm, with the last upward car at 4pm.