The 95-year-old Table Mountain aerial cableway, one of Cape Town’s favourite tourist attractions, is back in full service — on schedule — after being closed for seven weeks for a major overhaul which included the replacement of its cables.
This is in spite of stormy winter weather, equipment shipping delays and a helicopter breakdown at a critical point in the process.
For Andries de Vries, technical executive manager for the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Co (TMACC), the project is one of the biggest and most pleasant he has tackled in his more than 30-year engineering career. This was the first full track-rope cable replacement since the cableway was revamped in 1997. Maintenance of the hanging and running gear, including the cable cars, was also done.
Each cable car uses four 1.5km-long track rope cables (the station-to-station length is 1.2km). Each cable weighs 20t. Huge winches were flown to the top station. Old cables were dismantled and new ones winched up and installed. De Vries tells the FM he enjoyed the job even though it was nerve-racking right up to the final acceptance protocol testing.
“Engineers like things like this; that's what we do. We get to fly with helicopters and we get to play with big equipment and big machines,” he says.
His team was supported by world cableway market leader Doppelmayr Garaventa Group, an international manufacturer of ropeways and people movers for ski resorts, urban transport, amusement parks and material handling systems. All TMACC’s equipment is made by the group, and its operations adhere to stringent European standards.
De Vries says the company opted to bring the biggest, fastest equipment from Switzerland, and built a week’s contingency into the project plan. Together, the Swiss and the company made up one of the best teams he has ever worked with.
MD Wahida Parker says the co-operation it received from a range of organisations — including suppliers, South African National Parks, customs, the City of Cape Town, the air force and contractors working on the rehabilitation of Tafelberg Road, which runs along the foot of the mountain — was “uncanny”.
With the cargo delays and other hitches, Parker says: “We hit a bad spot, a rough spot. But when we called on people to help us, help was readily made available. This place was littered with very heavy equipment. If something had to go wrong, it could have gone wrong very badly. And we are grateful also to the communities around here who respected our call to say: ‘We know you love this mountain, but can you just give us some time?’”
If you break your journey and then fly into Africa, where is the long haul?
— Wahida Parker
The cableway is ready for strong future growth in the tourism market and, with tourists visiting throughout the year, Parker believes “we should lose the term ‘seasonality’. Cape Town is beautiful; whether it’s summer or winter, it has loads to offer. It doesn’t matter what the season is.”
She and De Vries say the city is able to accommodate many more tourists. They are impressed with the work being done by the City of Cape Town, Cape Town Tourism and Wesgro to grow tourism, air access and international city linkages to Cape Town.
And cruise liners “have been an absolute bonus”.
There is also a huge influx of visitors attending international conferences. “They have just exploded — and it is fantastic for tourism, for the city and for job creation. Everything benefits,” says Parker.
Another concept she would like to drop is describing South Africa as a long-haul destination.
“These days you can break your travel if you’re coming from the Americas or Europe or Asia — you can stop over in Dubai or Istanbul and it is included in the ticket price.
“If you break your journey and then fly into Africa, where is the long haul?”
Noting that overtourism has become a problem in European cities such as Barcelona, Venice and Florence, neither De Vries nor Parker believes it is an issue for Cape Town.
“Please send [the tourists] here!” quips De Vries.
Parker says overtourism is a potential problem, but “I don’t believe we’re anywhere close to those numbers yet. But if we are being visionary, then we need to look at traffic management, ease of doing business, ease of walking around. Top of the list would be safety and security.
“I think [South Africa has] pockets that could end up being oversubscribed, but we have gems in the country that have not even been touched.”
The cableway’s popular programme of offering free rides for people during their birthday month had to be put on hold during the closure. However, those who had birthdays in July, August and September can still take up the offer this month. A South African ID will be required.
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