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Chongqing News

First passenger cable car track in China

2019-03-06 10:37:15

New-built cable car model

Wanglongmen Cable Car

Track hidden under Shancheng Footpath

Track under Shancheng Footpath

Pebbles on the track

CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- You can arrive at the wharf after walking down several stairs at Shancheng Footpath in Xiaoshizi. Liu Wenping, 60 years old, always think of the scene that a ferry departed gradually when he was a child.

Few people know the secret of the footpath like Liu Wenping, though there are many people walking on it. Under the seemingly ordinary footpath is the track trace of China's first passenger cable car. 

Liu said that in July 1944, national well-known bridge experts Mao Yisheng and Mei Yangchun came here to preside the construction of the first passenger cable car throughout the country, Wanglongmen Cable Car, which was built from July 1944 and put into service in May 1945. It connected Wanglongmen Bus Station and Wanglongmen Wharf. Liu learned from his mother that the opening of cable car was a sensational event in Chongqing at that time. All Chongqing people were crowded there to take the cable car to celebrate its opening.

He introduced that in October 1987, Yangtze River Cableway was built and put into service, which opens an air passage from the upper city of Yuzhong District to Shangxinjie, Nan’an District. It influenced the operation of the ferry from Wanglongmen Wharf to Longmenhao, making few passengers take the cable car. The cable car was closed in 1993 for the construction of riverside road along the Yangtze River.

What can be seen from old pictures is that the carriage is like a huge van, with a sign of a mountain in the front but no closed door. Passengers can enjoy the scenery outside standing at the door.

There was a great pleasure when taking the cable car at that time: when the two cars met in fish-bellied part, passengers on both sides could look at each other. The riverside by the cable car was very busy in the past. Tea houses, noodle stores and cigarettes stores were opened to welcome people from the opposite riverbank. It would be closed when river rose in summer. It used to be the most convenient way from Wanglongmen to Nanshan. When you came back, you could spend a few cents on the cable car to avoid climbing.

Daily passenger flow volume could reach 7,000 early its construction. The average interval was about 8 minutes at first.

You can find the trace of China’s first passenger cable car after searching when you are under the footpath. There are many pebbles on the track, staying here together with piers. Although the carriage has disappeared for a long time, two models are built on the footpath. People nearby walk here and enjoy the cool every summer.

2019 is the 74th birthday or Wanglongmen Cable Car, which is the first cable car track in Chongqing, built in 1945. (Translated by Mao Qiao, Fathom Language Limited)

Editor:Jiang Yiwei