Page 100 - Bulletin 17 2013

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“GOING OUT INTO THE BLUE”

“Going out into the blue” – an attractive phrase used often in another connection in
Africa – could serve as an admirable description of the cableway. The essential and most
memorable part of this experience yesterday, seemed to be an exhilarating reaction to the
extraordinary quality and quantity of blueness that surrounds the car. The sea and the sky
rapidly pile up in one’s vision, until on the last lap of the journey, a portion of the Lion’s
Head and a jagged edge of the mountain seem to be all the solidity left in the world.
This, also, was one of the main impressions of the Mayor. He told a representative of
the Cape Times, afterwards, how much he enjoyed the quiet ease with which he was
transported into an atmosphere of incomparable beauty. Because of this, he thinks the cable-
way will be of such value to Cape Town that it will far more than off set the “ultra-aesthetic
contention” that “the finest sky-line in Africa has been spoilt.”
He is convinced that there is no possibility of the cableway ever entering into serious
competition with actual mountaineering. People who are interested in climbing mountains for
exercise and pleasure, he believes, will always do so, in spite of the cableway.
But to the people who, through no fault of their own, are unable to climb the
mountain – physically disabled people, people who have not the time, retired mountaineers,
and inexperienced climbers – he thinks the cable-way will be a lasting and inestimably
valuable attraction.

“SAFER THAN WALKING”

The possibility of serious accidents on the journey is extraordinarily remote. Sir
Alfred Hennessy, amid loud laughter, told the guests of the company yesterday afternoon,
that statistics proved that this form of transport was even safer than walking.
“Every device that the brain and wit of man could conceive,” he said, “has been
embodied in the cableway, and the public need have no fear as to its safety.
“There are something like 20 of these cableways in existence in the world, carrying
2,000,000 people a year, and they have never had a single accident. That should be sufficient
guarantee to a sensible person as to the absolute safety of the scheme.”
Both Sir Alfred and the Mayor paid unqualified tributes to the work of Mr. Strömsöe,
the consulting engineer. He, it was, who three years ago, conceived the present scheme, and
had the enterprise and conviction to carry it to a successful conclusion. He had done it in far
better and less objectionable fashion than that contemplated in a scheme considered by the
City Council 18 years ago. He had also executed it without any serious accident, which was a
remarkable achievement in view of the essentially dangerous construction work carried out.

SUCCESS ASSURED

Sir Alfred Hennessy, too, laid stress on the fact that the railway was entirely a South
African enterprise, undertaken with South African money. Sir David Graaff and Sir Ernest
Oppenheimer had been two of their chief supporters, and many well-known citizens of the
Peninsula were financially interested in it. Although the building of the cableway had cost
considerably more than had been expected, Sir Alfred Hennessy declared that he had no
doubt it would be a success as well as a credit to the Peninsula.
The present scheme is the realization of 40 years of talk about railways and cableways
to the summit of Table Mountain.