Page 114 - Bulletin 17 2013

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Conclusion

Mountain railways and aerial cableways, apart from their utilitarian purposes, were part of a

suite of attractions designed to promote the appeal of resort towns and regions as health
centres and tourist playgrounds. Together with piers, pavilions, marine promenades, and

marine and mountain drives they capitalised on given natural amenities, revealing them,
enhancing them, and increasing their accessibility – though opinion was sometimes divided

about their claimed value.

By 1930 Cape Town boasted a number of such attractions, often regarded as being of world-

class: the Finest Tram Ride (City – Kloof Nek – Camps Bay – Green Point), the Finest Pier

(Adderley Street), the Finest Marine and Mountain Drive (Round the Peninsula), the Finest
Cableway; and, the Finest Pavilion (Muizenberg) in the southern hemisphere. Each employed

the latest technologies in construction, particularly steel-reinforced concrete, and in traction,
particularly internal combustion and electricity. And all required considerable sums of

investment, in some cases private and others public, but not all were financial successes. Of
this suite only the Round the Peninsula Drive and the Table Mountain Cableway, ascending

to “the finest sky-line in Africa”, have survived.

References

Table Mountain Wire Ropeway, The British and South African Export Gazette, 1 June, 1894:

521.

Cadby, E. E. (1897) Up Table Mountain in the Aerial Gear, Cape Illustrated Magazine, 7

(11), 374-377.

Corporation of the City of Cape Town, Minute of His Worship the Mayor (MM): 1910, 1912,
1913, 1914.

Official Souvenir and of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway (1929), African Publicity and
Advertising Services, Ltd., Cape Town.

Van der Post, L. (1929) Table Mountain Aerial Cableway – Up into the Blue, Cape Times
Annual for 1929: 114-115.