Page 78 - Bulletin 17 2013

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Street – Buitenkant Street and then strike up Platteklip Gorge for some 5,150 ft. to terminate

at an Upper Station 120 ft. below the summit, from which point steps would lead to the top.
The motive force would be water with a car carrying 15 – 20 passengers counter-balanced by

a water-filled drum running on a separate set of rails beneath the main line. He drew attention
to additional opportunities deriving from access to the summit: the opening up of a vast tract

of land (probably along the lower mountain slopes near today’s Tafelberg Road) on which
hundreds of ‘better class’ suburban residences could be laid out, the laying out of an

ornamental garden around the City’s mountain-top waterways and reservoirs as an attractive

suburban park, and construction of a supplementary line on the Hout Bay side of the
mountain.

Evidently the Syndicate wished to have a broader set of options before them and in June 1895
Engineer J. C. Mackay presented a comparative analysis of rack-rail, cable-rail, and aerial

ropeway. Rack-rail was the most costly at £28,000 and unsuited to the steep slopes (greater
than 1 in 4) near the top of the Gorge, but he suggested that a more suitable route might be

found. The aerial ropeway, although the cheapest at £8,000, needed no further consideration
as he believed few people would travel by it for pleasure. This left the cable-railway at

£22,000 as the most feasible and affordable option.

Unfortunately, at about this time, Capt. Van de Ven, was stricken with a sudden illness and

this took the momentum out of the Syndicate and the plans fell through.

In the meantime, in 1893, Mr A. D. Chapman, an engineer in the Cape Government
Railways, proposed a novel ‘endless cable elevator’ running from the top of Mill Street up

Platteklip Gorge to the Beacon. (Fig. 2.1.) It would consist of a double-track wooden

stairway, one for ascent and the other for descent, inclined at an average angle of 33 degrees.
To achieve this the stairways would be raised about 3 ft. above the irregular ground on an

iron column and beam structure standing in concrete footings. An endless wire cable running

between the stairways at a rate of two and a half miles per hour was to provide the motive
power. Passengers wishing to ascend would step onto the stairs in single file, pass a cord

halfway round their waists, attach its special fastening to a hook on the cable, and then walk
up the stairs at the speed of the cable. The journey to the top would take approximately one

hour and was not expected to be fatiguing. But the journey could be broken by stepping off
onto specially provided platforms situated at half-mile intervals. At the top the panorama