Today’s cableway, with cabins holding up to 65 people and rotating floors for 360° views, bears little resemblance to the mechanism that was installed in 1929. The first version of the cable car was essentially a metal box, carrying only 23 passengers. It has been upgraded three times since its inaugural voyage on 4 October 1929 – in 1958, 1974 and 1997, and the travel time to the top has been reduced from 10 minutes to five.
The original idea for the cable car was born in the 1870s, when the city proposed a rack railway to the top of Table Mountain. A rack railway is a train drawn by a locomotive running on cogwheels fitted into slots on the railway line. The outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899, however, stopped construction before it had even started.
In 1912, the idea was revived when a Mr HM Peter proposed to the City Council that a funicular railway be built from Oranjezicht via Platteklip Gorge to the top of the mountain. The council at the time approved £100 000, but the plans were yet again interrupted with the outbreak of World War I.
Thankfully, the cable car was built before World War II could derail it again. In 1926, a Norwegian engineer by the name of Trygve Stromsoe proposed the construction of a cableway, and the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Co Ltd was registered for that purpose.
The current cableway uses one of only three Rotair cable cars in the world. It makes about 190 trips a day and has seen more than 28 million visitors, many of whom are international celebrities.
Among the many rich, famous and ordinary people to have made the trip up the mountain are Sir Edmund Hillary, who visited soon after his historic Mount Everest ascent. Other famous people to have taken the ride include Tina Turner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Jackson, UB40, Rowan Atkinson, Justin Bieber and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle didn’t go for a ride on their recent trip, but Queen Elizabeth II did when she visited the country in 1947.
The tourist attraction has won a number of accolades, including the African Responsible Tourism Award 2019 – Best Resources Management; being named as Africa’s leading attraction in the Africa & Indian Ocean World Travel Awards 2019; and being voted a New 7 Wonder of Nature in November 2011. The cableway is currently up as a finalist in the Africa’s Leading Attraction category in the World Travel Awards 2019, to be held in Oman in November.