Sugarloaf Cable Car, Aerial lift in Urca, Brazil.
The Sugarloaf Cable Car is an aerial lift system that rises from Praia Vermelha through two stages to reach the summit high above the city. The route passes through a middle station before continuing upward, allowing visitors to see Rio's harbor, beaches, and mountains from all sides during the journey.
Engineer Augusto Ferreira Ramos proposed the cableway in 1908, after the National Exhibition held in Urca, and opened it on 27 October 1912; it was then only the third cableway in the world. The first section reached Morro da Urca, and the line to the Sugarloaf summit followed on 18 January 1913. A parallel line with larger cabins opened in October 1972, raising capacity from 115 to 1,360 passengers per hour.
The name "bondinho" comes from the cars' resemblance to Rio's trams at the time of opening. The 1979 James Bond film Moonraker staged a fight between Bond and Jaws inside a car; the cable Jaws bites was made of liquorice. In 2012, the centenary was marked with a Google doodle.
Cars leave every 30 minutes between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. The first leg to Morro da Urca covers 600 metres at up to 6 m/s; the second to the 396-metre summit covers 850 metres at up to 10 m/s, each taking about 3 minutes. Morro da Urca has a cafe, snack bar, restaurant, souvenir stands and a children's play area.
In 1951 one of the two cables snapped, leaving 22 people hanging on a single cable. Mechanic Augusto Goncales climbed out, slid down to the Urca station and helped build an emergency car that rescued 12 women and girls, 6 men and 3 children in about 10 hours; President Vargas called him "Hero of the Day".
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