Drakensberg Cable Car

The front page of the engineering pre-feasibility document sums up the content: not based on a lot of hard facts. Why they use a photo of the Amphitheatre area with a station on Dooley and then on the policeman's helmet goes beyond my reasoning. Mmmm, Busingata is a couple of k's left of your picture guys....

This is only a pre-feasibility document, so one should not expect too many technical risks addressed here. These things happen in the formal feasibility studies. Still, it provides chilling evidence of what they are planning....I need to climb Mt Amery soon if I want to do it in peace and quiet.....

Where do they get the capacity figures from? Cape Town tourism? I cannot foresee those numbers ever realizing at this station. Don't compare this to Table Mountain Cable way or something build in Europe. Fatal error in my opinion.

Note to all: NOTHING is technically proven by this document, and even less so economically proven. However, they may start applying and allocating budgets based on this info (that is the essence of doing pre-feasibilities).

Read the 2 letters - they raise good points, still need to read the engineer's report though. But good to see that ACT and WAG are getting involved as well.

Highlands Fanatic wrote: The front page of the engineering pre-feasibility document sums up the content: not based on a lot of hard facts. Why they use a photo of the Amphitheatre area with a station on Dooley and then on the policeman's helmet goes beyond my reasoning. Mmmm, Busingata is a couple of k's left of your picture guys....

That shoddy picture for the top station I did a while back (I think I posted it somewhere on this thread) was a better quality one than that - and mine took 5 minutes and was done on MS Powerpoint! That's a really shoddy job.


Ok - just read the engineers report

That's very non-specific and was not very informative. I have a few issues on it, but mostly regarding capacity and the fact that they are proposing that 126 gondolas be in operation every hour at peak. That may be difficult to manage!

Smells like a lot of bull. Are they taking someone for a ride?

Just had a read through the three documents.

First off, ACT mentioned a few sites that the local communities have id outside of the traditional area. A good idea i think that would likely provide more than 30 people with jobs.

WAG mentioned that alternative sites for a cable car would have to id and these would have to form part of an eia investigation. Very important point.

The engineering report mentioned 400-500 people per hour in each direction. So effectively, that is 400-500 people who would have paid, per hour. That would be 3200 per day, 96 000 people per month and 1 152 000 people per year. I wonder how many people visit the berg on a monthly basis presently, and i wonder how many more would visit because there is a cable car?

Capital cost for the three options are between R375 000 000 - R574 000 000 and the operating costs between R686 000 - R910 000 per annum. I wonder if they have worked out a cost per person and number they would need to make the project feasible. I have not seen anything in any of the reports.

They based the operating costs on an 8 hour day, 365 days a year, that means that it will run non-stop. No mention of days when it cant operate due to poor weather.

Point 3.4 of the engineering report, again makes mention of potential restaurants - red flag this as a potential pollution threat, litter, liquid and solid waste problems.

Point 4.4. Helicopters noise during construction phase

I have a few queries about the state of play with the proposed cable way. Perhaps someone knows the answers:

1) Is there any evidence that the project is going to be state funded and state run?
2) Is there any evidence that the project will go out to tender for a private company to build and run?
3) Is there any evidence that private companies have already expressed interest in running the cable way?
4) Could it be the case that the Ministries involved in stoking this up are doing so in order to be able to say "we have done our bit to promote the tourism sector' but the rest is over to private enterprise?

The number of projected users of the cable way have really surprised me. The numbers are just far too high. It would take a company willing to lose an awful lot of money to be daft enough to invest in this scheme and that may be the key reason it does not go ahead. But then there is the state. And the state's problem can sometimes be spending enough money - in other words getting rid of the budget they do have. A white elephant like the cable way might be a perfect place to spill their unspent budgets. With the usual kick backs to thieving government ministers and their cousins-brothers, the scheme could easily go ahead - that is if it is to be state funded. Hence my earlier questions.

Serious tribe wrote: ...Capital cost for the three options are between R375 000 000 - R574 000 000 and the operating costs between R686 000 - R910 000 per annum...

No no
The Kuka prefeasibility study says on page 32:
"5.2. OPERATING COSTS
The monthly operating costs are summarized in the following tables..."

So that makes it between R8,232,000 and R10,920,000 per annum!