A field map for everything that runs on a fixed guideway
Held up by a rope. Or held down to a rail.
Gondolas, funiculars, cable cars, cog railways, trams, metros, high-speed rail, maglev — every machine that can't steer, because its path is built into the ground or strung through the air. Here's how each one actually works, how to tell them apart at a glance, and where to ride the famous ones. One page each, with the source pinned at the top.
guideway:~$is it hauled by a cable · or does it carry its own engine?
▲ amber = cable-hauled — the rope does the work▼ cyan = rail — carries its own traction
00 how to read the map
One question splits the whole world in two
Every fixed-guideway machine answers the same first question: where does the pulling force live? Either a stationary engine hauls the vehicle along a cable and the car is just a gripper hanging on — or the vehicle carries its own motor and grips a rail. That single fork explains almost everything downstream: the speed limits, the grades it can climb, how many people it moves, and why it looks the way it does.
Three sub-questions finish the job. In the air or on the ground? (aerial ropeway vs. ground-level). Adhesion or a rack? (smooth steel wheels slip past ~7–10% grade; a toothed rack rail beats that). Wheels or no wheels? (steel-on-steel, rubber-on-concrete, or maglev floating on a magnetic field). Every page here is one leaf of that tree.
01 cable-suspended · aerial
Hanging from a wire
Aerial ropeways ignore the terrain entirely — they fly over it. A loop of steel cable runs between towers, driven by a big bullwheel at one end; the cabins either clamp on permanently or grip and release. Each links to a one-page explainer.
Small enclosed cabins on a continuously circulating loop. Modern ones detach from the cable to slow down in the station, then re-grip and accelerate — the workhorse of ski resorts and urban cable transit.
Two big cabins on a fixed track cable that shuttle back and forth, counterbalancing each other. Fewer, bigger, slower-to-cycle — but they span enormous gaps.
Two fixed track cables plus one moving haul rope — the aerial-tramway's stability with the gondola's continuous flow. Huge cabins, huge spans, wind-stable.
Open chairs on a circulating rope — the simplest, cheapest aerial lift. Detachable high-speed versions slow in the station; fixed-grip ones just keep moving.
Spot it: open seats, feet dangling
02 cable-hauled · on the ground
Dragged up the hill
Same idea as the ropeways — a stationary engine and a cable — but the vehicle stays on rails on the ground. These are how you beat a slope too steep for an ordinary train. Each links to a one-page explainer.
Two cars permanently coupled to opposite ends of one cable on a steep incline — each is the counterweight for the other, so the motor only fights friction and imbalance. Climbs grades a train could never hold.
A self-powered train that adds a toothed cog engaging a rack rail between the running rails — mechanical grip for grades far past what smooth wheels can hold. (Half cable-family in spirit, but it carries its own engine.)
Spot it: a toothed rail down the middle
03 rail · self-propelled
Carrying its own engine
No cable. The vehicle makes its own traction and grips a guideway — steel wheel on steel rail, rubber tyre on concrete, or nothing at all, floating on a magnetic field. This is where speed and capacity live. Each links to a one-page explainer.
No wheels. Magnets levitate and propel the train, deleting rolling friction — the fastest ground transport ever built (603 km/h on test). Shanghai runs one commercially.
A single beam instead of two rails — straddled from above or suspended from below. More icon than backbone, but the suspended Wuppertal line has run since 1901.
Grade-separated urban heavy rail — its own tunnels and viaducts, no crossings, third-rail or overhead power. The highest-capacity mover on this whole map.
Driverless short-haul shuttles on a dedicated guideway — airport terminals, downtown loops. Some are self-propelled on rubber tyres; some are cable-drawn.
Spot it: driverless, airport or campus loop
04 under the hood
The four ideas that make it all work
Strip away the vehicles and there are only a handful of clever mechanisms underneath. Learn these and every machine above becomes obvious. Each links to a one-page explainer.
How a gondola cabin can grab a cable moving at 6 m/s, then let go to crawl through the station at walking pace — the spring-loaded clamp that made modern high-capacity ropeways possible.
Why smooth steel wheels slip once a grade passes ~7–10%, and how a toothed rack rail (or a cable) beats the limit. The single number that decides which machine you need.
EMS vs. EDS — attraction-based electromagnets pulling up under the track vs. repulsion-based superconductors. How you float a train and shove it forward with the same field.
Why a funicular barely needs a motor, and how one bullwheel drives a whole loop of gondolas. The physics of letting the down-car pay for the up-car.
05 the comparison matrix
Every type, side by side
Representative figures — real systems vary. Click a header to sort; filter by family. Speeds and capacities are typical operating values, not records (those live in §07).
One of the world's steepest adhesion railways — no rack, just grit and five braking systems — dropping 866 m through 20 tunnels from mountain to fjord. The reference scenic rail journey.
50.5 km under the sea between England and France — the longest undersea rail tunnel ever bored, carrying 300 km/h Eurostars and car-shuttle trains through three parallel tubes.
Still driven by water ballast — and famously, the city's own wastewater: the top car fills a tank with sewage, gravity hauls it down and pulls the other up. No motor, no grid, running since 1899.
More trip rides on the map: the Fløibanen funicular (Bergen) rode it, and the Bergen Railway Oslo→Myrdal rode it. Got a favorite line I'm missing? It's a one-page add.
07 superlatives
The record-holders
Where each dimension tops out. Full detail, sources, and the near-misses on the records page.
STEEPEST
Stoosbahn
110% grade (~47.7°) — the steepest funicular on Earth, with barrel-shaped tilting cabins that stay level. Switzerland, 2017.
FASTEST
603 km/h
Japan's L0 maglev on the Chūō test track (2015) — the fastest a crewed train has ever gone. Steel-wheel record: 574.8 km/h (TGV, 2007).
LONGEST SPAN
3S / tramways
Single aerial spans over 3 km between towers — cable systems cross gorges nothing on the ground can.
DEEPEST/LONGEST TUNNEL
Gotthard Base
57 km through the Alps — the world's longest rail tunnel. The Channel Tunnel holds the undersea record at 50.5 km.
HIGHEST
Tanggula
5,068 m on the Qinghai–Tibet railway — the highest point on any railway, with oxygen piped into the carriages.
HIGHEST CABLE
Dagu Glacier
Aerial ropeways reach past 3,000 m routinely; the highest top out near 5,000 m in the Himalaya and Andes.
08 your ride log
How many have you ridden?
Tick every type you've been on — progress saved on this device. A completionist's checklist for the whole taxonomy.
RIDDEN
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Gondola liftski resort or urban cable car
Aerial tramwaytwo big cabins — Ulriken, Roosevelt Island