Going Up!

URS FLUEELER/AP PHOTO

UNIQUE DESIGN: These circular compartments rotate as they go up the track to keep riders upright.

JIM MCMAHON/MAPMAN®

Last December, a record-breaking mountainside railway called the Stoosbahn opened in the Swiss Alps. It’s the world’s steepest funicular—a type of railroad that uses a system of motorized cables to pull a tram up a steep track. It goes up 762 meters (2,500 feet) in just under three minutes.

At the mountain’s steepest point, the tram moves up a 47-degree incline. To keep riders upright inside the funicular, engineers designed four barrel-shaped cabins that slowly rotate to counter the changing angle of the mountain’s slope. “The ‘wheel design’ has never been used before,” says a spokesperson for engineering firm Doppelmayr, which built the funicular. “But it will surely be more popular in the future.”

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