Let me resume the topic of my mid-summer trip to Atami City. After enjoying train photography at Atami station, I headed to Atami Port to take a sightseeing boat. To tell the truth, I preferred to take an aerial tramway and visit Atami Castle rather than take the sightseeing boat in the sea, but I refrained. My family wanted to enjoy a boat cruise. It must not be forgotten that I took time for the train photography earlier. Instead, I tried to shoot photos of the aerial tramway from the sightseeing boat.
The aerial tramway in Atami City was inaugurated by Atami Ropeway Company in 1958. It's a three cables-cross type aerial tramway constructed by Tokyo Sakudo. Connecting Sanroku (Korakuen) and Sancho (Hachimanyama) stations, its route length is 286 meters, which is the shortest aerial tramway in Japan. The height difference between the two stations is 96 meters. Its maximum inclination is 25.18 degrees; meanwhile the average inclination is 17.85 degrees. The present gondolas, namely number 1 and 2, were built by Osaka Sharyo in 1982. Glass-walled bodies are still beautiful. Each gondola can accommodate up to 30 passengers. Its maximum payload is 1,800 kilograms. The gondola is operated every 10 minutes on average. It takes about 3 and a half minutes to go one way. Gondolas are operated with a speed of 2.5 meters per second.
The gondola was pretty far from the sightseeing boat, but I could shoot it using a telescopic lens. What a relief!
