history | cableway.

Since the first person laid eyes on Table Mountain, it has exerted its powerful and charismatic pull, enchanting and drawing any and all who fall under its spell.

The way to the top has never been easy, and for many centuries only a handful of bold and enterprising people could say that they had climbed it.

By the late 1870's, several of Cape Town's more prominent (and possibly less fit) citizens had suggested the introduction of a railway line to the top. Plans to implement a proposed rack railway got under way but the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer war put a halt to the plans.
By 1912, with a strong desire to gain easy access to the top of Table Mountain, the Cape Town City Council commissioned an engineer to investigate the various options for public transport to the top.

The engineer, a Mr. H.M. Peter, suggested that a funicular railway running up from Oranjezicht through Platteklip Gorge would be the most suitable option. A vote was held with the vast majority of Cape Town's residents voting in favour of the funicular. This, in spite of its cost, a staggering (in 1913) £100,000. The project was delayed yet again by war; this time the outbreak of the First World War (1914 - 1918).

The plan was resuscitated in 1926 after a Norwegian engineer, Trygve Stromsoe, presented plans for a Cableway. The plan caught the collective eye of a group of eminent local businessmen. The idea that an easy route up would finally become a reality drew them together, forming the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company (TMACC) to finance the construction. Work began soon afterwards and the project was finished relatively quickly.