Skyrail Rainforest Cableway

The path of the Skyrail

The Skyrail Rainforest Cableway is a scenic cableway running above the Barron Gorge National Park from the Cairns suburb of Caravonica to Kuranda, Queensland. The Skyrail was built in 1995. The development of the Skyrail was controversial as some local residents believed that damage may be done to World Heritage listed rainforest ^[1]. Skyrail offers packages where visitors can return from Kuranda via the Kuranda Scenic Railway or also visit the Tjapukai Aboriginal and Cultural Park, located next door to the Caravonica base station.

There are four Skyrail stations:

The cableway is 7.5 kilometres (4.7 miles) long.
It has a total of 114 gondola cabins, each capable of seating 6 passengers, providing a carrying capacity of 700 passengers per hour in each direction.
The cableway can operate at a speed of five metres per second (18 kilometres per hour, or 11 miles per hour); however its normal operating speed is much slower to provide guests with the maximum time to enjoy their rainforest experience.
There are 32 towers in total. The highest tower is Tower #5 at 40.5 metres (133 feet) high.
Red Peak is Skyrail’s highest station at 545 metres above sea level (1,788 feet). The Kuranda Station sits at 336 metres (1,100 feet) and Caravonica Terminal is only 5 metres above sea level (16 feet).
The steepest section of the cableway has a slope of 19 degrees.
Skyrail Rainforest Cableway has 15 kilometres of 40.5mm galvanised steel rope weighing more than the equivalent of 100 sedan cars.
There is a multi-core communications cable which runs in the middle of the towers, between the two lines of haul rope. This carries all the voice and safety circuit communications.
The cableway is driven by a 383kW (500hp) D.C Electric Motor located at each drive station, the Kuranda and Caravonica Stations. Each drive station has a back-up diesel motor and a further auxiliary Hydrostatic Drive. ^[2]