Vietnam’s first cliff railway inaugurated in central tourism hub

A cliff railway, also known as a funicular, is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of tram-like vehicles on rails moves them up and down a steep slope.

The Ba Na Hills cliff railway enables tourists to tour the attractions at the resort located on the peak of Ba Na-Nui Chua Mountain, which is 1,489m above sea level.

The country’s sole funicular consists of two cars, capable of carrying 80 passengers each, traveling in opposite directions at a speed of 5 meters per second.

It will help tourists of all kinds, whether children or the elderly, to have sightseeing tours past the Linh Ung Pagoda, Le Jardin Hotel, and The Old Villas of French.

Sun Group said it had chosen Swiss lift manufacturer Garaventa as the constructor of the facility. Construction started in July 2013 and was just completed last week.

Prior to the installation of the funicular, tourists had to travel almost 2km of curvy roads either on foot or via a shuttle bus from the Debay station of a cable car system in the middle of the mountain to go to its summit.

The shuttle bus, however, failed to serve the huge number of tourists flocking to the resort during weekends and holidays as there is only one vehicle able to carry 16 passengers per turn, Saigon Times Online reported.

The cliff railway will help solve this issue as it can handle around 1,600 passengers per hour.

Tickets for the funicular is available at discounted prices of VND50,000 (US$2.36) per round trip per passenger.

The Ba Na Hills cliff railway is designed based on a primitive funicular railway that provided freight access to the upper courtyard of the Hohensalzburg castle in Austria in the late 15th century, according to the resort officials.