SK (people mover)

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An SK cabin
SK 6000 in the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, Shanghai, China

The SK is a people mover built by the company Soulé from Bagnères-de-Bigorre. The acronym SK comes from the initials of the production company (Soulé) and of the designer (Kermadec).

The system is based on small cabins which are circulating on rails and are pulled by a cable at a constant speed. This is directly derived from the gondola lift assemblies which are already produced by the Soulé company and which are working in many ski resorts.

A system of holding mechanism allows to reduce the speed or to halt the cabins in the stations. This technique only works on short lines; its inability to work on long or curved lines with many stops is due to risk of losing the cable and lack of stability at normal speed.

Deployed systems include the following:

  • The system operated at the Parc des Expositions de Villepinte in 1986[1]
  • An SK system operated for a period of six months at Expo 86[1]
  • In 1989, an SK system operated at an exposition in Yokohama, Japan[1]
  • One line of SK is serving the parking lot of the exhibition grounds of Villepinte.
  • One line of SK was completed in February 1993 in Noisy-le-Grand but the housing complex it was supposed to serve was never built. The line continued to be maintained in an operational state until funding was cut in October 1999. It was subsequently abandoned, and one of the station buildings was demolished in 2018.[2][3]
  • Two lines of SK 6000 were built in Charles de Gaulle Airport. The first line was supposed to be opened on May 1, 1996, but the length of the line (3500 m) created many technical problems making it impossible to open for public service. Line 2 should have opened in 1997, but it was never opened either. The project had a cost of 148 million euros before being abandoned. It was replaced by CDGVAL.
  • The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, Shanghai, China (opened 2001) uses the SK 6000.

References[]

  1. ^ a b c "Soule SK Infopage". faculty.washington.edu. Retrieved 2022-01-11.
  2. ^ "Transport that never was". Fabric of Paris. 2020-03-04. Retrieved 2022-01-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ "Métro SK à Noisy le Grand | Exurbis" (in French). Retrieved 2022-01-11.

External links[]

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