Corcovado Rack Railcar

The Corcovado Rack Railway is a mountain railway line in the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The line runs from Cosme Velho to the summit of the Corcovado mountain at an altitude of 710m (2330ft). The summit is known for its statue of Christ the Redeemer and its views over the city and beaches of Rio. Download high resolution version (1200x1600, 646 KB)A railcar of the Corcovado Rack Railway, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ... Download high resolution version (1200x1600, 646 KB)A railcar of the Corcovado Rack Railway, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ... A mountain railway is a railway that ascends and descends a mountain slope that has a steep grade. ... Jump to: navigation, search Ipanema beach Cristo Redentor Rio de Janeiros waterfront and the Morro de Castello from the Ilha das Cobras in 1919 by Harriet Chalmers Adams A NASA satellite image of Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro (meaning River of January in Portuguese) is the name of... Jump to: navigation, search Cosme Velho is a traditional neighborhood located in the Southern Zone of Rio de Janeiro, near Laranjeiras neighborhood. ... Corcovado mountain Corcovado, meaning hunchback in Portuguese, is a mountain in central Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ... To help compare different orders of magnitude this page lists lengths between 100 m and 1 km. ... Cristo Redentor Christ the Redeemer Corcovados Statue of the Christ Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor in Portuguese) is a 30-meter monument statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, located on Corcovado mountain. ...

The line is 3.8km (2.4mi) long. It is a rack railway using the Riggenbach design. The line was opened by Emperor Dom Pedro II on the 9th October 1884. Initially steam hauled, the line was the first railway to be electrified in Brazil in 1910, and was re-equipped in 1980 with new trains built by SLM of Winterthur in Switzerland. To help compare different orders of magnitude this page lists lengths between 1 km and 10 km (103 and 104 m). ... Jump to: navigation, search The rack rail on a cog railway. ... Dom Pedro IIs family Dom Pedro II and President Ulysses S. Grant, Philadelphia Exposition, 1876 Dom Pedro II in his old age Dom Pedro II of Brazil Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil (December 2, 1825 – December 5, 1891) was the second and final Brazilian Emperor. ... Jump to: navigation, search October 9 is the 282nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (283rd in Leap years). ... 1884 is a leap year starting on Tuesday (click on link to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1910 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1980 (MCMLXXX) is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works or SLM were a railway equipment manufacturer based in Winterthur in Switzerland. ... Winterthur is a city in the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland. ...

Corcovado Rack Railway is one of the only few existing railways using three phase AC. Therefore Corcovado Rack Railway has two overhead wires.

There are four trains, each made up of two cars. The rail trip takes approximately 20 minutes and departs every half hour, giving a passenger capacity of 360 passengers per hour. Due to the limited passenger capacity, the wait to board at the entry station can take several hours. The year-round schedule operates from 8:30am to 6:30pm.

Over the years the line has been ridden by many famous people, including Pope Pius XII, Pope John Paul II, Alberto Santos-Dumont, Albert Einstein and Diana, Princess of Wales. Pope Pius XII (Latin: ), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (March 2, 1876 – October 9, 1958), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from March 2, 1939 to 1958. ... Jump to: navigation, search Pope John Paul II (Latin: ), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005), reigned as pope of the Catholic Church for almost 27 years, from 16 October 1978 until his death, making his the third-longest pontificate in the history of the... Jump to: navigation, search Santos-Dumont in his trademark Panama hat. ... Jump to: navigation, search Albert Einstein, by Yousuf Karsh Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German-born Jewish theoretical physicist of profound genius, who is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. ... Jump to: navigation, search Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances Mountbatten-Windsor, née Spencer) (1 July 1961–31 August 1997) was the first wife of HRH The Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. ...

External links

• Corcovado Rack Railway website

Sources

• Article Rio de Janeiro: City of contrasts, quality metro by C.J.Wansbeck, in Tramways & Urban Transit magazine, March 2005, published by the Light Rail Transit Association.
• Web page http://www.pell.portland.or.us/~efbrazil/efcorc.html and descendants, retrieved 2nd March 2005, 21:00 GMT.
• Web page http://www.corcovado.com.br/principal.asp?lingua=English and descendants, retrieved 2nd March 2005, 21:00 GMT.
• Wikipedia article Corcovado, last updated on the 13th March 2005 at 18:10.