Table Mountain Cableway tourists were ‘stuck’ up top amid load shedding

If you’re heading up the famous Table Mountain Cableway when load shedding is in the air, you may want to pack a pair of hiking boots just in case.

According to a report by Traveller24, the tourist attraction was affected by a surge caused Stage 6 load shedding, which abruptly began on Monday.

In an update posted to Twitter just after 6pm Monday, the Cableway noted that it was experiencing “technical difficulties”.

This meant that guests at the top were unable to take a trip down. But by 7pm, the issue was resolved.

“We’ll get everyone back down as quickly as possible,” it tweeted.

#cableway update 2: our technical difficulty has been resolved&our cable car trips have resumed. We'll get everyone back down as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience. pic.twitter.com/gGDwNtXmhh

— Table Mountain C/Way (@TableMountainCa) December 9, 2019

According to the Table Mountain Cableway, the system does have a contingency plan during load shedding in the form of a hydraulic drive system powered by generators at the top station and bottom station.

“When load shedding occurs, we switch the operations of our cable cars from the electricity grid to our hydraulic backup drive. The cable cars will thus be operational, just at a slower pace,” the Cableway said in a blog post.

Feature image: the Table Mountain Cableway in 2012, by flowcomm via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)