Montmartre funicular

Montmartre funicular
A cabin descending to the lower station
Overview
Stations	2
Ridership	2 million journeys per year
Operation
Opened	1900
Rolling stock	2 cabins
Technical
Line length	0.108 km (0.067 mi)
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)

The Montmartre funicular is an automatic funicular railway serving the Montmartre neighbourhood of Paris, in the Eighteenth arrondissement. It is operated by the RATP, the Paris transport authority. It was opened on 13 July 1900 and was entirely rebuilt in 1935 and again in 1991.

The funicular carries passengers between the foot of the butte (outlier) of Montmartre and its summit, near the foot of the Sacré-Cœur basilica. It provides an alternative to the multiple stairways of more than 300 steps that lead to the top of the Butte Montmartre. At 108 m (354 ft) long, the funicular climbs and drops the 36 m (118 ft) in under a minute and a half. It carries two million passengers a year.

The funicular is open every day from 6 am until 12.45 am, transporting 6,000 people a day, or around 2 million a year, mostly tourists and pilgrims en route to the Sacré-Cœur, and also Parisians and those who love the ambience of the Place du Tertre.

The lower station was built between the Place Saint-Pierre and the Place Suzanne-Valadon, and the upper one on the Rue du Cardinal-Dubois. The funicular runs alongside the Rue Foyatier, a wide 220-step staircase.

Constructed by the Schindler Group, the new funicular with electrical traction entered service on 1 June 1991. It has two cabins with sixty places each which travel on two separate, parallel tracks using the international standard gauge of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in). It has a capacity of 2,000 passengers per hour in each direction. A trip in either direction, which covers a vertical distance of 36 m (118 ft) over a track distance of 108 m (354 ft), takes less than 90 seconds and climbs or descends a gradient as high as 35.2% (a little steeper than 1:3).