Home-Built Funicular (Motorized People-Mover System)

By Jeff
Time Required: Weeks to months
Difficulty: Hard

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Home-Built Funicular (Motorized People-Mover System)

Having a house 100 vertical feet above your dock makes for a lot of steps; 10 stories, give or take. We had the house, we had the dock, and we had a lot of space in between.

Here are some YouTube videos of it in action:

Building that many steps, not to mention climbing them, was a difficult task to undertake. As my Dad and I were estimating the bill of materials needed, he suggested “Why not just build a lift?”

It seemed very implausible at the time, but as we laid out what was required, we slowly began to believe we could build it. And we eventually did.

Steps

Step #1: Finding and clearing the path.

NextPrev

The first thing we did was to evaluate the area that we wanted the lift to operate in. We chose the side of the house that the dock was already on for obvious reasons, and the funicular would run from the first-level porch down to the dock area.
Next we put down the concrete we needed to hold the rail supports. For the supports close to the ground, we went with basic footers, about 10 inches deep. For the upper supports that required more height, we used 24"x24"x24" footers to hold the 6x6 straight up. I call the top supports the "four horsemen" and the lower ones the "hurdles."

Conclusion

This project and others like it are custom-designed for each location. Please use my experience as a guide to how I did it, not how you should do it. These things are VERY dangerous and should be done by professionals.

Jeff

13 Responses to Home-Built Funicular (Motorized People-Mover System)

Jay on March 25th, 2013 at 6:56 am said:

Hey bud where did you buy the motor?
Rohan on September 12th, 2013 at 7:43 am said:

What sort of braking system did you use?
Tom Buist on October 17th, 2014 at 9:13 am said:

Brilliant-
Id like to discuss some of the design with you, as I am in the FEED stage of a similar project
- Jeff Johnson on October 23rd, 2014 at 4:42 pm said:
  
  Tom, you can reach me via gmail at jeffjohnvol
  Jeff Johnson
  
  Craig on March 26th, 2017 at 6:50 pm said:
  
  Jeff,
  Do you have any specs on this and what did it cost
edcircus on March 24th, 2015 at 4:48 pm said:

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for this post. It’s awesome. My wife and I are just completing construction on a house here in Los Angeles in the hills. It comes with a hillside lift that was installed in the 1940’s. I have an electrician familiar with these types of systems, but I’d like to look into some options for controls on the unit as we’d like to update it so that we can call the car from below and above. Do you have any recommendations as to where I can look for electronics?

Any advice is much appreciated.

Justin
Jon De Rule on August 17th, 2015 at 10:36 pm said:

Hello Jeff,
Congratulations, excellent work. I am building a tented resort in Penang, Malaysia. We need a funicular railway for up to 6 passengers at a time.
Would you be interested to consult on the project? Either in person or online? Fees and all expenses payable of course! This is a serious offer project currently moving from concept to master planning stage.
Drop me a line if your interested
Thanks for your consideration.
Jon de Rule
Randy Simpson on March 19th, 2017 at 10:09 pm said:

Hello,

Did you engineer/ build your system yourself , and did you get your plans approved by your local building department. I am about to install a home built hill side lift system. I am a controls engineer and work for a machinery builder and I have help from mechanical engineers to design a safe system. I noticed you have open platform with no interlocked gate. Do you have an automatic brake system for over speed in the event a catastrophic failure of the cable or spooling system. I have designed in these features along with a slack cable switch. Any suggestions.
Craig Prior on April 22nd, 2017 at 5:19 pm said:

Jeff,
G’day. I have a funicular on Lake Lure, NC. It dates back to about the 1940’s and is all “hand made”. It’s a little sick right, so am looking at what you’ve done and am quite impressed. I need to replace my drum, gears, cable and motor. Where did you buy yours?
thanks in advance.
Craig
Bambang Subandi on January 24th, 2018 at 12:31 am said:

Hi all, I’m looking for a consultant/designer who has experience to design a Funicular to transport heavy equipment down and up to the valley with max pay load 15 ton, level difference 70m, The track has straight alignment with constant gradient 45 deg.
Does Any one know who should I contact to? I can be reach at bambang.subandi@saeg.co.id or +62 8121163322. Thanks
Nancy Bennett on January 19th, 2020 at 10:05 am said:

Hi Jeff
We are in the middle of building and installing our tram and hope you can give us some info. We have a 100
Foot track with a 30 ft lift. We would like to know where you purchased your motor and reduction drive and vfd and control unit. We are having difficulty finding one in our area. Thanks for your help…. your team is amazing!
Nancy and Brian
Lee Tuman on February 20th, 2020 at 11:27 am said:

Jeff,
I want to do this at our lake house too but I am not even close to an engineer. Could you tell me the kind of skills and people I would need to hire to get this done? I am willing to do the labor part but have no skills. Do you have a list of all the parts you used?
thanks
Lee
Eric Evanoff on February 25th, 2020 at 5:11 am said:

Hey Jeff, Impressive! I am trying to build a similar system to my lake cabin. It has a 40% incline and is about 150 foot to the cabin. Any schematics you can spare would be great.Thanks Eric Evanoff