Six communities in Nepal, together with Practical Action, have found a surprisingly simple answer that?s transforming their lives. It used to take two people over three hours to carry a 120kg load of apples 1.3 km down a steep mountain path ? and that was just the first part of the grueling journey to market. Now, with a gravity ropeway, the apples take less than five minutes to cover the same distance.
Gravitational ropeways use no external power, only gravity. Two linked trolleys, on pulleys, run on separate 10mm diameter steel wires which are suspended from towers: as the full trolley comes down, pulled by the weight of its load, it pulls the empty one up, ready for the next load. The trolleys? progress is controlled by another, 8mm wire, looped over a flywheel. A wooden drum brake, with bearing and bracket, governs their speed.
