The UK's last aerial ropeway uses no power, moves 300 tonnes a day, and will be gone by 2036. 

Yup

1 day ago as always

Nice grey hoodie, where did you get it from?

Bucket cam

Hi Tom!

Rop

_Boueket_

BOOK-YET

He's got such a particular accent. Seems vaguely Gaelic in some way but I can't quite place it.

No nonsense. No bs. Just proud of a life of non-whinging utility and a place in history. I'm guessing that is the long version of what you meant ;)

I am truly amazed. We need more of this.

@@seldoon_nemar "*Billions* of tons of gold and silver" maybe not that much :)

I wonder if it could compete cost-wise with a truck, a digger, and a couple of drivers though. The maintenance cost of the ropeway is likely higher and fuel costs for that short of a distance would be low. The capital cost of the ropeway must be far higher (though long amortized away). As for labour, I'd guess that the number of people would be about the same. Using trucks would be much more scalable (up or down). For pollution though the ropeway takes the prize by far.

Never underestimate the power of an old bloke with a slide rule

@@seldoon_nemar Of course it's old tech. Who said anything different? What is your point?

“that’s high praise coming from a machine, cooper.”

@@vertipop ay Titanfall 2

@@ethanw7416 yessir

not sure designers of this age could beat designers of yesteryear without their computers. Goes to show how damn smart those guys were!

@@vertipop BT-7274 survived

That must have been fun (on good days!)

Isn't that against gravity?

@@blessedslave I reckon 2 or 3 full buckets coming down will take quite a few men up

​@@blessedslave- True! And it would probably only work, because he was just "1" guy, at under the Personal Weight of the "1/4 Ton Per Bucket" of Payload Weight ... the Weight going down the Hill (X many Buckets), if it was the same as "This Example!" Just as a Modern Elevator uses a "Counter Balance" of the Weight of the "Elevator Cabin" plus approximately 50% of the Listed "Carry Weight", to reduce the Load on the Lifting Winch, is a Balanced Calculation, These Ropeway Systems, are more like "More Mass is Moving Downhill than is moving Uphill" (Probably why this presenter stated, "Only Brakes" in his delivery, as opposed to Fuel, Electricity, used to power it! Just as a Glider (Or, its more "Efficient Twin", the "Sailplane!") Once raised up into Rising Thermals, or Ridge Slope Winds, can Gain Altitude, without an engine, it's "Engine" is simply that it is getting More "Lift" from the Air going Up, than it is Losing by "Sinking!" (Glide Ratios of 20:1 {Travels 20 Feet Forward, per 1 Foot of Sink}, for basic Gliders, to greater than 50:1, for High Performance Sailplanes!) These Ropeways are moving, via Gravity, more Mass Down, that needs to move Up! Hence the "Brake!" Something not mentioned, in any detail, was, is that a "Manual Brake" Only, or does it use the principle of Spinning Weights, and Limits, in a "Governor" principle!

You're not wrong. Not industrial as such, but when I lived in Yorkshire, I went out on my bike, and on the moors, I encountered a couple of blokes repairing a dry stone wall. I was fascinated, and their explanation of how they did it, was like poetry. I gave them a few quid each to get a pint at lunchtime, and left them to it. Made my day, that did.

I built a dry stone wall once, with me brother. It were in't back garden.

Bouket

Especially with that accent.

@@joemarmar2861 *bookette 😅

I'd like him to end this year by saying "3 of my videos released in the past 12 months were complete fabrication. Guess which ones!"

haha, sounds like something out of resident evil

The youd be a fool

april fools 2022?

honestly Simon there could be anything up there. Much like the sea, only a fraction of it has been explored. Rumour has it there are barbarians scattered about, but I struggle to believe it personally. The plot of Star Trek Insurrection taking place in the North West would be incredibly on brand. The nebula simply being the surrounding wilderness.

You should have used Meccano!

@@karlhanks4598ah yes, a child could not have built something with lego and then seen something similar as an adult

Not Mentioned in detail in this, was what kind of "Brake" was used! For Example, take Two "Cans *Of Soup", one in each Hand, and stand on a "Lazy Susan" or The Center of any freely Rotating, or "Rotatable ?" Platform, have someone spin you a bit, then "Extend and Retract your Hands with these "Cans of Soup" in them! Just like a Figure Skater, your rate of rotation will change, as your hands move out, or in to your sides! This is part of the Principle of a "Governor" for a Motor! One more would be a "Heavy Flywheel" to maintain the "Inertia" that is variable, (in these cases) by Loaded Buckets entering, and Exiting the Ropeway! 😁

That's why you always imagine quarry workers as people like that. That's how they make it work.

Engineers of yesterday

Booket is the magic word.

- BOOKIT! GET ON DAH ROAP! NAW GOAH TO DEH DOOMP TROOK *quitely complies*

MOVE YOU LAZY SODS

That's why I laugh at all those silly "HOW DID ANCIENT GREEKS/EGYPTIANS/AZTECS BUILD THIS?!?!" videos. Humans are smart, and have been long before CAD/CAM.

The Pathenon is a great example of this

The computer programmes are only as smart as the people who design them. The advantage computers have is doing calculations many times faster than humans can.

True enough, but there's a big difference: Before computers we designed with (usually!) plenty margin, and constructions were built to last. Now, when I'm designing anything there's always a pencil pusher behind me going "make it thinner and cheaper" and "that's only a risk if it rains more than 2 days in a row..." etc etc. Nothing is built truly durable anymore. I really wish it were different.

The Saturn V was built with slide rules, paper, and god only knows how many white/blackboards. Even today we struggle to reach the levels of precision and sheer determination that they showed in building a skyscraper full of high explosives to put men on the moon!

I was wondering how many examples are left worldwide - I'm wondering why the batteries though? Why not just send an empty train back up with the descent?

@@sroberts605 the trains are not connected to each other, the trains are 3km long each (longest one is over 7km long) but the distance from mine to coast can be over 1000km. how would you send the empty one back up using another going down?

Because it's a train. It's not a ropeway@@sroberts605

@@sroberts605 It probably is only 1 rail? To send the empty one up you need 2 rails or at least a 2 rail line somewhere in the middle so they can pass.

Imagine seeing their pride in their faces... That would be so damn awesome!

@@jurio3117 a whole team of people totally ecstatic

Tom would also get to make an additional video about how the time machine works. :)

Show HIM

@@repentoryouwilllikewiseper8741 cope

Bookit

Let's be honest. This bloke was the angriest sounding.

@@althejazzman that's just northern accents for you

@@matthewmclean9012 The north actually kept the /u/ sound of "u", while it shifted in the south.

I had some hard few minutes to understand the meaning of bookiy.

Tom in 2036: "I thought by now I would be the new David Attenborough, getting Oscars for my documentary films. Or maybe the MP for Brighton and Hove. Instead, here I am: still making 10 minute films on RU-vid about some curious story that nobody thought they wanted to know. Only this time, about one I made earlier. 2021 to be exact. But I can still do it in one take, and there's not many people who can do that."

+

It's really not as amazing as it sound. It's a simple mechanism and it's not like mathematics are a recent invention. Simply means that the engineers back than did a good job. And because of its simplicity, there's really not much to be gained from implementing newer technology.

Not primitive. Newtonian physics hasn't changed.

@Parikrma "The abacus was more accurate than a computer." umm... No.

@Parikrma What?

667TH LIKE UR WELCOME

😇😇😇😇😇Definitely well worth Preserving!

concorde was the product of slide rules and men with a dream.

What people often fail to realize is that computers aren't smart or clever. They only apply the calculations the people before us had to do by hand.

@@0megalul309 As was the Bell X-1, and the Empire State Building

Mind boggling that with less, our predecessors have achieved more in laying the groundworks.

As Tod Cutler likes to say: people back then were just as smart as us - they just didn't have the same level of technology.

The energy comes from moving the shale. Not perpetual motion.

@@ipissed its a joke?

@@ipissed I don’t think they’re saying that perpetual motion drives this machine, just that there seems to be a lot of interesting things hidden in the north west of England (possibly a perpetual motion machine).

A motion motion

@@SkeletonGuyVT Is there a no-motion machine?

that last number hits badly

Busch Gardens Williamsburg has one you can ride on (or at least it still did last time I was there) although it isn't gravity powered. It is one of the options for transport between different sections of the park.

@@SuperBobKing Aerial trams are everywhere. The novelty here is doing something that it isn't meant for. Regulations and insurance rules may have made it unfeasibly risky for the management, but you know that at some time in the last century someone has ridden a bucket or two.

I've never wanted to be shale more.

Hmm... Flip Flap Railway Pt. 2?

The Red Owl grocery store in my UP hometown growing up...crazy conveyor belt thingy that delivered totes of grocery bags curbside to yr car... Us kids couldn't even imagine what that ride was like...though we had theories

The grammar pedants are going to have fun with "pendant".

Pedants on both sides, I should say. You could argue this is correct (Power is rate of work, is gravity "work"?) I'll let cleverer people battle this out but try to remember that this doesn't matter. Hugs to all.

As are the comedians, if they can keep away from make any puns-dits

@@cabbageconstable um actually that would be spelling pedants - the grammar is perfectly fine

@@OliWarner gravity technically does develop work on the carts, but it’s clear Tom means “external power” ;)

hello mate

Hello mate

Hello mate

Goo’day’ m8

hi

I love cycling. Specially fun riding past old industrial things.

@@kishascape Cycling is the best!

same

@@kishascape you know, I wish my area had more old industrial things.

@@jackreid2664 there probably is something but isn't as interesting when not endorsed by a RU-vid celeb

Agreed these plants should celebrated, upgraded and built in more numbers. Surely this the way to go instead of closing it down?

Like sailing ships that moved around unlimited amounts of material all over the world.

@@phil.i.am2 RU-vid has Issues... if you wanna know a way to help, tell me. I claim to know one. Daring claim? Maybe. But i still say so and ask you to ask me about it. I fought Racism, Sexism, P0rn, Spam-Bots and P-Spam-Bots before - and you can do this too. So my claim.

@Mable's Fatal Fable Hahaha. Your head-canon is nice! Thanks for sharing it! At least 3 people even gave a (maybe sarcastic) like! Haha.

@@loturzelrestaurant you're weird

I was thinking the same. A computer might get the answer quicker, but it's only as good as the minds who design it.

* It’s

@@paddor is*

@@USBEN. sí*

@@gaterin1998 ₴Ĩ*

Meh, been done years ago on't railway. Just bluster with a dumper, tho'.

Plus the energy to load the truck. This isn't free...

@@terrystearns1196 The energy comes from the potential energy of the ore/tock which is located higher than where it is dropped off. The energy to load the truck is going to be exponentially less than the potential energy released from the height difference

But the dump truck needs batteries to store the energy surely, which means a lot of pollution just mine the metals for them, they probably need changing every so many years as well. The tyres will wear away and need replacing. Yes the wire rope needs replacing on this system, but I bet the energy and pollution required for that are far less than that needed for the dump trucks batteries

@@super7cat Money is a factor as well. The biggest factor even.

I've driven under this countless times and always thought, wonder what that is. Glad someone went that extra step!

I agree. I drive under this all the time as a Lancaster local. It never crossed my mind that this is something Tom would be interested in. Maybe he'd also be interested in the canal boat lift down in Falkirk. (Edit, literally as I wrote this I went to search for what it was called (The Falkirk Wheel) and discovered that he's already done a video on it haha!)

I live in Phoenix and I went to this incredible antique mall (the Brass Armadillo) all because I kept seeing it driving on the freeway.

@@DRXParadox devils bridge and Sunderland point maybe? Also the old kart track senna used to race at at heysham head, though nothing to see there now unfortunately. Though there's some cool graves carved into stones near there too

...or is lock-down still in effect?

@@googlesucks7840 well the UK is the only country opening up completely righ tnow I think but I might be wrong

@@ps92809 google united states

I'd be interested to see

@@ps92809 I direct your attention to New Zealand

True make an Ant sized model for the museum! Good idea! Keep the it alive n all.

Keep one of the towers up as well.

Wouldn't do anything less than about 1:87 scale (which is common HO model train sized) - anything less will be hard to see the detail. If you go a bit bigger maybe around 1:8 scale (common for "live steamers" miniature ride-on trains) you could have a fits-in-the-room mock-up hands on demonstrator with sand or something.

At the very least we have this video, make sure to download it

OR, modify the buckets so ppl can ride them, and put interesting art work that can be seen from the ride

You need material for building - and you're gonna have to quarry it somewhere. Doesn't matter if it's shale, wood,, steel, or sand for concrete. Bricks are good. They last a long time (if well made and well cared for), can be recycled more easily than any of the others, and they're bricks! Bricks are cool.

Apparently they require 4 people to operate and that would be about £160k per year to operate + maintenance costs. (Converted Norwegian salary to Pound sterling) And, it doesn't seem like it is able to transport that much. Enough for that factory, but not enough for those that export.

@@dubious6718 it said it move 300 tonnes a day, didn't it? I'd say thats a lot

@@lenonel3286 Roughly 10 dump trucks. Could probably be done by 2 men (2 trucks) going back and forth.

@@H.D.83 dump truck would absolutely destroy the road they go through that building a proper road is economically impossible. I'd say aerial trolley preserve the environment these rocks have to go through.

I wonder how many squirrels get a kick out of the free rides.

booooket

Me

They should have a raffle and whoever wins should be aloud to ride in the last ever bucket ride.

@@alexhetherington8028 THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honestly, I don't see why it can't be dismantled and used at another quarry when the time comes.

Cable Car company: hippity hoppity, you are now my property

I hope this happens. At which Tom has joined the ranks of (to be) eternal legacies :)

I think someone will make the joke that the robe way "kicked the bucket"

Maybe Tom will ride down in the last bucket himself on that tragic day with a 5-D holographic recording system.

lets hope

sadly ya. Time flys

2036-2021=15

@@matthies8431 wow you're smart

Think of it... 15 years is enough to grow from a baby to a teenager with their own life and dreams. 15 years is enough to found a family of a few. 15 years is enough to rebuild our World. (Telecom&Internet) But 15 years is also enough to destroy the lives of millions and shatter the dreams of a dozen times more. 15 years may seem like a short time but there is so much that happens within them. I can't even Imagine how the World will look like then. Maybe the same as now, maybe so much different someone from the 1900s would better fit into now then we into then! (If someone in 2036 reads this, may you have a nice day! The same of course also applies to anyone else! :D )

@@blank6604 2036 checking in, its operation has been extended to 2052

a bucket came off onto the road 50-60 years ago

Or the road is 50-60 years old and didn't exist before that

@@FenceJumper87 Very good point!

They no longer let staff ride the bucket to the quarry... jk

@@DoctorAsshole1 Tell it again grandpa

This is why you need to go and appreciate the things you have while they're still here and while you still can. The Notre Dame could have burned down and you'd never be able to visit it.

It's like discovering a brilliant musician, singer, or artist, and being utterly thrilled by their work - only to discover that they had died a few years ago.

I hope there's a ceremony where one of them kicks it.

Exactly the same here xD "It's the weight!" :O

@@alexnoman1498 Yes, you can do a lot with weight. The Rothensee boat lift moves 5,400t with only 8x 44kW elektro engines because of counterweigths making it possible.

Modern day technology is stupid actually because it’s just more reliant on maintenance and not efficient

I think *nearly any topic* could be made interesting enough, if you get someone that can explain things in a way other people can understand. This is no longer an anonymous piece of metal string on loops that carries X tonns a day over a distance of Y, calculate the static and dynamic forces on pylon N27... It's now _a story._ Human brains _love_ stories.

Any topic is interesting if you hear someone passionate about it give a talk. A renovator could literally give you a solid entertaining lecture about paint drying.

You've never played Factorio I'm guessing?

@@Dorphie Factorio (and this is personal to me, everyone else can enjoy what they want) Factorio added giant alien bugs and mad scientist drone swarms, and still managed to make logistics more boring to me than in real life.

Because men of the past did their own computations with analog instruments. Slide rules and brains.

@@georgemorley1029 and men of this time did their own computations with digital instruments and computer software what's your point?

@@battleoid2411 What you said is exactly his point. It's no wonder two "calculators" came up with the same solution.

To think, calculators were once not a thing, but rather a person. Amazing, really

@@Armin2012 not really we all just got lazy.

They should really do make it a tourist attractions once the day comes...

My dude we might all die before this thing comes down

I hope I go down the second this ropeway does, don't wanna live in a world where this doesn't exist. Ok google remind me to get shmurdered in 2036

Can we make a heritage ropeway? A national ropeway museum?

@@TomZoy Easily pay for the upkeep that way

And everyone still watches to the end

@@_aullik as they should

Throwing logs into the nearby river which then float downstream to a sawmill. The sawmill itself is powered by a water wheel.

Long case clocks (people know them as Grandfather clocks but that's actually wrong),you didn't wind,but pulled a cord,starting the pendulum, which powered the clock !

Well if the big blackout of the grid happens, then we need to have those designs out of the draws and ready to go again.

@@JP-xd6fm watches that use springs, that you wind,are still being made,but cost many thousands of pounds, due to being made by hand. They are incredibly labour intensive, due to the precision required, and have become simply a toy of rich men, a way to show of wealth, like hand made silk suits . l think most of us would end up telling time by the sun :)

@@helentee9863 I have two hand wound watches at home that aren't even a hundred pounds. A proper gold one also goes for a lower price than a battery powered one. Hand wound watches are just inconvenient, and their price reflects that. The only ones that are more expensive (in general) than battery powered ones are those that wind themselves up through motion.

And I'd guess likely better for the environment than the underground conveyerbelts, and especially the lorries going back and forth...

One significant change that has happened in in designed lifespans - a lot of Victorian engineering projects were designed to last 100 years (and overshot considerably); more modern designs tend to both assume they'll be replaced or upgraded long before they've been operating a century, and be a lot better at not overshooting their design specs by as much.

@@Stephen-Fox Underground conveyor belts wouldn't be used here, in fact they typically aren't whenever the raw material is equal height or higher than where it is processed. Plus far too expensive for shale of all things.

As XKCD remarked (1045), doing science or art under constraints almost always gives more novel solutions.

Anyone who says " has since went down" would lose all credibility in my eyes.

It's a lot like the sky ride system at an amusement park I grew up near. That one's not gravity fed, but it'll take you across the park faster than you can walk usually

Claughton Towers. Like Alton Towers but there's just this one bucket ride. Still, I would go and gladly pay.

@P JL Put it on your bucket list.

Yes, gravity-worked railway inclines used to be very common in the UK but the only one still working is at the Bowes Railway. A number of cliff railways (funiculars) operate on a similar principle by having a tank of water under the carriages which is filled to make the top carriage heavier than the bottom one.

No they dont

@@DrLoverLover What don't?

@@DrLoverLover if you are talking to me. im talking about the kiruna to narvik railway which atleast as im aware is somewhere around net-zero to net-positive energy. due to how heavy the ore trains are going down hill.

@@RJSRdg There a cool one from Lynton down to Lynmouth. There probably a Tom Scott video about it

Due to friction, there's no way they would never need to charge the trucks however it may be minimal

@@MA22 It takes less energy to drive up since the trucks are empty; you can get more energy since on the way down you're carrying a load with its own potential energy

@@rickrickston3202 I would assume the truck charges using rotational energy when driving downhill. Unless the downhill path is longer than driving uphill, they would have to charge at some point. The extra potential energy would be taken care of by the brakes since you don't want to roll down a hill the speed of light. Extra weight shouldn't affect how much energy is recharged since it doesn't affect the number of rotations downhill vs uphill. Note: I'm not a physicist, correct me if I am wrong. Apologies for the essay, idk how to explain my thoughts shorter.

@@NoThrottle Energy = force times distance. Downhill the force is perhaps 3 times greater than uphill.

@@dougaltolan3017 It does make sense that there is more energy exerted downhill than what you need to go uphill. Now i need to learn how regenerative breaking works.

We could also call it "The Very clickbait-free style".

Totally. Like, everyone was hoping to create the future, and they did, but it turns out it's the past.

The computers couldn't even improve upon the design. I think that speaks volumes about the engineers that originally designed it.

Christ

“They do walk quite a few miles in a de”

@@denteater3498 I just imagined Gary Brannan from the Technical Difficulties saying this out loud. :-)

The rope is moved because the shale-laden carts going down are heavier than the empty ones coming up. If there's nothing loaded into the system it will stop moving. Is that what you mean by perpetual?

I agree. This channel is a great example of what RU-vid can be. Top quality, always interesting and informative

why

booket*

@@yvesd5882 bocket*

BOOOOO!!! BAD BOOKET MEM.

Good one

Are you an emulated brain trapped in a meta simulacrum or something The bloke (sorry, "dude") is Northern, yes. Go up north and incredibly you'll meet lots of people with similar accents. AMAZING, isn't it? Weirdo