Funicular route
Flying Dutchman Funicular
Cape Point car park → Cape Point lighthouse · South Africa
- Distance
- 0.59 km
- Fastest time
- 3 min
- Operator
- Cape Point Partnership
- Train
- Two 40-seat cars named after ships wrecked off the Cape
- Countries
- South Africa
- In service since
- 1996
Page last updated 2026-07-23 · figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Africa’s only commercial funicular, named for the ghost ship said to haunt Cape Point, lifts visitors 87 m toward the 1859 lighthouse.
View on the world railway map →More funicular routes
- Stoosbahn
The world’s steepest funicular: a 110% maximum gradient climbed by barrel cabins that rotate to keep the floor level, 744 m up to car-free Stoos.
- Niesenbahn
Climbs 1,643 m over 3.5 km up the pyramid of the Niesen — and the service stairway alongside is the longest on earth at 11,674 steps.
- Gelmerbahn
An open-car ride up a 106% grade — Europe’s steepest funicular until Stoos overtook it in 2017 — built to serve the Gelmersee dam works.
- Funiculaire Sierre–Crans-Montana
Switzerland’s longest funicular: 4.2 km and 927 m of climb from the Rhône valley vineyards at Sierre to the Crans-Montana plateau.
More train routes in South Africa.