The Cable Car Named After a Tram, Which Was Named After a Bond
RIO DE JANEIRO · HERITAGE
Key Facts
- —First section Praia Vermelha to Morro da Urca, 27 October 1912, carrying 577 paying passengers on the opening day.
- —Second section Morro da Urca to the summit of Pão de Açúcar, 18 January 1913.
- —Who built it The engineer Augusto Ferreira Ramos, with the original system supplied by the German firm J. Pohlig AG.
- —The name Bondinho means little tram. The cabins were yellow and box-shaped, and looked like the street trams of the time.
- —Where bonde comes from Prepaid tram ticket booklets sold in 1870s Rio, nicknamed after government loan bonds that were in the news.
- —The heights Morro da Urca at 220 metres, Pão de Açúcar at 396 metres, about three minutes for each stage.
Rio calls a cable car a little tram because of a currency shortage in the 1870s and a joke about government bonds. The name outlived the trams it was borrowed from.
The bondinho has climbed Pão de Açúcar since 1912. Its name is a diminutive of bonde, the Brazilian word for tram, and how Brazil got that word is a better story than the cable car’s own.
How It Was Built
Augusto Ferreira Ramos obtained authorisation in 1909 and founded the Companhia Caminho Aéreo Pão de Açúcar to build it.
The first section, from Praia Vermelha to Morro da Urca, opened on 27 October 1912 and carried 577 paying passengers that day. The second, from Urca to the summit, opened on 18 January 1913.
The original system came from the German firm J. Pohlig AG, founded by the engineer Julius Pohlig. The first cabins were solid wood and carried 22 passengers. Climbers were hired to carry cable and equipment up faces that had no other access.
Morro da Urca stands at 220 metres and Pão de Açúcar at 396. Each stage now takes around three minutes.
Where the Word Comes From
The Brazilian word for a tram is bonde, and it does derive from the English word bond, though not in the way the story is usually told.
In 1870s Rio the Companhia Ferro-Carril do Jardim Botânico charged 200 réis a ride, and no coin or note of that value existed. The company solved the problem by selling prepaid ticket booklets, five rides for 1,000 réis, printed in the United States and elaborately illustrated with a picture of the tram car itself.
At the same time the Brazilian treasury had issued government loan bonds abroad, and they were a sustained press sensation. Cariocas began calling the prepaid tram tickets bonds by analogy, and the nickname migrated from the ticket to the vehicle.
So bonde is not named after bonds issued to finance a tramway. It is named after bonds that were in the newspapers while a tramway was handing out ticket booklets that looked like securities.
The word stayed Brazilian. Portugal calls a tram an eléctrico.
The cable cabins acquired the diminutive because they were yellow, box-shaped and looked like the street trams that were then everywhere in Rio, of which the Santa Teresa bonde is the survivor.
The 1951 Accident
There is a well-travelled story that in 1951 a cable snapped, a mechanic climbed down and twenty-one people were saved. It is broadly true and the details deserve care.
An original front page of O Globo dated Wednesday 21 February 1951 carries the headline Toda Cidade Emocionada, reporting an accident with the bondinho. The date is internally consistent with an incident on Tuesday 20 February.
The detailed version circulating in English traces to a Life magazine report of 12 March 1951. In that account one of the two cables broke, leaving 22 people on the remaining cable. A mechanic on board, named as Augusto Goncales, climbed out and worked his way down to the Urca station, where he helped improvise an emergency car to go back up. Twelve women and girls, six men and three children were brought down over roughly ten hours. President Vargas is said to have called him hero of the day.
Brazilian retrospectives confirm a February 1951 cable failure and an overnight evacuation, without naming anyone or giving a headcount.
Against that sits an awkward contradiction. When a compensating cable failed on 21 October 2000, stranding more than forty tourists about 200 metres up for around an hour, Brazilian wire coverage described it as the first accident in the attraction’s 88-year history. That is difficult to square with a front-page accident in 1951.
The Rio Times reports the 1951 detail as the period press reported it, and not as independently established. What all sources agree on is that nobody has ever died on the bondinho.
The Other Interruptions
In 1935, during the Intentona Comunista uprising, gunfire hit the Praia Vermelha station and forced a temporary closure. That is political violence rather than mechanical failure.
In 1979 the cable car appeared in the James Bond film Moonraker, in the fight between Roger Moore and Richard Kiel on the cabin roof. Location filming at Sugarloaf was real. Much of the rooftop sequence was shot on a studio mock-up composited with location footage, the cable Kiel bites through was made of liquorice, and the cabin crashing through the station wall was an effect.
The stunt performer Richard Graydon, doubling for Kiel, slipped during filming and came close to a fatal fall. That was the most dangerous thing that happened on the mountain that year and it happened to a film crew.
The Cable Car Today
The operator is Grupo Iter, through the original concessionaire, the Companhia Caminho Aéreo Pão de Açúcar. It reports around two million visitors a year and more than fifty million over 113 years.
The current cabins were installed in 2007 and 2008, built by the Swiss manufacturer CWA of Olten, with tinted anti-reflective glass and capacity for 65 passengers, down from 75 in the 1972 generation. Adult tickets have been quoted between R$155 and R$205 depending on date and channel.
Grupo Iter reported revenue of R$370 million in 2025, up 33 percent, and has set a target of R$1 billion by 2030 against R$300 million of planned investment.
Part of that plan is contested. A zipline project at Pão de Açúcar has been in legal dispute since the concessionaire began unauthorised drilling in September 2022. The federal public prosecutor obtained an injunction halting construction, and UNESCO was formally notified through ICOMOS Brasil. The company says its licences have since been renewed and it still intends to build. The status remains contested.
The mountain complex was listed nationally by IPHAN on 8 August 1973, declared a municipal natural monument in 2006, and included in the 2012 UNESCO World Heritage inscription covering Rio’s carioca landscapes between the mountain and the sea.
More: Rio de Janeiro news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the Sugarloaf cable car open?
The first section, Praia Vermelha to Morro da Urca, on 27 October 1912. The second, to the summit, on 18 January 1913.
Why is a cable car called a bondinho?
Bondinho is the diminutive of bonde, the Brazilian word for tram. The yellow box-shaped cabins resembled Rio’s street trams.
Where does the word bonde come from?
From prepaid tram ticket booklets sold in 1870s Rio, nicknamed after government loan bonds that were in the news at the time.
Did a cable really snap in 1951?
A February 1951 cable failure and an overnight rescue are confirmed by period press. The detailed account of 21 people rescued by a named mechanic traces to a single Life magazine report and is not independently established.
Has anyone died on the cable car?
No fatal accident is recorded in its history.
Sources: Diario do Rio, Bondinho Pao de Acucar, SwissInfo, Agencia Brasil, Exame, Portal Tela, IPHAN, Dicionario Etimologico.
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