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In my world, there are magical walls on mountains summits similar to Skyrim. Once a person reaches a magic wall, they mystically have the words imbued in their minds. With enough meditation, they can unlock the word and gain the ability to cast the spell that corresponds to those words.

Of course, mountain climbing is not easy. You need a healthy body and lots of equipment and proper training and time/money to travel and a couple other things in order to scale the largest mountains. There is one mountain in my world that is just as large and as cold as Mount Everest is; it contains the time travel (forward) spell and it is highly sought after.

Since this world has modern technology, there have been many proposals to streamline the mountain-scaling process so that far more people can reach the mystical walls in far less time and maybe even save money. For smaller mountains, simply taking a helicopter up and down the mountain will work. Mt. Everest is too tall however for ferrying multiple people via helicopter to be viable. A person can paradrop from an airplane onto a mountain, but that would be very dangerous and unpredictable due to mountain weather conditions. That and even if a person had a successful landing, they would still need to climb down the mountain; unless they wanted to take another huge risk Base Jumping downwards.

An idea I came up with is that a train could take a zigzag route up the really tall mountains and maybe it could be combined with an elevator for the steepest sections. The advantage of a train is that a train can carry lots of provisions and be supplied with its own heating and oxygen. Of course, the challenge is making durable train tracks that can travel up mountains and endure the harsh weather conditions and even avalanches. A power source would also be a struggle since many mountains don't get enough sunshine for solar power to be viable.

So could a train/elevator combo be feasible to get people on top of really tall mountains like Mount Everest? Or will the tall mountains be solely reserved for athletic humans climbing up and down them the hard way?

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    $\begingroup$ Are you looking for a cable railway? $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 9 at 5:25
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    $\begingroup$ Could the top of Mt. Everest handle more than 2-3 train cars, excluding the engine(s)? Usually I don't challenge the backstory, but what's the point of this? Trains move through mountain passes because people need to get past the mountains or are living along those passes in the first place. Further, trains have minimum (and highly restrictive) turning radii. Zigzagging up a mountain would ony permit a very short train made up of small cars. If you're looking to lift a train up a cliff, consider a steampunk hydraulic lift solution. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Commented Aug 9 at 5:26
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    $\begingroup$ As @Escapeddentalpatient. there is something already which is basically a train/elevator combo to climb uphill. But also, there is ski lifts. The reason these aren't in Everest has mostly to do with attempts at preserving the area, rather than the technology not existing. I suppose there might be few engineering things to solve. But I doubt there is anything that makes it truly impossible from engineering, logistical, and even business point of view. If there is enough people traffic and nature preservation is less of a concern, it'd probably be done IRL. $\endgroup$
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 9 at 5:44
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    $\begingroup$ Whichever solution you find, the costs of building this would be astronomical, and the maintenance would be too. So depending on the volume of climbers, them "saving some money" is unlikely to happen as opposed to air-drops and regular climbs. Comfort and accessibility would likely be the only benefits. $\endgroup$
    – Plutian
    Commented Aug 9 at 8:28
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    $\begingroup$ How long do you have to be near the magic walls? Any modern jet airliner could buzz the top of Mount Everest at 500mph, and the passengers could lie within a few inches of the bottom of the fuselage by putting heaters in the cargo hold, but blasting through the magic aura at transonic speed wouldn't necessarily have the desired effect. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 9 at 14:39

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You can't build infrastructure where you can't reach with construction equipment

High Mountains like Mt Everest get thick and unstable icecaps. Thier geography is significantly changed from month to month by large landslides and snow storms that make building any sort of traditional Road or Railway impossible. Cable cars are generally preferred for traversing mountains over trains because they have much smaller footprints on the mountain. You dig down through the snow and ice, anchor the piles deep and minimize thier profile in hopes that they can survive the landslides.

Larger mountains tend to have more unstable icecaps; so, I'd imagine that even if you could install a cable car system that high up, that the landscape would be to unstable, even for cable cars to be a safe option.

But the real restriction is going to be installing the piles at your higher altitudes. No ground vehicle can drive up Mount Everest, and heavy lift helicopters can't take off and land at altitudes above 10,000ft; so, while you can daisy chain cable cars up the first 1/3rd of the mountain, getting the heavy equipment you need to the higher parts to continue installing piles will be impossible without a heavy-lift VTOL aircraft that can reach the summit... and if you have one of those, you don't need an expensive train or elevator.

For reference, the highest cable car in the world only reaches 14,783 ft above sea level, about 1/2 of the OP's needed height, and this cable car is a bit of an exception because Tianmen Mountain is in a particularly warm and arid place allowing it's icecaps to fully melt in the summer making it accessible to construction vehicles in the summer. The highest mountain that does not have permanent ice caps it Monte Pissis at 22,283 feet. So, at most you could maybe get about 3/4 of the way up your mountain by cable car IF it is in an absolutely ideal location unless your world is significantly warmer or dryer than Earth.

The other consideration is that your construction crews need to be able to survive in the environment. A healthy person will typically pass out at a 43% reduction in atmosphere and die at a 73% reduction making the summit of Everest at a 66% reduction so hazardous that only top athletes can stay conscious up there, even at rest. However, construction crews are often not top athletes and they exert themselves in short burst of high energy which is much more dangerous in a reduced atmosphere. OSHA regulations say that anything more than a 7% drop in oxygen is potentially dangerous for construction crews to work in; so, even if you could deliver the needed equipment to the top of the mountain, present day robotics are not advanced enough to do this without human labor and human labor can not function at nearly these altitudes.

A subway works in theory, but may be a poor choice for economic reasons

Since you can not build over the mountain, you might be able to build through it. If you build a system of pressurized subway tunnels you can go under all the unstable snow and reduced atmosphere, and simply drive your heavy equipment up the tunnel as you build it. If you spiral a tunnel up at a 10 degree gradient, then you would need a 31.665mi (50.96km) long track. While this might be doable in theory, it's probably not doable in practice. Subways cost about 2.5 billion dollars per mile of track. In major cities these costs can be recovered by charging millions of people daily commuter fees, but for a remote train system that most people will never use, and no one will ever use more than once, the total price tag of nearly 80 billion dollars will likely never find an investor if alternative ways to the top exist.

A Helicopter can make it if you find an updraft

On May 14, 2005, a Eurocopter AS350 Squirrel helicopter became the first to land on Mount Everest's Summit. There is nothing special about the helicopter itself, but it does require a special pilot. Although the altitude required is on paper too high for any modern helicopters to climb, mountains are often hotbeds of updraft activity which can be rode up to altitudes higher than a helicopter's theoretical ceiling.

Once you get to the top, ground pressure will help you take off just enough to clear the summit and begin your controlled fall until you reach pressures height enough for sustained flight. You will need a better helicopter than an AS350 to carry any passengers, better options do exist that should cost less than 10 million dollars a helicopter.

Hybrid Airships

There is one kind of aircraft that you forgot to consider that can hover and land at much higher altitudes than a helicopter: Airships. While most airships today are either not designed go above 10,000ft or are not meant to carry passengers, this is more of an issue of environmental controls than of any actual technological limitation. Lockheed Martin’s High Altitude Airship program developed a hybrid airship that is designed to operate uncrewed with a 4 ton payload at 65,000ft or with a crew at 10,000ft with a 23.5 ton payload. Presumably, it could get to the top of Mount Everest with about a 10 ton payload which is probably enough that you could find a way to bring up your heavy construction equipment to build a cable car system, but still does not address that the altitudes are too hazardous to work in. That said, it is enough to be able to ferry many passengers a day up to the top of the mountain and back, and it only costs 40 million dollars; so, you could operate a fleet of hundreds of airships for cheaper than you could build a practical train system, or 1 airship that can carry dozens of passengers with 1 pilot for the cost of 10ish single passenger helicopters trying to do insanely dangerous maneuvers to ride the updrafts up making it perhaps the most economically viable solution.

That said, there are different optimal time windows for when each kind of aircraft would be ideal. If you assume your mountain has seasonal winds similar to Everest, then mid-spring and mid-fall would be the best times to operate airships when the winds are their weakest, but as the winds get a bit stronger, helicopters might be better for riding the stronger updrafts with mid summer and winter being complete no-go times. So just depending on how many people you have visiting this mountain and how important seasonal restrictions are, will determine if you should opt for subways, helicopters, or hybrid airships.

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    $\begingroup$ "You can't build infrastructure where you can't reach with {vehicles}" Not true. You can do wonders with manpower alone, and porters can get shall we say "medium level" equipment up as high as you want. $\endgroup$
    – MikeB
    Commented Aug 14 at 9:00
  • $\begingroup$ " the total price tag of nearly 80 billion dollars will likely never find an investor." No need/no problem, this could easily be a Government-funded project, or funded by "The Church" itself. $\endgroup$
    – MikeB
    Commented Aug 14 at 9:04
  • $\begingroup$ @MikeB I don't believe man power is digging through 9 meters of snow to drive piles deep enough to resist landslides in 1/3rd normal atmosphere. Porters can barely move themselves and their survival gear when they get that high, they would not be able to once up there shovel snow or erect a pile driver. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Aug 14 at 13:20
  • $\begingroup$ @MikeB Like I said, a subway it is a workable idea, just probably not an economical one. Now if this mountain were a special holy place that attracts millions of pilgrims a year, then yes, a subway makes since. That is why I put it in here, so the OP can decide what combination of economic factors makes the most since for his setting. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Aug 14 at 13:31
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    $\begingroup$ The technical limitation for airships is their size. Their hull by definition need to be huge, and gets larger the higher you get. How would you stabilize their position at a mountaintop that is almost always engulfed in violent winds? (Note that the climbing season in the Himalaya is restricted to the monsoon because at any other time of the year wind speeds are too high to safely walk through them.) $\endgroup$
    – ccprog
    Commented Aug 16 at 22:40
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There are technologies like that in the real world.

  • Rack railways are used in mountain terrain. They use cog wheels to prevent slippage on steep inclines, but they are not going straight up.

  • As the name suggests, cable railways are using cables. They would be closer to an elevator, which tends to use cables as well. These can save power by operating in pairs.

The limit for rack railways is the incline, the limit for cable railways is the length of the cable. Constructing the summit station above 8,000 meters would be severely challenging, too. Would the material be carried up by porters? How many tons do you need?

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    $\begingroup$ The length of the cable is no limit if you have transfer stations with power generators and mechanical actuators? $\endgroup$
    – Pica
    Commented Aug 9 at 15:31
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    $\begingroup$ The incline limit for rack railways goes away if you just add some manner of retention system to hold the vehicle on the tracks. You could even make it go beyond vertical that way if you wanted, although it might be hard on your passengers... $\endgroup$
    – Perkins
    Commented Aug 9 at 19:30
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    $\begingroup$ @Perkins what do you mean by "beyond vertical"? $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 9 at 23:10
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    $\begingroup$ @htmlcoderexe, "beyond vertical" means that the train would hang beneath the rails instead of sitting atop them. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 10 at 18:38
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    $\begingroup$ Top mountain climbers can barely get themselves to the top of Everest. I don't think porters could under any circumstance drag several ton steel beams up the mountain, much less the even heavier excavators, pile drivers, and cranes that you need to actually put them all together. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Aug 12 at 15:30
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Cable car.

You build a bunch of towers connected by cables and use them to pull cabins from tower to tower.

Modern technology, is used all over the world for many decades. Much cheaper than cable railway as all you need is towers. Easier to adapt to avalanches and snow - less stuff on the surface. Easier maintenance.

Less transport capacity, but considering your goals - get people there and back quick there seem to be no reason to build an actual railway.

Railway is only really good on relatively even surface, that's why they make tunnels and embankments for rail roads. And rails have to be cleaned and maintained. You also have to transform good chunk of mountain slope just to be able to build it. Waste no matter how you look at it.

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    $\begingroup$ That's the number one technology used to access the top of moutains, everywhere. No need for much world building here. $\endgroup$
    – Jemox
    Commented Aug 9 at 18:16
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    $\begingroup$ +1 if it can be done from 1500 to 4700m it can probably be done for much higher mountains as well. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9rida_cable_car $\endgroup$
    – Michael
    Commented Aug 9 at 20:33
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    $\begingroup$ Great answer! Unlike railways and elevators, you can build cable cars across glaciers and snow (both of which move) as long as there are enough solid rocks in between to anchor the cable masts. $\endgroup$
    – Joooeey
    Commented Aug 10 at 12:34
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    $\begingroup$ The highest cable car in the world only gets to about 1/2 the OP's needed height. The Tianmen Shan Gondola was only able to be built because Tianmen Mountain is in an arid warm climate such that its entire icecaps melt during the summer making the top accessible by roads that are too high to reach by heavy lift helicopter. No mountain approaching the height of Everest shares this characteristic. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Aug 12 at 15:35
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Frame challenge: you don't want to quickly take people up to high mountains, let alone people whose maximum effort is opening the fridge door. The reason is altitude sickness.

Altitude sickness, the mildest form being acute mountain sickness (AMS), is a harmful effect of high altitude, caused by rapid exposure to low amounts of oxygen at high elevation. People can respond to high altitude in different ways. Symptoms may include headaches, vomiting, tiredness, confusion, trouble sleeping, and dizziness. Acute mountain sickness can progress to high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) with associated shortness of breath or high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE) with associated confusion. Chronic mountain sickness may occur after long-term exposure to high altitude. [...]HAPE can progress rapidly and is often fatal. HACE is a life-threatening condition that can lead to coma or death.

Altitude sickness typically occurs only above 2,500 metres (8,000 ft), though some are affected at lower altitudes. [...] Above 5,500 metres (18,000 ft), marked hypoxemia, hypocapnia, and alkalosis are characteristic of extreme altitudes. Progressive deterioration of physiologic function eventually outstrips acclimatization. As a result, no permanent human habitation occurs above 6,000 metres (20,000 ft). A period of acclimatization is necessary when ascending to extreme altitude; abrupt ascent without supplemental oxygen for other than brief exposures invites severe altitude sickness.

Consider that the steepest railway fare at about 13% incline. Let's say you build at 10%, to get some leeway for snow and ice. To climb up to 9 km of mount Everest, you would need a 90 km ramp.

At a speed of 60 km/h you would complete the ascent from sea level in 1.5 hours. Too quick to not get sick.

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    $\begingroup$ Frame challenge challenge: the goal is to make the summit accessible for people who don't have the physical fitness to reach it on foot. If the summit is so important to so many people (and it must be to justify the spending), who says the train has to go fast? It can go as slowly as you need it to, including overnight stops (perhaps limited restaurants/hotels lower down). Also rack/cable railways can go a lot steeper than 10% and will be a lot slower than 60 km/h. $\endgroup$
    – user111403
    Commented Aug 9 at 12:42
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    $\begingroup$ AMS and related issues usually take some time to develop. A few-hour round trip is likely doable by many. $\endgroup$
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Aug 9 at 14:03
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    $\begingroup$ Pressurised rail cars. Pressurised lodge at the top. Problem solved! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 9 at 15:13
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    $\begingroup$ The steepest funicular in the world is 110% (47 degrees) $\endgroup$
    – Andrey
    Commented Aug 9 at 15:14
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    $\begingroup$ Altitude sickness is usually the same as decompression sickness ("the bends") with bad effects caused by nitrogen bubbling out of the blood and tissues faster than the lungs can dispose of them. You can largely eliminate this by pre-breathing pure oxygen for a while prior to your trip (which is why astronauts used to do this since they were going up to the minimal pressures humans can survive at and doing it really, really fast.) $\endgroup$
    – Perkins
    Commented Aug 9 at 19:34
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For railways with oxygen, see the Andean Explorer.

The Jungfrau Railway has a stop on the Eiger that North Face climbers use.

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You could use the railway for power generation.

There was a coal mine in the Rockies (perhaps there still is) that shipped coal fluidised with water down a ten-inch pipe. Someone calculated that the potential energy in transporting the coal was actually more than the heat energy you get from burning it at the far end. And the Rockies are still rising so this is a renewable resource.

You could have light materials such as aluminium or lithium on the plains high in the mountains. Or water ice if pure water is scarce. It does not matter what it is. But if the trains coming down the mountain are heavier than the ones going up, they can generate power on the way down, which can power the train on the way up, with maybe some left over to do useful stuff. They might even bring rocks just for the generated energy.

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  • $\begingroup$ That’s really interesting! Is the energy from bringing down the coal harnessed in any way? $\endgroup$
    – Harrychink
    Commented Aug 14 at 2:38
  • $\begingroup$ No. The water is just used to carry the coal. If you took some of the energy out, then the fluidisation might fail, and the pipe would jam. That would take a lot of unblocking, so I imagine there is a generous safety factor. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 14 at 7:54
  • $\begingroup$ Can’t you just add a few waterwheels ? $\endgroup$
    – Harrychink
    Commented Aug 14 at 8:31
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Sounds like an interesting world. So here are my thoughts, keep in mind I’m not a structural engineer or anything like that but, I do some writing too.

If this spell is sought out it’s probably going to be expensive to get, I’m sure there would be a profit in making a train go up the mountain but there’s also a lot of risk creating and maintaining such a system. I’d check out how other people in our world have handled it like the Swiss ect.

But if I was shooting from the hip why go all the way up the mountain at all? You could punch a hole through it at near the halfway point then have a large vertical freight elevator that can move a few cars at a time, if its in a large cavern with a train turntable like device you could even manage to remove only certain train cars then send the train on its way out the other side of the mountain. This would of course be very expensive but would be shielded from harsh elements like snowstorms and heavy wind which would keep your people and cargo safe it would also allow someone likely someone well connected to control who goes up and how much they pay.

Good luck on your story.

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