SK (people mover)

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The SK is a people mover built by the company Soulé from Bagnères-de-Bigorre. The acronym SK comes from the initials of the production company (Soulé) and of the designer (Kermadec).

The system is based on small cabins which are circulating on rails and are pulled by a cable at a constant speed. This is directly derived from the gondola lift assemblies which are already producted by the Soulé company and which are working in many ski resorts.

A system of holding mechanism allows to reduce the speed or to halt the cabins in the stations. This technique only works on short lines ; its inability to work on long or curved lines with lots of stops is due to risk of losing the cable and lack of stability at normal speed.

One line of SK is servicing the parking lot of the Exhibition grounds of Villepinte.

One line of SK was built in Noisy-le-Grand but the housing complex it was supposed to service was never built and therefore the line was cocoooned, waiting to be opened in the future.

Two lines of SK 6000 have been partially built in Charles de Gaulle International Airport. The first line was supposed to be opened on May 1st 1996, but the length of the line (3500m) was creating many technical problems making impossible to open it for public service. The line 2 should have open in 1997, but it was never opened either.

Never put into operation, this last project had a cost of 148 millions euros. It was replaced by CDGVAL.