Schauinsland Aerial Tramway

The Schauinsland Aerial Tramway is the longest cabin ropeway in Germany. It starts at the valley station "Horben", near Freiburg, and ends at the summit of the Schauinsland mountain at 1219m, with an average incline of 21%. The 37 conductor-less cabs can transport up to 700 passengers per hour, and approximately 240,000 passengers per year.

History

The construction of the Schauinsland ropeway took three years and the completed ropeway was, upon completion , the first ropeway for passengers in the world. Ropeways work on a "rotation principle" which involves multiple cabins, instead of the traditional "reciprocating principle" involving two cabins. The ropeway began operating on July 17, 1930, and for a time was the ropeway with the largest capacity. It originally consisted of eight large cabins, each for 25 passengers and a conductor. The cabins were hitched at the stations onto the two rotating and one carrying cables. In 1932, a mistake by the conductor when hitching the cabin onto the cable led to a cabin dropping 13 metres and killing 13 passengers. This led to a major review of the technology and the procedures guiding it; the resulting recommendations were rapidly included in ropeway construction elsewhere, especially in Switzerland.

During the Second World War, Schauinsland Aerial Tramway supplied auxiliary military hospitals on the Schauinsland mountain and in 1987 the ropeway was closed for refurbishment. The Schauinsland Aerial Tramway received 37 new but smaller cabs that did not have to be accompanied by conductors.

References

W.Koenig, Bahnen und Berge. Verkehrstechnik, Tourismus und Naturschutz in den Schweizer Alpen 1870-1939(Campus Verlag 2000)ISBN:3593365006

External links

http://www.lift-world.info/en/lifts/682/datas.htm?PHPSESSID=37c4b7bb563e443f35a8cff604fe6a40