Coaster (passenger transport system)

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Mountain coaster

The coaster was a concept for an automatic passenger transport system from CityCoaster Verkehrssysteme AG. One of the coaster's cars can hold four to eight passengers and runs on a rail system similar to an elevated train . The plan was to carry the drive energy for the electric motors in batteries and only charge the cars in the stations .

The coaster should be designed as a personal rapid transit system, a public means of transport that runs as required and not according to a timetable . The vehicles should be designed for rather steep routes in the mountains (up to 55% incline) as well as for flatter, therefore faster routes on the flat (e.g. suburban areas). The vehicle system should achieve capacities of up to around 2800 people per hour and direction of travel and top speeds of around 80 km / h. None of the technical values ​​was even remotely achieved in the trial run.

Realized plants

The coaster on a test drive in the snow-covered Arosa in December 2006
Valley station with the first generation Tschuggen Express, in operation until 2018

The only commercial facility was in Arosa, Switzerland , from 2007 to 2018 and belonged to the Tschuggen Grand Hotel . The start of the Tschuggen Coaster had to be postponed several times due to quality defects in the rail system, control and battery problems. The Coaster Verkehrssysteme GmbH became insolvent due to the warranty claims , so that the hotel group decided to revise and commission the system with the company Intamin Transportation Limited . Arosa Bergbahnen was responsible for the technical management .

Since mid-February 2009, the mountain railway, renamed Tschuggen Express , has been running with power supply via a conductor rail . With the two carriages now coupled, the train was able to transport twelve hotel guests directly to Tschuggen in the skiing and hiking area of ​​Arosa. Over a distance of 528 meters, it overcame 150 vertical meters with a gradient of up to 52%. At a speed of up to four meters per second, she covered the route in just under two and a half minutes.

After the renovation, the system worked largely without any problems, and on August 24, 2015, the Tschuggen Express carried the 100,000th passenger.

Despite the renovation, the railway proved to be costly to maintain, which is why the owner decided to replace it with a completely newly built funicular after around ten years of operation. The new Tschuggen Express, built by Steurer Seilbahnen , was opened on July 20, 2018 . Only the buildings of the valley and mountain stations and almost all the foundations of the old supports were reused.

In Bürserberg ( Vorarlberg ) there was a test facility about 300 meters long. This has now been dismantled.

See also

swell

  1. ^ Reporting by ORF
  2. ↑ http://coastersandmore.de/rides/tschuggenexpress/tschuggenexpress.shtml
  3. ↑ Aroser Zeitung of August 28, 2015, p. 10.
  4. ↑ Aroser Zeitung of August 28, 2015, p. 10.
  5. ↑ Bündner Tagblatt of August 25, 2015, p. 28.
  6. ↑ New Tschuggen-Express in operation on steurer-seilbahnen.com from July 20, 2018, accessed on November 13, 2018.
  7. ↑ Tschuggen-Express on steurer-seilbahnen.com from July 20, 2018, accessed on November 13, 2018.
  8. ↑ [1] on tschuggen.ch from July 20, 2018, accessed on November 13, 2018.
  9. ↑ standseilbahnen.ch Tschuggen-Express, accessed on September 15, 2019