Nordkettenbahn

Seegrube and Hafelekar

The gondola of the second section Seegrube - Hafelekar drives into the Hafelekar station.

The Innsbrucker Nordkettenbahnen in Tyrol open up the Nordkette , the southernmost mountain range of the Karwendel .

They lead in three sections from downtown Innsbruck , via the Hungerburg district , to the Seegrube station ( 1905  m above sea level ), and on to the Hafelekar mountain station ( 2269  m above sea level ). The Section 1, of Innsbruck's old town to the Hungerburg is accessible by the cable railway " Hungerburgbahn ", sections 2 and 3, the station Seegrube and Hafelekar by two cable cars with a total of three cabins.

history

The first pre-concessions for a cable car construction from the Hungerburg to the Hafelekar were granted at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1925, Karl Innerebner discussed his project for a suspension railway on the Hafelekar. But it was not until 1927 that the then still independent municipality of Hötting made a building decision. On July 15, 1927 was the construction of the aerial tramway by the company. Adolf Bleichert & Co. to start, on July 9, 1928, the first 2,885-meter leg was Hungerburg -Seegrube ( 1905  m above sea level. A. ) opened. On July 21 of the same year, the second, upper, 752 m long section Seegrube - Hafelekar was opened. In the lower part of the route there were two cabs in shuttle operation, and in the upper part of the route one car. The station buildings were planned by the architect Franz Baumann .

In the years 1929–1932 297,028 passengers were carried and a profit of 204,481 schillings was made. In 1937, a boarding point was set up at Stütze 3. This was in operation until 1966 and was abandoned after being destroyed by avalanches. In 1940 the Innsbruck municipal utilities took over the railway. In 1945, the Jenbacher works delivered new cabins. In the 1950s, the railway was rebuilt several times in order to increase the transport performance, including a general renovation of the railway from 1958–1960. In 1979 the Innsbrucker Verkehrsbetriebe took over the Nordkettenbahn. In 1996, the Zeller Bergbahnen took over the Nordkettenbahn, which, however, was bought back by the city of Innsbruck after differences over measures to increase its attractiveness. The technical systems became obsolete over time and over a longer period of time led to plans to convert or rebuild the railway.

Innsbrucker Kommunalbetriebe  AG currently has 51% (half of the city of Innsbruck and the state of Tyrol), the city ​​of Innsbruck 35%, the Innsbruck Tourist Board and its holiday villages 9%, Innsbrucker Verkehrsbetriebe and Stubaitalbahn  GmbH 5% (city of Innsbruck indirectly 70.5%, the rest of the country ), so that the city is the majority owner of the railway (Innsbrucker Nordkettenbahnen GmbH) . It is operated by a private company ( Innsbrucker Nordkettenbahnen Betriebs- GmbH, A-WAY Spittal / Drau and Leitner Sterzing).

Renewal of the Nordkettenbahn in 2004

The renewal of the systems was advertised as an international competition in 2004, which was concluded in December of this year with the winning project. The British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid , who also designed the new Bergiselschanze in Innsbruck, was in charge of the architectural design . From the end of 2005, work on the slightly modified draft was carried out as part of a public-private partnership . The Innsbrucker Nordkettenbahnen GmbH as a subsidiary of the city of Innsbruck, STRABAG and Leitner AG were involved . STRABAG will operate the railway for a limited period of time, after which the systems will be returned to the city of Innsbruck. The work was completed with the commissioning of the new facilities in December 2006.

The entire project was divided into three sections: the re- routing and construction of the Hungerburgbahn as well as the renewal of the railways between the Hungerburg and the Seegrube station or the Seegrube station and the Hafelekar mountain station. In the technical design of the sections of the Nordkettenbahn, in addition to increasing the transport capacity, aspects of monument protection had to be taken into account. The station buildings designed by Franz Baumann in the 1920s were largely preserved; the necessary changes were carried out under the direction of the architects Schlögl and Süß. The Hafelekarbergstation ( Mühlau area ), the company building and Hotel Seegrube (Hötting area) as well as the Hungerburg valley station (Mühlau area) are listed as historical monuments .

The renovation included minor alterations to the station buildings, the dismantling of facilities that had been added since the construction in 1927/28 and a complete replacement of the technical systems. The new lifts now have a transport capacity of 800 people per hour between the Hungerburg valley station and the Seegrube middle station and 620 people per hour between the Seegrube and the Hafelekar mountain station.

tourism

The Seegrube and especially the Hafelekarspitze are vantage points over the city of Innsbruck and the Inn valley as well as the Karwendel .

In summer the area is the starting point for hikes on the Nordkette and in the Karwendel. A few meters west of the Hafelekar station is the entrance to the Innsbruck via ferrata , below the Hungerburg - Seegrube section of the Nordkettenbahn runs the Nordkette single trail , one of the most demanding routes in Europe for freeride mountain bikers. The Goetheweg runs from the Hafelekarhaus of the Nordkettenbahn to the Pfeishütte north of the Rumer Spitze. In winter, the cable car, together with two chair lifts, forms a winter sports area , whose Skylinepark snow park is particularly popular with snowboarders and freeskiers . Famous are the ski routes from the summit of are Hafelekars , particularly in deep snow to reckless piste skiing invite between the mighty rock. At the end of the winter season, many athletes are drawn to the Seegrube for snow gliding . After being renamed Nordpark in the meantime , the ski area has been renamed Innsbrucker Nordkettenbahnen again since 2009 .

Passenger numbers

The small cable car museum

"The Small Cable Car Museum"

The Small Cable Car Museum has been showing the history of the railway since May 2011 . The museum is located on 15 m² in the valley station on the Hungerburg and is open when the railway is operating.

Picture gallery

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  Valley station on the Hungerburg

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  Gondola at pillar 1

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  The Seegrube is the middle station.

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  The mountain station is on the Hafelekar.

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  Arrival at the mountain station

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  Franz Baumann chair in the waiting area of ​​the valley station

literature

• C (lemens) Holzmeister :  The cable car stations of the Nordkettenbahn near Innsbruck by architect F (ranz) Baumann. In:  Bau- und Werkkunst. Monthly magazine for all areas of architecture and applied art, house and home , year 1928, (fifth year), pp. 101–114. (Online at ANNO ). .
• Roland Kubanda (Ed.): City escape 10 m / s. Innsbruck and the Nordkettenbahn. Contributions to the 75th anniversary. Studien Verlag, Innsbruck 2003, publications of the Innsbruck City Archives, 352 pages, hardcover, ISBN 978-3-7065-1890-1 .

Web links

Commons : Nordkettenbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Side of the Nordkettenbahn
• Discussion: "Urban escape 10 m / s" ( Memento from November 28, 2005 in the Internet Archive ), Wiener Zeitung , September 12, 2003
• The Nordkettenbahn in Innsbruck - information from the Austrian Federal Monuments Office on renovation
• The Nordkette single trail

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Article  in:  General Tiroler Anzeiger / Tiroler Anzeiger / Tiroler Anzeiger. With the supplement: "The German Family" monthly magazine with pictures / Tyrolean gazette. With the illustrated supplements: “Der Welt-Look” and “Unser Blatt” / Tiroler Anzeiger. With the evening edition: “IZ-Innsbrucker Zeitung” and the illustrated weekly supplement: “Weltguck” / Tiroler Anzeiger. Tagblatt with the illustrated weekly supplement Weltguck , January 17, 1925, p. 9, right column (online at ANNO ).
2. ↑ Successes of the Austrian economy: The cable cars of Austria. In:  Neue Klosterneuburger Zeitung , January 19, 1935, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).
3. ↑ The Nordkettenbahn boarding point is ready for use. In:  Tiroler Anzeiger , October 18, 1937, p. 7 (online at ANNO ).
4. ↑ Nordkettenbahn in new facility. In:  Tiroler Anzeiger , October 25, 1937, p. 8 (online at ANNO ).
5. ^ ^{A b c d} Walter Kreutz: Trams, buses and cable cars from Innsbruck . Steiger, Innsbruck 1982, ISBN 3-85423-008-7 , p. 270-271 .
6. ↑ Nordkettenbahn receives new light metal cabins. In:  Oberösterreichische Nachrichten , February 20, 1946, p. 4, second column, center (online at ANNO ).
7. ^ Company Innsbrucker Nordkettenbahnen GmbH in Innsbruck . Commercial register data Creditreform / firmenabc.at
8. ^ Company Innsbrucker Nordkettenbahnen Betriebs-GmbH in Innsbruck . Commercial register data Creditreform / firmenabc.at
9. ^ "Ade Nordpark!" Krone.at, December 4, 2009, accessed on April 5, 2011.
10. ↑ Opening of "The Small Cable Car Museum". In: Innsbruck informed. May 13, 2011, accessed July 27, 2017 . 
11. ↑ Cable car museum. Innsbrucker Nordkettenbahnen, accessed on July 27, 2017 . 
12. ↑ The small cable car museum. In: Museums in Tyrol. State of Tyrol, accessed on July 27, 2017 . 
13. ↑ kleboth lindinger dollnig: the small cable car museum . (No longer available online.) Austria-architects.com, formerly in the original ; accessed on July 27, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  

Coordinates: 47 ° 17 ′ 10.3 "  N , 11 ° 23 ′ 56.4"  E