Toboggan cableway
A toboggan cable car , also known as a funi slide (from French funiculaire ), is a historical means of transport for winter sports enthusiasts that is no longer used. Two steerable sledges on runners go up and down in opposite directions like a funicular on a surface lift -like track on the snow. As with a funicular, empty vehicles going downhill are almost in equilibrium with empty vehicles going uphill. The tow rope, which acts as a restraint rope when driving downhill, is usually driven by an electric motor . The sleds, each steered by a guide, are equipped with various braking and safety devices. They offer space for up to 50 passengers. Since the funi sledges travel on the snow and are operated like a drag lift with a low cable guide , a sled cableway needs neither rails nor cable supports and can therefore be set up inexpensively, but operation is more labor-intensive than operating a drag lift. The pull ropes are usually rolled up in spring.
Austria
On the Lank in Schwarzenberg , Vorarlberg , the Bödele sledge lift , the first motor-driven ascent aid with sledges for skiers, went into operation in 1908. The system was designed by Hugo Rhomberg and Alfred Rüsch. The single sled was used as a means of transport for the ski jump and led next to the ski jump. The ski jumpers could ride on the lift sledge while sitting on two benches.
Switzerland
Funi sledges existed in the Toggenburg villages of Wildhaus (1937–1949) and Unterwasser (1938/39), in the Bernese Oberland villages of Gstaad (1934–1944), Lenk (1937–1947), Zweisimmen (1936–1957), Saanenmöser (1938–1986) and Grindelwald (1938–95), in Heiligkreuz in Entlebuch (1938–1946), in Glarner Braunwald (1936–1973) and on Lenzerheide (1936–1942) in Graubünden ( rebuilt in Valbella in 1946 ). Most of these systems were replaced by more efficient ascent aids such as the ski lift just a few years after they went into operation .
Italy
In 1935 the first slittovia in Italy went into operation in Bardonecchia in Piedmont . The toboggan runs on Monte Bondone and Madonna di Campiglio in Trentino followed in 1935, in Oropa in Piedmont in 1936 , in Cortina d'Ampezzo in Veneto in 1937 , Roccaraso in Abruzzo , and many others. The first toboggan cable car in South Tyrol was that of Corvara in Val Badia in 1938 . Most of these lifts were replaced by ski lifts in the years that followed.
literature
- Jakob Gabathuler: Development and economics of toboggan ropeways, ski lifts and chairlifts. Stämpfli, Bern 1947.
Web links
- History of the cable cars in Switzerland
- Toboggan cable cars and early ski lifts in Switzerland
- The story of the Wildhauser Funi
- Photos of a toboggan cable car at skilift-nostalgie.ch , accessed on November 17, 2011
- In the film sample of the film The Future Rides on a Rope (“Director: Benvenuti / Torghele, Screenplay: Ugo Pozzi” at onlinefilm.org) a toboggan cable car can be seen briefly.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from Vorarlberger Nachrichten of January 28, 1975, page 7.
- ↑ J. Walker: Annens Funi- home-funi4-bwd.htm. In: jwalker.ch. Retrieved October 9, 2016 .
- ↑ 100 Years of Skiing. Bardonecchia, 100 years of skiing