Riddes – Isérables cable car
The cable car Riddes – Isérables ( French. Téléférique Riddes – Isérables ) is a cable car between the Riddes in the Rhone Valley in the canton of Valais in Switzerland and the mountain village of Isérables , located southeast high above a narrow side valley , which because of its location isolated and only for a long time could be reached on mountain trails.
This only changed when the Von Roll company built an aerial tramway in 1941 from Riddes, which is around 490 m above sea level, to Isérables, which is 1,100 m high. The cable car also retained its importance when a road was built in the mid-1960s, which overcomes the steep terrain in many curves and with a long detour. It is still primarily used for local public transport .
The railway overcomes the height difference of 614 m over a horizontal distance of 1850 m. It had a suspension rope running over three supports and a pull rope. Its two cabins each held 12 people and thus achieved a transport capacity of 160 people / hour with a journey time of 8 minutes.
In 1988 the railway was adapted to the current safety standards, but operated practically unchanged until 2009, when it was demolished and replaced with a new building within eight months. The new system built by Doppelmayr / Garaventa runs with two 25-person cabins supplied by Gangloff on two carrying ropes (37 mm) with a pull rope (26 mm) with a sloping length of 1977 m over just one support. The cabins are handicapped accessible and operate without a cabin attendant. Transport trolleys with a load capacity of 2 t can be hung under the cabins to transport goods. Since the buildings of the stations are under monument protection, the larger and heavier system had to be adapted to the cramped space conditions. It therefore has a platform with a platform that moves depending on which car enters the station. The new cable car was inaugurated on August 22, 2009 and opened two days later. It covers the distance in just six minutes and runs according to the timetable between 6:00 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. It is closed every first Tuesday of the month for revision work.
The cable car crosses four high-voltage lines , which are protected by scaffolding to prevent the ropes from falling.
Web links
- Description of the old cable car with pictures on cablecar.ch
- Newspaper article in LeNouvelliste (French)
- Note from the traffic authority of the canton of Valais with the timetable at the time (French)
- Photos from the time of assembly on Remontées Méchaniques
- Description of Gangloff
- Description on Seilbahn.net
Coordinates: 46 ° 10 '14.9 " N , 7 ° 13' 18.7" E ; CH1903: 583257 / 113283