Stuttgart funicular
| Stuttgart funicular | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 0.536 km | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 282 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 11 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The funicular Stuttgart combines since October 30, 1929 the Südheimer place in the district Heslach (valley station 48 ° 45 '21.2 " N , 9 ° 8' 32" O ) non-stop service to the forest cemetery in the district of Degerloch (Mountain station 48 ° 45 ' 6.1 " N , 9 ° 8 '43.6" E ). It is operated by the Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG (SSB) and in Stuttgart itself is usually only referred to as the "cable car". Since the end of the 1990s, it has also been included as "Line 20" in the line number system of the Stuttgart Stadtbahn . At Südheimer Platz there is a connection to their lines U1, U9 and U34.
In contrast to comparable systems, the Stuttgart cable car is hardly used for tourist purposes, but mainly for local public transport . It is integrated into the tariff of the Stuttgart Transport and Tariff Association (VVS) and can be used at its regular tariff.
It is popularly known as the “Erbschleicher Express”, “Funny Widows Train” (this name was introduced in 2004) or the “Widow Express”. Another nickname alluding to its function as a funicular is "Schnürlesbahn".
business
The funicular with a gauge of 1000 millimeters ( meter gauge ) covers the distance of 536 meters in four minutes. The pull rope is 35 millimeters thick. The train operates daily from 9:10 a.m. to 5:50 p.m., from November to February the last train runs at 5:10 p.m. The train runs regularly in the 20-minute cycle , but additional drives are offered in large crowds.
history
The Stuttgart forest cemetery was opened in August 1914, with a railway connecting the remote cemetery being included in the planning from the start. Because there was only a narrow forest path, which was expanded to today's Karl-Kloß-Straße much later. A funicular based on the model of the facility built in Baden-Baden in 1912 or a tram route from Heslach via Sonnenberg to Möhringen were planned to relieve the existing tram lines. The beginning of the World War in 1914 foiled the construction of the cable car.
Today's funicular was built in 1928/1929 by the Esslingen machine works . At the time, it replaced a “W” bus line set up for the cemetery in 1914, the year the cemetery was opened . The connection made it easier for visitors to the cemetery to overcome the height difference of 85 meters between Heslach and the Degerloch forest cemetery.
While in 1930 - the first full year of operation - 690,000 passengers still used the train, which had the transport monopoly, the demand has long been significantly lower. The importance of the forest cemetery for burials has diminished, while the railway is now increasingly a tourist attraction and the cemetery area serves as a destination for excursions. Accordingly, the number of passengers has stabilized at around 150,000 passengers per year. Quite a few Stuttgart visitors also use the cable car as a Park + Ride feeder by parking at the forest cemetery and then taking the cable car and tram into the city. In winter, the cable car is popular with tobogganists who ride the snow-covered forest paths.
By Lothar in December 1999, a car was damaged by a falling tree, but then restored. In 2003, the closure of the railway was considered and recommended by the supervisory authority because the new safety guidelines of the EU for cable cars had been tightened considerably. The main reason was the fire disaster on the Kaprun 2 glacier lift , which largely ran through a tunnel. However, the Stuttgart railway does not have a tunnel. However, at the request of the public and the city, the SSB decided to undertake the complex modernization. Because of the preservation of monuments, systems and cars should have been preserved anyway. Since July 24, 2004 the railway has been in operation again as planned. In order to reduce the operating costs to compensate for the high investments, the operating time was limited to the period from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Previously, the train had run from around 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. due to fewer isolated working residents, which was extremely uneconomical.
Quirk
The railway was - at about the same time as a funicular in France - the first semi-automatic (not: fully automatic) cable car in the world and therefore managed without operating personnel from the start. Only two car attendants are required to operate the controls. Before ticket sales were switched to machines in the 1970s (one each in the valley and mountain stations), they also acted as conductors . Only this technology, which was new at the time, enabled economical operation of the railway, because instead of five personnel - two "drivers", one machine operator and one ticket vendor per station, as was necessary and common with funiculars at the time - only two were required. Since the remote mountain station was without constant supervision by an employee, the flower shop, which still exists today, was planned so that the building was not empty.
In 1914 it was initially planned to design the building in an elaborate Art Nouveau style. When the building was then realized in 1929, however, an architecturally restrained complex in the style of the New Objectivity of the Time was created.
The runway was deliberately made as short as possible in order to save costs and not to expose the cemetery area to the feared “noise” of the (largely noiseless) runway and the public. An arched route with a steep ramp at the beginning of the route was also chosen in order to limit the construction effort. Aesthetic and ecological reasons also played a role: the chosen tour should protect the forest and restrict the visibility of the intervention from the valley to only a few meters until the railway disappears into a depression on the slope.
Immediately after the opening in late autumn 1929, the global economic crisis broke out. If construction had started a little later, the Stuttgart cable car might never have been completed.
In addition to the upper section of the Heidelberg mountain railway to the Königstuhl , the Stuttgart cable car is the only funicular railway currently in operation in Germany in which vehicles and systems are essentially preserved in their original condition. In 2004, a modern drive was installed behind the historic drive system in Stuttgart, which is still operational, but no longer runs. During the renovation, care was generally taken to remove modern retrofits from the 1970s and 1980s and to restore the equipment to the condition of the time it was built, if possible, in keeping with the monument.
Even when they were built in 1929, the carriages of the Stuttgart cable car did not meet the standards of car manufacturing at the time, which could have been much more modern in terms of design. It is possible that the simple, box-shaped, outdated wooden construction was chosen to make the train appear timeless, as it is not a tourist train, but a public transport that opens up the cemetery.
Even if the cable car cannot cover its costs, it cannot be replaced in terms of traffic and is still the most economical means of public transport for local purposes. Bus traffic with the same clock frequency would be more expensive and less efficient.
technology
The semi-automatic control from 1929 made it possible to dispense with the machinist in the operating station, who had to regulate the speed of the funicular railways that had been common up until then. With the semi-automatic control, every car attendant has to press the departure button on his vehicle. This completes the circuit that initiates the descent. This technology prevents an attendant from setting the train in motion alone without knowing whether the second car is also ready to leave.
From an electrical point of view, the railway originally had a cascade control, in which acceleration and braking are controlled by a contactor control. Once the descent has been initiated, the individual driving and braking levels automatically switch up and down one after the other. A heavy flywheel was attached to the mechanical drive shaft to ensure a more or less smooth course of the journey without sudden changes in speed. A mechanical speedometer, a centrifugal governor , ensured that the speed did not exceed a certain level. Since the renovation in 2004, the driving and braking control has been carried out by power electronics, which ensure a smooth journey. The basic principle that both car attendants have to switch on the system together has been retained.
During the renovation in 2004, the system was extended by a valley rope. Since then, a continuous mechanical rope circle has been created together with the mountain rope. Both ropes are attached to the floor of the car. To keep the rope circle taut, there is a guy weight in the valley station, of the same design as for a ski lift. The guy weight compensates for mechanical tension differences and vibrations as well as temperature-related differences in length and the gradual plastic elongation of the rope. Due to the very strong rope used today, this is only very low. In the past, the elongation of the rope was greater. Therefore, the railings were designed to be movable along the platforms.
Since the renovation in 2004, the wagons have been pulled at a constant speed in every direction, including downhill. The guy weight does not hang directly on the valley rope, but on a deflection frame that forms the lower loop of the valley rope. Until 2004 there was only the mountain rope on which the wagons were attached. Until then, the wagons only ran downhill by gravity. In individual cases, for example on a snow-covered track, it could happen that the speed of a car was slightly slower than that of the trailing rope. When the rope went slack, the rope break safety device on the car was triggered under certain circumstances, so that - without cause - an automatic emergency braking occurred. Such an incident is excluded by today's continuous rope circle.
For the lighting, the car originally had a simple pantograph attached to a three-pole overhead line. This also served for electrical heating and as part of the circuit for the semi-automatic train control. Since 2004, the lighting has been carried out by batteries that are fed by a power rail in the stations. The car heating is supplied in the same way and is therefore only operated in the stations. The control system has been carried out inductively by line cables since 2004 . The catenary was retained because of the monument protection. Today it serves as an automatic safety device in the event that a tree falls and touches the pipe. For this purpose, the line is now part of a weak circuit.
dare
The two cars are numbered 1 and 2. For cost reasons - they were built in the economically difficult times of the 1920s - they were made of teak wood on the outside and mahogany wood on the inside . Both are 9800 millimeters long, 2200 millimeters wide and weigh 7800 kilograms when empty. The maximum permissible total weight is 13,425 kilograms. In addition to the folding seat for the driver, they offer 22 seats and 52 standing places.
Car 1 in the mountain station
Interior decoration
Interior detail
Control panel after the modernization
Brake wheel
Audio documents
Drive from the valley station to the mountain station
Drive from the mountain station to the valley station
Awards
In March 2007, on the occasion of the award of the Baden-Württemberg Monument Preservation Prize 2006 by the Swabian Heimatbund , the Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG received “Special Recognition” for the preservation and renovation of the funicular because it succeeded “through an extensive renovation with many creative ideas and to adapt today's requirements in painstaking detail without destroying the original character ”.
See also
literature
- Hans-Joachim Knupfer: High above Heslach - The Stuttgart cable car. 75 years of technology and traffic history. Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-00-013868-4
- G. Bauer, U. Theurer, C. Jeanmaire: Stuttgart trams. A documentation about the tram lines from 1868–1975 . Verlag Eisenbahn Gut Vorhard, Villigen AG 1976, ISBN 3856490264 , p. 232
- Gottfried Bauer, Ulrich Theurer: From the tram to the Stuttgart city railway 1975–2000. A documentation about the rail traffic of the Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG (SSB) between 1975 and 2000. Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-00-006615-2 , pp. 167 and 204–205
Web links
- Information about the funicular from SSB AG
- Pictures of the funicular
- Interactive 360 ° panoramic images of the funicular (Flash / HTML5)
Map with all coordinates: