Stanserhorn Railway
The Stanserhorn-Bahn ( SthB ) is a mountain railway in Central Switzerland that leads from Stans to the Stanserhorn . In the upper section, the gondola Cabrio-Bahn ( spelling : CabriO-Bahn ) runs with an open upper deck. This makes it one of the outstanding cable cars .
history
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in the background Stans and Lake Lucerne
The Stanserhorn-Bahn, opened in 1893, was an electrically operated funicular to the 1898 m above sea level. M. high mountain of the Central Swiss Pre-Alps . It was the first funicular in the world that did not use the toothed wheel brake that had been common up to that point , but the newly patented caliper brake . It was built by Franz Josef Bucher- Durrer and Josef Durrer- Gasser.
Between 1893 and 1903 the Stansstad – Stans tram served as a feeder from the steamship station in Stansstad on Lake Lucerne . In 1898, the Stanserhorn Railway was also replaced by the former Stansstad – Engelberg (Eisen-) Bahn (StEB) (later: Luzern – Stans – Engelberg – Bahn (LSE), today: the Luzern – Stans – Engelberg railway of the Zentralbahn (zb)) opened up.
Because of the long route of almost 4 km, the Stanserhorn Railway was divided into three separate sections. Each section had its own operating station with electric motors, which were supplied with 1200 to 1300 volts from the central station in Buochs , and had two carriages that were built in a staircase and had several compartments with 8 seats each.
All sections were laid out on a single track and had a passing point in the middle with an Abt switch .
First section
The lower section, which is still in operation today, connects the Stans station ( 450 m above sea level ) over a length of 1550 m with the intermediate station Kälti ( 710 m above sea level ) as a funicular . With an average gradient of 17% and a maximum gradient of 27.5%, it is relatively little steep.
Second section
From Kälti , the second section ran as a funicular over 1090 m in length to the second intermediate station at Alp Blumatt (about 1220 m above sea level ), the gradient being 40% initially and 60% in front of the station (greatest gradient on all sections).
Third section
The third section led from Blumatt over a length of 1280 m first in a wide arc through the Alp, then through a 160 m long tunnel and at the Schildflüh over a long viaduct to the mountain station in the Hotel Stanserhorn-Kulm ( 1850 m above sea level ). up.
The luxurious hotel on the summit was built at the same time as the railway and above the mountain station and the engine room of the 3rd section.
Changes since 1975
During a severe storm in October 1970, a lightning strike caused the mountain hotel to fire, which was completely destroyed along with the mountain station of the 3rd section. Due to the expiry of the concession (operating license) and plans to replace it with a cable car in 1973 , the top station of the 3rd section was only poorly repaired and the funicular continued to operate until this cable car was completed until October 1974.
First cable car in 1975
Not only the upper 3rd, but also the middle 2nd section was replaced by a shared 2330 meter long cable car with the Kälti valley station . The lower section of the funicular remained. In 1975 the new cable car went into operation.
Second cable car in 2012: convertible train
The upcoming expiry of the concession for the existing cable car in 2011 was the reason to replace it with a new convertible cable car from Garaventa . The 1975 lift had its last run on October 23, 2011, and the new lift opened on June 29, 2012.
The new lift is a two-lane, broad-gauge, double-decker aerial tramway, each running on a pair of supporting cables . Its two cabins, one per lane, can each accommodate 60 passengers. Of these, up to 30 people can stay on the open upper deck, which can be reached via a spiral staircase. The wide lanes on the pairs of supporting cables and the operation with an endlessly spliced towing cable loop were taken over by the single-lane Funifor cable car type. So far (as of 2017) it was only built as a single-lane aerial tramway and has only one endless pull rope loop. The convertible cable car has two loops, an upper one that runs between the two cabins over the mountain station and a lower one that runs over the valley station. The two strands of the lower loop are driven here .
Both cable loops can move relative to the cabins, which is why in the event of cable blockages due to defective cable deflection sheaves in the valley station or in the mountain station, it is possible to bring both cabins to a terminus or both one after the other to the valley station and let the passengers get off there before the system must be taken out of service for repairs.
The main innovation is that the cabins are suspended between the landing gear and have an upper deck from which you can look over the ropes. In a conventional cable car cabin, which is attached to a long pendulum arm ( suspension ), the gentle longitudinal pendulum movement, especially when crossing supports, is used to reduce the effect of the horizontal accelerations on the passengers. This is not possible with the Cabrio Bahn. Their pendulum length is very short due to the high placement of the cabs: the cab's center of gravity is only slightly lower than the transverse axis of its rotatable attachment to the chassis. With this suspension, the cabin swings quickly and with large angular deflections, which is unreasonable for the passengers. This is why this longitudinal movement is suppressed by technical measures. The cabin is connected to the chassis via hydraulic cylinders. These cylinders, which act as actuators in a control loop, rotate the car around the transverse axis in relation to the chassis, so that their floors remain almost horizontal at every point in the lane. The passengers are therefore not exposed to fast and large pendulum angular deflections when crossing the supports, but only to slightly higher horizontal accelerations. There is no difference in vertical acceleration compared to conventional cable car cabins.
The convertible train has the following technical data:
- Inclined length : 2,319.13 m
- Height of valley station and mountain station (platform): 710.95 m above sea level. M. and 1849.45 m above sea level. M.
- Difference in altitude: 1,138.5 m
- average road gradient: 56.38%
- Highest road gradient: 72.94%
- Supports: four pieces
- 2 lanes with 5 m track width each
- Carrying rope diameter: 66 mm
- Main rope diameter upper / lower rope: 30 mm / 26 mm (endlessly spliced)
- Driving speed: 8 m / s
- Driving time: 6 min. 15 sec.
- Transport capacity: 465 people per hour and direction
literature
- Christoph Berger: The little book from the Stanserhorn . Odermatt, Dallenwil 2005, ISBN 3-907164-12-1 .
- Christoph Berger (text), Christian Perret (photos): Stanserhorn - future with tradition. Matt Verlag, Stans 2018, ISBN 978-3-906997-86-5 .
- Christoph Berger: The old Stanserhorn Railway . In: Geomatics Switzerland . tape 105 , no. 5 , 2007, p. 226-229 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-236424 .
Web links
- Official website of the Stanserhorn-Bahn
- A “new wind” in ropeway technology , brochure on the Stanserhorn-Bahn website
- The Stanserhorn Bahn (English) , article on the website of the web magazine Funimag
Individual evidence
- ↑ Doppelmayr / Garaventa image brochure 2012, pages 22/23
- ↑ Report in the Luzerner Zeitung from August 4, 2011
- ↑ Technical description of the convertible train at Seilbahn.net , accessed on July 22, 2012
- ↑ a b c Siegfried Wetzel: Stanserhorn cable car - the arrangement of the pull cables
- ↑ Data sheet of the Stanserhorn-Bahn PDF, accessed on July 22, 2012
Coordinates: 46 ° 57 ′ 30 " N , 8 ° 21 ′ 48" E ; CH1903: six hundred and seventy thousand three hundred and eighty-three / 201220