The Seilbahn Zugspitze is an aerial tramway running from the Eibsee Lake to the top of

Zugspitze The Zugspitze (), at above Normalhöhennull, sea level, is the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains as well as the highest mountain in Germany. It lies south of the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and the Austria–Germany border runs over ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It holds the world record for the longest freespan in a cable car at as well as the tallest lattice steel aerial tramway support tower in the world at . Construction of the system began in 2015 and it opened on 22 December 2017. This cable car replaced the original Eibsee Cable Car which closed on 2 April 2017 leaving no service for eight and a half months (access to Zugspitze was still possible via the rack railway and the Gletscherbahn Cable Car).

History

The original Eibsee Cable Car, which opened in 1963, was a

cable car Cable car most commonly refers to the following cable transportation systems: * Aerial lift, such as aerial tramways and gondola lifts, in which the vehicle is suspended in the air from a cable ** Aerial tramway ** Chairlift ** Gondola lift *** Bi ...

which connected the lower station ( above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

) near lake

Eibsee Eibsee ("yew lake") is a lake in Bavaria, Germany, 9 km southwest of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and roughly 100 km southwest of Munich. It is above sea-level and its surface area is . It is at the northerly base of the Zugspitze ( above se ...

with the top station at above

next to the summit of

's highest mountain on the border to

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. The cable car from Lake Eibsee was built to provide a faster access to the Zugspitze from its German side, as the

rack railway A rack railway (also rack-and-pinion railway, cog railway, or cogwheel railway) is a steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with ...

from

Garmisch-Partenkirchen Garmisch-Partenkirchen (; Bavarian: ''Garmasch-Partakurch''), nicknamed Ga-Pa, is an Alpine ski town in Bavaria, southern Germany. It is the seat of government of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen (abbreviated ''GAP''), in the O ...

does not go directly to the summit and takes much longer. Both the original ''Eibsee Cable Car'' and its replacement ''Seilbahn Zugspitze'' belong to '' Bayerische Zugspitzbahn Bergbahn AG'', the company operating the rack railway and most cable cars, gondola lifts and chairlifts in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen area. It is thus possible to make round trips using both the rack railway and the cable car. On the Austrian side, there is the

Tyrolean Zugspitze Cable Car The Zugspitzebahn was the first wire ropeway to open the summit of the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain on the border of Austria. Designed and built by Adolf Bleichert & Co. of Leipzig, Germany, the system was a record-holder for the h ...

which starts at

Ehrwald Ehrwald is a municipality in the district of Reutte in the Austrian state of Tyrol. Geography Ehrwald lies at the southern base of the Zugspitze (2950 meters above sea level), Germany's highest mountain, but which is shared with Austria. The town ...

and meets the Seilbahn Zugspitze at the top.

Technical

The technical details of the Eibsee Cable Car and the replacement Seilbahn Zugspitze are summarised in the following table.

Incidents

On 12 September 2018, during an emergency training exercise, the chain of the chain hoist used to lower the rescue vehicle onto the running ropes broke dropping the vehicle onto the ropes before the hoisting rope could be attached. Consequently, the rescue vehicle ran down the ropes unrestrained into the passenger gondola that was approximately below the mountain station. As both the rescue vehicle and the gondola were empty during the exercise, nobody was hurt. The gondola was damaged beyond repair (there is no information on the fate of the rescue vehicle, but there is no indication that a replacement is required). The tramway remained closed until a replacement gondola was available. It reopened on 21 December 2018. It is not possible to operate the system with one gondola as each gondola counter-balances the other. Installing a temporary counter-weight would necessitate recertification of the system. This was a previously unknown failure scenario and has required other similar aerial tramway systems to review their safety assessments. In particular: to devise a method by which the rescue vehicle is restrained ''while'' being lowered onto the running ropes rather than ''afterwards''.https://zugspitze.de/en/winter/news/news/cable+car+zugspitze_n34366 Seilbahn Zugspitze website (in English)

References

External links

Description and pictures
on Seilbahngeschichte.de (German) * * {{coord, 47, 27, 21.86, N, 10, 59, 30.25, E, region:DE, display=title Cable cars in Germany 1963 establishments in Germany

History

Technical

Incidents

See also

References

External links