The
3S Aerial Tramway or
3S Cable Car (Europe) is an cabin aerial tramway which was developed by the Swiss company Roll transport systems in
ThunThun is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland with about 42,136 inhabitants , as of 1 January 2006....
to unite the advantages of a pendulum aerial tramway with their one normal, coupleable single rope cabin aerial tramway.
Technical description of first systems
The first plant of this type, called
Alpine express I, was built in 1991 in Saas Fee. In 1994, a further section - the
Alpine express II - became operational, however, a continuous service of both sections is not possible.
The cabs of these plants have space for 30 persons and travel with a speed of 6 m/s pulled by an endless hauling cable,
and suspended from two carrying cables.
A lane thus consists of three cables (from which the system takes its name). As with most rotating cabin railways, gondolas are detachable from the cables in order to allow easy disembarkation without disrupting the transit of other cars on the system. The system offers the following advantages over less sophisticated aerial cable-driven transportation systems:
- lower energy consumption compared with to-and-from system aerial ropeways of similar capacity
- increased wind stability
- larger grund distances possible
- high driving speed in relation to unity express orbits: Speeds over 7 m/s are possible
- high passenger capacity
Development and building of the
Alpine express I cost 70 million
SFrThe franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein; it is also legal tender in the Italian exclave Campione d'Italia. Although not formally legal tender in the German exclave Büsingen , it is in wide daily use there...
.
The company of Roll built no more further 3S Aerial Tramway after the two systems in Saas Fee. By the assumption of the company by the Austrian company
DoppelmayrThe Doppelmayr Garaventa Group is an Austrian-Swiss company that manufactures chairlifts, cable cars, gondolas, surface tows for ski and amusement parks as well as urban people movers and material handling systems. To date, Doppelmayr and Garaventa have produced over 13,700 installations in 78...
in 1996,
Doppelmayr attained the know-how for the 3S-Bahn-Bau.
The Italian company Leitner has developed 3S aerial tramway in the meantime also.
Kitzbühel 3S Cable Car
The 3S cable car in
Kitzbühel-Demographic evolution:-Personalities:*Karl Wilhelm von Dalla Torre , entomologist and botanist*Alfons Walde , expressionist painter and architect*Peter Aufschnaiter , mountaineer and geographer...
,
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
bridges the Saukasergraben and connects
the skiing areas of Kirch and Resterhöhe with each other.
The 3S cable car opened in January 2005 and is 3642 metres long. A journey takes approximately nine minutes from end to end.
At its highest point, the cableway is 400 metres from the ground.
The use of only one aerial lift pylon resulted in an unusual span width of 2507 metres between the valley station and the 80-metre-support pillar. Overall, the system cost 13.5 million euros with each cabin costing 100,000 euros.
The cableway was manufactured by
DoppelmayrThe Doppelmayr Garaventa Group is an Austrian-Swiss company that manufactures chairlifts, cable cars, gondolas, surface tows for ski and amusement parks as well as urban people movers and material handling systems. To date, Doppelmayr and Garaventa have produced over 13,700 installations in 78...
. The cable of the 3S cable car has a diameter of just 54 millimetres.
The electrical power consumption is 400 kW.
There are 19 cabins in total, though the system can be expanded to 24 cabins if the need arises in the future. Each cabin seats 24 people, allowing the system to transport a total of 3200 people in any given hour.
One cabin boasts a
glass floorThis article is about a structural feature. For the expression concerning limitations on advancement, see glass ceiling. For the 2004 Maritime album, see Glass Floor....
, making it possible to view the 400 metre drop from a different angle.
Peak 2 Peak Gondola
In December 2008,
Whistler-BlackcombWhistler Blackcomb is a major ski resort located 125 km north of Vancouver, in British Columbia, Canada. By many measures it is the largest ski resort in North America; it is 50% larger than its nearest competitor in terms of size, has the greatest uphill lift capacity, and until 2009, had...
ski resort in
British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
became the first North American resort to install a 3S Aerial Tramway when it opened the
Peak 2 Peak GondolaThe Peak 2 Peak Gondola is a tri-cable gondola lift located in Whistler, British Columbia that links Whistler Mountain's Roundhouse Lodge with Blackcomb Mountain's Rendezvous Restaurant. It is the first lift to join the two side-by-side mountains...
, which connects Roundhouse Lodge on Whistler with Rendezvous Lodge on
BlackcombBlackcomb Peak is a mountain located east of Whistler, British Columbia and forms the boundary between the Whistler Blackcomb ski resort and Garibaldi Provincial Park...
. In effect, it is like the Kitzbühel 3S Aerial Tramway because it connects two ski areas (although in this case, more two parts of the same area together). The installation of the Peak 2 Peak Gondola eliminated the need to use the base area gondolas to get between Whistler and Blackcomb, connecting the areas together.
External links
- http://www.seilbahntechnik.net/lifte/Ort/zweiseilbahn/seite1.php
- http://www.bergbahn-kitzbuehel.at/de/default.asp?MenuID=45
- http://ski.intermaps.ch/saastal/saas-fee/flash/index.swf?lang=de
- http://seilbahn.tk.111.com/kraftklemmenbeschreibung.htm
- http://seilbahn.tk.111.com/aussergewohnlich.htm
- http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b47480
See also
- List of spans
- Peak 2 Peak Gondola
The Peak 2 Peak Gondola is a tri-cable gondola lift located in Whistler, British Columbia that links Whistler Mountain's Roundhouse Lodge with Blackcomb Mountain's Rendezvous Restaurant. It is the first lift to join the two side-by-side mountains...