Glacial Aerial Tramway Kaprun III

The Glacial Aerial Tramway Kaprun III carries visitors up the Kitzsteinhorn mountain near Kaprun in Salzburg. It rises from the Krefelder Hut station at 2,453 metres to the Kitzsteinhorn station at 3,029 metres. Two cabins each hold sixty passengers plus an operator and travel 2,208 metres in eight and a half minutes. The line reaches a maximum speed of thirty-six kilometres per hour and a gradient of forty-two per cent. A former steel pylon, once the tallest of its kind in the world, splits the route into two sections. The tramway’s pylon stood 103 metres high when built in 1966 and was later extended to 113.6 metres. It consists of a central steel tube with a maintenance elevator and ladder, supported by eight smaller tubes connected every ten metres. The structure rests on a square concrete block seventeen metres wide set on a rock tooth. Until 2017 it held the world record for the tallest aerial tramway support pillar. The line itself opened in November 1966 and is branded Gipfelbahn, meaning summit railway. Visitors step into spacious cabins and ascend through mountain air to the summit station. The route passes the towering pylon and offers views of alpine ridges and glaciers. At the top, the Kitzsteinhorn station sits on the mountain crest at nearly three thousand metres. Non-skiers can now use the newer Gletscherjet gondolas and chairlifts to reach the same point. Queues sometimes form at the Gipfelbahn because each cabin carries only sixty people and departs intermittently.