Gletscherbahn Kaprun 2

The Gletscherbahn Kaprun 2 was a stand-seilbahn that once climbed from Kaprun up to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier. It ran entirely inside a 3.3-kilometre tunnel bored through the mountain, with only the first 625 metres on an open steel bridge. The line opened in March 1974 after three years of work and held the world record for the longest and steepest stand-seilbahn of its time. Two trains named Gletscherdrachen and Kitzsteingams carried up to 180 people at a time on a 946-millimetre track, reaching 36 kilometres per hour. At peak hours the system moved more than twelve hundred passengers uphill every hour. The tunnel also served skiers in winter. A 650-metre access gallery let them ski straight into the station with their equipment still attached. Halfway along the route a small station called Breitriesenalpe allowed skiers to leave the train and continue on foot. The entire installation was driven by two 800-kilowatt motors at the mountain top, while the haul rope weighed thirteen tonnes in the valley. Firms Waagner-Biro, Elin, Swoboda and Siemens built the line, which carried nearly eighteen million people before it closed. After a fire in November 2000 that killed 155 passengers, the tunnel was sealed and no longer used for transport. Today the bridge and much of the valley station have been removed, leaving only the mountain station as a store room. The old tunnel still houses water and waste pipes for the Alpincenter, and the glacier above remains accessible by newer lifts such as the Gletscherjet series. The route of the former stand-seilbahn is now quiet, its steep climb replaced by gentler, open-air cabins that rise through the same alpine landscape.