Welcome Innsbruck - Winter 2017/18

W E L C O M E 36 W I N T E R D E L A Y Even as early as the first decade of the twentieth century, there were first plans to develop the Patscherkofel, drawn up by Josef Riehl, who was a major player in the development of Tyrol at the turn of the century and also responsible for the Hungerburgbahn funicular. The first ideas com- prised a cog railway and a cableway, in a later draft a funicular after the model of the Hungerburgbahn was to be built. Finally, what emerged was an aerial cableway. This plan had progressed to a point where also the financing of the building costs – which were expected to be 1.2 million Kronen – was settled. A construction firm had been commissioned and the completion planned for 1913. But things didn’t work out as planned. The cableway wasn’t built, and with the outbreak of World War I the plans disappeared in some drawer. Not the dreams, however. The Patscherkofelbahn was the longest cableway in Austria at the time. The supporting cable was 3,800 metres long and weighed some 50 tons. The cableway overcame a difference in altitude of 1,070 metres (bottom station at 890 metres, top station at 1,960 metres). At each of the two sections a wood-panelled cabin transported up to 24 passengers. In 1940, the cableway was sold to the Innsbrucker Verkehrsbetriebe AG, which in the run-up to the Olympic Games of 1964 increased the transport capacity of the cableway from 120 to 450 passengers per hour, thanks to the deployment of two cabins per section. Two times the Olympic Winter Games subsequently took place Inns- bruck. In 1964 and 1976, sporting history was written here. In the follow- ing decades the cableway was repeatedly modernised, until finally the Winter Youth Olympics took place on the Patscherkofel in 2012. Inns- bruck thus is the only city, apart from London, where the Olympic flame has burnt three times already. N E W P A T H S In 2014, the city of Innsbruck finally took over the operation of the Pat- scherkofel cableways. In the following year, a complete reconstruction was decided on, which then began in the spring of 2017. The new mo- no-cable aerial ropeway with 10-person gondolas went into operation at the beginning of the current winter season. The new cableway transports up to 2,600 passengers per hour. The bottom, intermediate and top sta- tions were newly built and in the course of the modernisation drive the snow-making capacities too were increased. The winter can come, the city’s backyard mountain is ready – as it always has been. W Die Patscherkofelbahn war damals die längste Drahtseilbahn Öster- reichs; das Tragseil war 3.800 Meter lang. Sie überwandt einen Höhen- unterschied von 1.070 Meter (Talstation 890 Meter, Bergstation 1.960 Meter). Das Tragseil hatte eine Länge von 3.800 Metern und wog 50 Ton- nen. Auf jeder der zwei Sektionen verkehrte eine holzverkleidete Kabine für 24 Personen. 1940 wird die Bahn an die Innsbrucker Verkehrsbetriebe AG verkauft, die im Vorfeld der Olympischen Winterspiele 1964 durch den Einsatz von zwei Kabinen je Sektion die Förderleistung der Bahn von 120 auf 450 Personen pro Stunde steigerte. Zwei Mal waren die Olympischen Winterspiele in der Folge zu Gast in Innsbruck – 1964 und 1976 wurde hier Sportgeschichte geschrieben. In den folgenden Jahrzehnten wurde immer wieder modernisiert, bis schließlich 2012 die Olympischen Ju- gend-Winterspiele am Patscherkofel stattfanden. Innsbruck ist damit mit London bis heute die einzige Stadt, in der das Olympische Feuer bereits drei Mal brannte. N E U E W E G E 2014 übernahm schließlich die Stadt Innsbruck den Betrieb der Pat- scherkofelbahnen. 2015 wurde der Neubau der Bahn beschlossen, der im Frühjahr 2017 startete. Mit der jetzigen Wintersaison wird die neue 10er-Einseilumlaufbahn in Betrieb gehen: Mit der alten Bahn konnte man 2.000 Personen am Tag auf den Berg bringen. Die neue Bahn schafft 2.600 Personen in einer Stunde. Die Tal-, Mittel- und Bergstation wurden neu errichtet und im Zuge der Modernisierung wurde auch die Beschnei- ungskapazität gesteigert. Der Winter kann kommen, der Hausberg ist be- reit – wie er es immer war. W T he good skier, during his stay, will not omit getting to know the famous downhill runs in Innsbruck’s vicinity, especially of the aerial cableways,” an advertising leaflet from the year 1934 calls the guest’s attention, among other things, to the Patscherkofel skiing paradise and the cableway there. Of which those in charge were very proud, and rightly so: opened in 1928, eighteen years had passed since the first plan for its construction had been drawn up. Nobody sus- pected, at the time, what kind of history the city’s backyard mountain, sometimes lovingly called Glatzkopf (Baldy), would be writing in the dec- ades to come, how much glory it would bring to the state capital – and how much pleasure and enjoyment to generations of skiers and hikers. © STADT INNSBRUCK