Jungfrau Lift Co Orders Lifts Worth Over 70 Million Swiss Francs
In June 2024, the Jungfrau Railways put out a tender for the replacement of the Firstbahn and the Fallboden chairlift. Doppelmayr/Garaventa was awarded the contract for the renovation of the Firstbahn, including an additional chairlift. The Leitner company was awarded the contract for the replacement of the Wixi-Fallboden chairlift in the Kleine Scheidegg ski area.
As previously reported, the new valley station of the Firstbahn cable car, which is to be replaced, is to be built at Grindelwald station (Fuhrenmatte). This will result in a new route. In future, the cable car will run directly from Grindelwald station to First with a middle station in Bort. The Schreckfeld station will be connected to the First mountain station by a separate gondola. In order to ensure that winter sports enthusiasts can return to the valley station via the valley run in the future, an Isch-Bodmi chairlift is needed. Total costs of over 100 million Swiss francs are currently expected, including the valley station at Fuhrenmatte and a new mountain hut on First. At the same time, the current snowmaking system will be expanded.
Doppelmayr/Garaventa is building all three lifts in the First area
The choice of the railway system from Grindelwald station to First fell on a 3-cable car system "Triline". The innovative cable car system from Doppelmayr/Garaventa impresses with its high level of transport comfort, smooth running, energy efficiency, high wind stability and load-bearing capacity as well as long spans for the cable fields. The system enables an optimal route from the station via Bort to First with only six cable car supports, without forest clearings. Only the first one will be located in the residential area. Thanks to the high cable guidance, the best possible distance from the affected residential buildings can be achieved.
The small number of supports and the avoidance of forest clearings also make the system impressive from a landscape point of view. Around 70 cabins offer twelve seats and, at peak times, five additional standing places. This means that queues at the stations will be a thing of the past in the future and the quality of transport will be significantly improved. To access the Schreckfeld junction, the same type of cable car as the Grindelwald-Männlichen gondola lift is planned from First, with 30 cabins with ten seats each. The attractive connection enhances the overall First experience in both summer and winter. This gondola lift is being built by Doppelmayr/Garaventa, just like the new Isch-Bodmi chairlift.
direct public transport connection
The Firstbahn needs to be renewed because its concession expires in 2034. The decisive factor for the variant from Fuhrenmatte/Grindelwald was that it would create a compact direct connection to public transport.
There is enough space at the new valley station of the Firstbahn to build an underground parking garage in addition to the new cable car. This will be accessed via the Grindelwald western bypass. In future, there will no longer be any feeder traffic through the village of Grindelwald to the Firstbahn. The village center from the train station to the church will be relieved.
Test planning is currently underway with those responsible in the Grindelwald municipality and a team of experts. The spatial planning and architectural questions for the location of the valley station and the mountain station are being analyzed and clarified so that the population can be informed of the details as best as possible at a later date. The possibility of a bus terminal at the train station is also being examined. This could free up the Bärplatz.
Determining the cable car system is central to further planning. Together with the test planning, this provides the basis for adapting the land use planning, which will also be voted on by the voters of Grindelwald. In a next step, the landowners will be informed in advance of the details and the cable car corridor will be clarified.
Leitner receives contract for new Wixi-Fallboden chairlift
The Leitner company was awarded the contract to build the new Wixi-Fallboden chairlift. The concession for the old chairlift expired at the end of October 2022. Due to age, an extension of the existing facility was no longer possible. The replacement project for the Fallboden chairlift with mountain station on the Eiger Glacier, which was already planned in 2010 and taken into account when the Wixi chairlift was built, failed during the approval process in 2021 by the landscape protection authorities due to a negative ENHK report.
The operating experience of the last two winter seasons has now shown that the loss of the Fallboden chairlift has created a bottleneck in the Wixi Valley near the Wixi chairlift. The newly snow-covered "Black Rock" piste has been very popular. The new planned lift will have its mountain station to the east of the current mountain station, directly next to the Jungfrau Railway tracks. Thanks to a double underpass with a gradient, guests can go towards Grindelwald on one side and Wengen on the other.
Assuming a speedy planning process, the lift could be operational as early as the 2026/2027 winter season. The lift type is a modern six-seater chairlift from Leitner with weather protection hoods and a capacity of 2000 people per hour. The costs for this are estimated at 13 million Swiss francs.
