WIR 01/2019 [EN]

16
International Projects
Custom solution for
the Sonnblick Observatory
6-ATW Sonnblick | Rauris, Salzburg (AUT)
Sonnblick Verein
3,054 m 1,478 m 104% 6.0 m/s 10.0 min 6-passenger cabin
weather conditions. This meant that at wind
speeds of 30 km/h and above, the lift had to be
shut down for safety reasons and consequently
it was often impossible to get to the research
station for days at a time.
November 2018 saw the opening of an entirely
new-design, modern ropeway installation from
Doppelmayr – a prototype compact ropeway.
The six-passenger cabin, which also has a
freight deck, climbs the 1,478 vertical meters
in ten minutes, making the trip on the new
installation twice as fast. The frequently high
wind speeds and side winds posed a particular
challenge. This was resolved with a double
track rope with 1.2-meter gauge. Special ballast
weights on the slack rope carriers act as a
counterbalance to side winds, enabling the
tramway to carry ZAMG employees from the
bottom to the top station at wind speeds of
80 km/h and more without any difficulty. The
installation is solely for use by personnel and
therefore not accessible to the public. It is
operated by the Sonnblick Association. “The
new tramway brings greater safety and increased
comfort for our staff. It also makes
visits to the observation station from national
and international researchers easier to plan,”
explains Elke Ludewig, director of the Sonnblick
Observatory.
© Hermann Scheer and Doppelmayr
The new Doppelmayr aerial tramway for
the meteorological observation station provides
researchers with a reliable means of
getting to work.
The Sonnblick Observatory was founded in
1886 and is located at 3,106 meters in the
Hohe Tauern national park, on the border
between Carinthia and Salzburg. It is Europe’s
highest meteorological observation station
that is manned all year round. Since the 1950s,
the only transport link from the base up to the
observatory had been a material ropeway,
which the researchers at the Central Institute
for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG)
also used to get to work. The adventurous ride
in an open carrier used to take 20 minutes.
However, operations were very dependent on
The project was implemented with the support
of the Ministry of Education, Science and
Research. At the observatory on the Sonnblick,
interdisciplinary teams work on over 40 international
research programs a year. It was here
that a temperature of - 37.4 °C was measured
on January 1, 1905 – the lowest ever recorded
in Austria under normal conditions. The highest
wind speed ever recorded in Austria also originates
from the observatory, which has measured
peak wind speeds of over 220 km/h under
storm conditions on several occasions.
The exceptional location of our
observatory is just as unique as
the solution required, and that
is precisely what Doppelmayr
delivered for us.
Elke Ludewig, Director,
Sonnblick Observatory