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Record-breaking cable car for tallest mountain in Germany to open Thursday

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Record-breaking cable car for tallest mountain in Germany to open Thursday
Zugspitze's new cable car. Photo: DPA.

After six years of planning and construction, the new cable car to be inaugurated on Thursday will take visitors up nearly 3,000 metres to Zugspitze, the highest peak in the country.

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At the long anticipated cable car launch on Thursday morning, a few guests lucky enough to ride it for the first time will be taken to the summit in the Bavarian Alps in just a few minutes.

Deputy Minister President of Bavaria Ilse Aigner and Minister of the Interior Joachim Herrmann will also be present at the official launch.

But prior to the cable car’s debut ride up the 2,962 metre-high mountain, Munich’s archbishop Cardinal Reinhard Marx and regional bishop Susanne Breit-Keßler will give it their blessings.  

The cable car breaks three world records:

No other cable car on the planet spans further than the 3,213 metres from the base to the mountaintop station. No other pendular cable car has a 127 metre-high steel stay or can carry up to 600 people an hour, either. Also unique is the height difference of 1,945 metres between the valley and mountaintop stations.

Around 550,000 visitors make their way up to Zugspitze each year. But building operator Bayerische Zugspitzbahn Bergbahn AG hope that the new cable car - which cost around €50 million to build - will accomodate 600,000 visitors annually.

The new cable car replaces an old one that was widely considered a technical masterpiece and had been in use for nearly 54 years.

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