The lower station sitting immediately next to a
new shopping centre. The bridge crosses the parking deck.
The bridge continues across the road and then leads up the
mountain slope.
Next to the construction site one can find the technical details. And then there is this view downhill onto the bridge and the town of Künzelsau in the Kocher valley.
Kind of following the tracks uphill. In the upper part the rails are already in place.
The upper station is located in the newly-built 'suburb' called 'Taläcker'. The funicular will provide suitable connections as the road takes about 3km to join the places and frequently lorries slow down both the uphill and the downhill road traffic.
Just for completeness, to show it is going to be a funicular and not a cog railway...
Some more pictures taken with my old digital camera (appareil de photo numérique). The quality is not as good as the scanned slides.
lower terminal
Looking onto the bridge leading out of the lower terminal.
Now on this friday 13/8/1999 the rails were already about
to being installed on the lower sections, too.
View of the line at the lower terminal and the lower part of the future funicular.
On 2/10/1999 work on the lower station was approaching its end, although I doubt that the public testing of the funicular possible on the next day was already equivalent to putting the system into service.
The carriages were busy driving up and down, but not fully pulling into the terminal buildings. They would come down, stop some 100m short, then wait for a while and then reverse uphill again.
The two cables seen in the lower station tell that the traction cables are held under tension all the time.
Except for the green tarnish landscaping seems to be almost complete. Workers were busy clearing up and puttting equipment onto lorries.
Finally, with an open day on October 3rd, the funicular was put into service. Service was suspended from October 29th to November 6th in order to switch to automatic operation.
Some of the photos below were taken 29/10/1999, when the extensive tests were performed. I was not aware that they have that many prerecorded announcements in case of service disruption. At last, on 7/11/1999, the funicular was back in operation and I finally could take a ride.
The lower station and the fare machine. Fare is 3DM return for adults and 1.50DM for children. The funicular does run about every quarter of an hour. There may be breaks of half an hour twice per day - although operation is automatic, staff is still travelling on the cars (and may check your tickets). Of course it operates more frequently during rush hour.
The middle of the track in the cutting.
Passing through the last of two tunnels built in culvert style before approaching the upper station.
The upper station and the traktion wheels inside which can be seen through the windows from the outside.
And for closing some of the technical parameters of the funicular.
