Dorfbahn Serfaus

The village train Serfaus is a driverless monorail air cushion with cable drive in the Austrian town of Serfaus in Tyrol. It has some features of a subway; so it is separated from private and operates over its entire length in a tunnel. It applies after the Turkish Tünel is the second smallest metro in the world, although both are no subways in the conventional sense. Legally, it is at the metro station Serfaus a funicular.

Route

The train runs under the Serfaus village street - which now Dorfbahnstraße means - in a tunnel, it was built in an open design. It connects the car park at the valley side, the eastern edge of the village with the valley station of the cable cars and the ski lifts on the mountain side Komperdell, the western edge of the village. The route length is 1280 m, the smallest curve radius 300 m. With a maximum slope of 5.35 %, a difference in height of 20.1 m is overcome between the end stations.

Stations

There are four stops car park, church, Raika and cable car. Between the platform and the entry exist for safety reasons additional intermediate doors. The cable car stations and parking have six of these doors, Raika and church but only four. Because the two cars together have six doors, do not open the doors at the far these two intermediate stops. It has a display back on every door by a green or red glowing signal. If the door is open at the next station, the light turns green, it will not do this, the lamp lights up red.

Operation

The village train is operated during the winter season 8:00 to 18:00 clock, the running time of each direction seven minutes. The intermediate stations Raika and church are partly operated in the respective main load direction, ie in the morning in the direction of cable car, in the afternoon in the parking lot. In the opposite direction the train goes through each without stopping. During the quieter summer season the train from 9:00 am bis 17:30 clock. On special occasions is run longer. The ride is free, an annual average of 833,000 passengers are carried.

Technology

A generator operated with direct current electric motor in the mountain -side terminal cable car drives the pull rope. This extends behind the guide rail, which is secured near the bottom of the tunnel wall. Just below the tunnel ceiling runs the 29 mm thick pull rope back to the guide roller in the terminal parking lot. The web has no rails; Instead, the train glides around an inch above the ground on a cushion of air cushion. Three compressors per cabin provide eight air cushion with a pressure of 0.2 bar. The electrical equipment of the cars, such as interior lighting, compressors and door actuators are supplied by a three-pole overhead line. This is attached to the tunnel ceiling and supplies 950 VAC.

The only train the metro station consists of two permanently coupled to each other cabins. A cabin is 14.58 m long, 2.21 m wide and has three entrances. The capacity is 135 people per cabin. In the stations the platforms are separated by a partition from the actual tunnel and with platform screen doors. These open and close simultaneously with the cabin doors. The fully automatic operation is controlled from the control center in the station cable car from. The maximum speed is 40 km / h per hour maximum of 2,000 people are being transported. The drive peak power amounts to 950 kilowatts, the drive continuous power 580 kilowatts.

Prehistory

Because the Serfaus village street is a dead end and had to take all target traffic to the lifts, it was especially during the winter season again and again to traffic congestion, severely affected the quality of life for residents and tourists. 1970, therefore, the municipal council decided to terminate the village street for private transport and to build a large car park at the village entrance. The ski tourists were from then transported by coach and bus. Due to the ever growing number of tourists came this " ski bus " but soon reach their capacity limits.

History

In 1983, the engineering firm Lasser - Feizlmayer from Innsbruck mandate to elaborate an alternative transportation concept. It was suggested an underground air cushion funicular railway from the parking lot to the valley station of the cable cars. In December 1983, the council approved the project, construction began in July 1984. On 14 December 1985, the commissioning of Serfaus Village Railway took place. The official opening took place on 16 January 1986.

In December 2007 it was announced that the village train Serfaus must be subjected to a modernization to meet to meet the huge rush and meet new technical requirements. The previous operation with a cart composite of two cars to be changed in favor of an operation with two independent vehicles inside the tunnel, both vehicles are traveling at a short distance behind the other. The two final stops having to be extended in order to provide enough space for this. Line extensions, there will be none. As a possible date for implementation of the project was planned in 2009 and 2010, originally the years.