3S STANDS FOR 3-CABLE SYSTEM
Once you step inside your cabin at the valley station on Trockener Steg, you can look forward to a unique cableway experience. On the nine-minute ride you will travel a distance of 3.6 kilometres, passing three support towers as you cover an altitude difference of 900 metres to the mountain station. Between the second and third towers the cabins will travel a span length of over 2.7 kilometres. This represents about 70% of the total distance of the ride. For the cabins to cover a span of this unusual length, and to enable the cableway to operate in winds up to 80 km/h, three cables (or “Seile” in German”) are required in either direction – hence the name “3S” cableway. Without the 3S system, which is primarily responsible for ensuring stability, it would not be possible to run a cableway connection under these conditions.
Each track comprises two support cables and one hauling cable. The support cables are anchored at both stations and do not move. The cabins are suspended by rollers from the support cables, which serve as tracks for them to run on. The smooth surface of these cables ensures that rolling resistance is kept to a minimum so the system runs quietly and comfortably. The third cable is the hauling cable. This is spliced to form a loop which circulates between the two stations at a speed of 7.5 m/s.
As soon as a cabin enters the station, a lever device detaches it from the hauling cable and slows it down. The cabin then travels sedately around the station allowing passengers plenty of time to embark. On leaving the station the cabins are brought back up to the speed of the hauling cable and reattached to it by the lever for the journey up to the mountain station.