The giant Saalbach Hinterglemm ski area, Austria's second biggest, has announced one of its two iconic red pulse gondola lifts will be retired and replaced over the summer.
Pulse gondolas were briefly popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s before funitel style lifts gained in popularity. They featured groups of cabins on a fixed cable that entered the station together allowing larger groups to boards and disembark at once. However with usually art least four clusters of cabins on the cable, it meant skiers stop for periods midway of the ascent/descent while cabins in other clusters load up and unload./
The current Lärchfilzkogel lift at Fieberbrunn was installed in 1991 and climbs at 6 metres per second to make its mile-long ascent in 4:40 minutes with a capacity of 800 people per hour.
The new lift, due to begin operating next winter, will be a regular gondola with 10 passenger cabins. Also built by Doppelmayr it will travel at the same speed but more than triple the uplift on the route to 2,500 skiers per hour.