A new gondola with 10-person cabins will go into service at Austria's Fieberbrunn ski area this winter.
Unusually, crowdfunding was used to part-finance the new lift, capitalising on the 'emotional attachment' skiers have to the famous red cabins of the former lifts. Over 200 people decided to contribute raising around € 600,000 towards construction costs.
The old lifts, installed in 1991, are reported to have carried over 23 million people during their 33 years of operations. They were of the pulse gondola variety, clusters of several gondolsa cabins moving on the cable together, stopping in stations rather than moving congtinuaslly, so those in cabins half-way up or down the cable stopped in midair too.
The new Streubodenbahn replaces the 33-year-old Streuboden and Lärchfilkogel lifts, increasing capacity to 2,500 people her hour on the 3km long route, which climbs over 800 vertical metres and cutting ascent time to 8.5 minutes.
The ski area is part of the huge Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang Fieberbrunn ski region, Austria's second largest with 270km of slopes.