Big
event in the Funiculars world, since December
16 th 1997 the funicular Sierre-Montana-Crans
is completely renovated and the
two sections have been reunified into one section!
The
funicular was first built in 1911 to link the
city of Sierre, in the Rhône valley, and
the Crans-Montana-Vermala resort.
The
distance between Sierre and Vermala is around
4 kilometers, a very long distance for a funicular,
a too long distance because of the weight of a
4 km length cable. To solve this problem it was
decided to build two concatenated funiculars to
form two sections. A special station was built
at Saint-Maurice-de-Laques for the transfer of
the passengers between the two funiculars.
This
configuration was used between 1911 and 1997.
Between the 1st April 1997 and the 16th December
1997, the funiculars were stopped and completly
renovated.
The
main reason is that, with the 2 funiculars and
the transfer, the time of a course was about 30
minutes. Now with the new SMC it takes only 12
minutes for the same course without any
transfer!
By
the way, the reunification of the 2 funiculars
in one section make the new SMC the
longest funicular of Switzerland (4192m)!
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