How to Experience the World’s Steepest Cable Car in Switzerland, Plus the Skyline Walk and Piz Gloria When You Visit the Schilthorn

Most people think all cable cars in Switzerland offer the same experience. They don’t. The ride to the Schilthorn is one of a kind, both for its engineering and the views at the top and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

In this episode, I’m joined once again by Alan Ramsay from Schilthorn Cableway Ltd to talk about the major upgrades to one of the most iconic mountain excursions in Switzerland, the Schilthorn cable car.

You’ve probably heard of Schilthorn, Switzerland, especially if you’re a James Bond fan. But there’s a lot more to this Bernese Oberland peak than just movie trivia. From the upgraded cable cars - one of which is the steepest in the world - to the Skyline Walk, the cliff-hugging Thrill Walk Switzerland, and the revolving restaurant at Piz Gloria, there’s a lot more to experience at the Schilthorn.

We cover everything you need to know to plan your trip. You’ll learn how the upgraded cableway system works, what to expect at each stop along the route, and how to reach the summit from the Lauterbrunnen Valley. We also talk about what it’s like to walk on the Skyline and Thrill Walks, how to reserve a table at the Piz Gloria revolving restaurant, and what to do in Mürren and Birg along the way. 

If you’re using a Swiss Travel Pass or a Bernese Oberland Pass, we explain how the pricing and discounts work. Alan also shares tips for anyone who might be nervous about riding in Swiss cable cars.

Planning a trip to Schilthorn, Switzerland? This episode has everything you need to know before you go.

Join us for the full episode and get a complete picture of what makes the Schilthorn worth the visit.

Safe travels,

Carolyn

👉 Show notes - Episode 131

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Transcript

Carolyn Schönafinger: 0:00

Welcome to the holidays to Switzerland podcast. If you're planning a trip to Switzerland, this is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Carolyn schonerfinger, the founder of holidays to switzerland.com and in each episode, my expert guests and I share practical tips to help you plan your dream trip to Switzerland, you'll get helpful advice about traveling around Switzerland, and hear about the most popular destinations, as well as some hidden gems, and we'll introduce you to plenty of wonderful experiences that you can enjoy as part of your Swiss vacation. Each episode is packed with expert tips, itinerary ideas and inspiration to help make your Swiss Vacation Planning easy. So let's dive in. Britsy, welcome to this week's episode. For many folks, myself included, no visit to Switzerland is complete without taking a mountain excursion, and there are hundreds to choose from. One of my favorite mountain excursions is to the Schilthorn, an almost 3000 meter high peak just above Lauterbrunnen and Muran in the Jungfrau Region. I'm lucky enough to have visited the Schilt on numerous occasions, most recently in January this year. On that visit, I was able to experience two of the three brand new cable cars that have just opened as part of a massive construction project that has been underway for the last couple of years. The final section to the summit of the Schilthorn opened on March 15 this year. So I invited Alan Ramsey from schulturn cableways back onto the show to tell us all about the improvements and what visitors can expect when they visit the schulturn. Hi Alan. Welcome back to the podcast. It's great to have you here with us again for I think, your fourth time on the podcast. So thank you. Oh well, we've known each other for a very long time, and your passion for Murren and the shield horn has never wavered in all the time I've known you, so I'm happy to have you back and to hear about all the exciting things that have been happening in the region recently. It's

Alan Ramsay: 2:17

a pleasure to be back. It's, it's, it's the passions. It just grows and grows and grows and with the excitement of a new cable car, then it just keeps on growing. And I say it's a wonderful job to be in, especially with all the introductions. Absolutely

Carolyn Schönafinger: 2:32

so for those listeners who haven't heard you on the podcast before, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us how yourself a Scotsman ended up in Switzerland. Yeah,

Alan Ramsay: 2:44

it's, it's, I hope that listeners aren't too disappointed to hear an un Swiss accent. But then my name is Alan Ramsey. I'm responsible for the markets at the shilcon cableway limited. So it's head of markets. I came to more than after my sister worked for the winter season, and I was finishing my studies in Dundee in Scotland, and I wanted to get her job from the following season. And I managed to persuade Frug to who's still in the village. She was managing the hotel Alpina, and she'd said, Come on, employ me and for the next winter. And she said she couldn't, she'd only do employ ladies. I said, Come on, come on. And eventually said, Okay, you can come, but you have to bring a friend who's going to share your room, and he's going to do a shift in the hotel once a day as well. So I managed to talk a friend into doing that, and that winter season became a very, very long winter season. So it's now been more than half my life I've been in this area, and I got a Swiss wife, which is French speaking from the Canton of Bern, and two trilingual Swiss daughters. Their mother tongue is French, and they grew up in the German speaking area, and they speak a form of English. From me, you're

Carolyn Schönafinger: 3:52

a pseudo Swiss, then we will, we'll give you a big tick as being Swiss. So for those people that are listening that perhaps aren't familiar with the silt on can you tell us whereabouts in Switzerland? It is, yeah,

Alan Ramsay: 4:07

the Shelton's in the Bernese Overland. So it's central southern Switzerland. A lot of people will know Interlaken, in the area around Interlaken, and from the Interlaken, you just head up the valleys. You head towards the eigenmann, can Jungfrau, but you have a split that end, where you either go to grindervald or to the Lauterbrunnen Valley. And if you go to the Lauterbrunnen Valley, you can, there's a couple of ways to come up from there to moon, and it's just got the best view of the famous trio of eigenmanns. So

Carolyn Schönafinger: 4:37

a great location, right in the heart of Switzerland. Why is it that the Schilt on is actually one of the most famous mountains in Switzerland? Because even people that haven't been to Switzerland have often heard of the Schilt on. Why is that? Well,

Alan Ramsay: 4:52

the schilten was always an incredibly popular hike for many, many years, and that locals used to take to this. Up to the shield ton just to sit in the peak because of the incredible view you can get around it. And a local guy called Ernst voits, who was a bit rid of an entrepreneur and an engineer, decided that, why do we build a cable car all the way to the top of the shelter to make it much more accessible for anybody that wants to go and sit up there and enjoy the incredible 360 degree view. So he managed to convince people to find the finance, and they started building the cable way. The company was formed, I think 62 the cable car was finished. The drop in about 1967 and then they were getting short of money. And there was a German location scout called Hubert fruelich who was coming through sent by Ian productions. So Ian productions was saying, we've got the book On Her Majesty's Secret Service. We need a film location. And blow felt hideout is on the peak in the Swiss Alps. So Hubert went through Italy, Austria, Germany, and came to Switzerland looking for the perfect location. He was in grindervald, and someone said, Yeah, but they've just built a cable car up to the shelter that would probably do. So he came up and had a look around here, and immediately phoned COVID broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the double seven film producers, to say he's found the perfect location COVID. His daughter is Barbara, and her half brother, Michael, they've just sold the creative control for the double seven films to Amazon for a supposedly $1 billion so they're in the news as well. So copy broccoli, and Harry Saltzman came over, looked at it and said, Yep, this is the place we're going to do it. So Hollywood came to moon in 1968 and 69 and be filmed On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It was perfect timing for us, also, because they helped to finance the building of the building on top of a summit. So there was a lot of help to finish the building. They wanted the helicopter landing spot. So that's why there's a platform out there. So there's lots of synergy of different ideas coming together. And of course, when the film came out in 1969 the Shelton was very young, so it's been a famous James Bond location ever since.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 7:06

Okay, so that first cable car was built back in what 1967 I think you just said, and there's just been the opening of a brand new project. So there's now new cable cars going right up to the Shilton. So as we're recording this, the final leg was open just a couple of days ago, so about a month ago, when this podcast goes live. So it's all brand new. Can you tell us about the new project and what people can expect when they get to the short one? Well, the

Alan Ramsay: 7:37

infrastructure, as you said, it's almost 50 years old. That's I mean, it's not all original. The cable cars have been replaced, and cables have been replaced, but the pylons, the concrete and all the best of it was all getting old, so the board of directors had a choice. It was, are we going to renovate everything and get it a little bit up to standard, or do we build a brand new cable car? Details were discussed during the pandemic, and work started in March 2023, with the removal of the old transport cable way from Steckelberg to murin, the building of a new transport cable way from Steckel Berg to just above murin, and from there to Bergen and build to schulturn was then built. Now, this saved the area from 1000s of helicopter flights, which saved a lot of noise and CO two pollution the first section, or a cable way for passengers of steel there to more in starts at 866 meters above sea level, and rises to 1641, meters above sea level. So that's 775, meters in altitude, and it takes just under four minutes. And this is the steepest cable car in the world, at 159.4% or just under 60 degrees. So that section was built and opened in December 2024 the second section, from mooring to bear, the old one is still operating, but it's about to be taken out of commission, but it's been there in the winter, just in case things get busy. The second section is the first 24 in Switzerland. So this is a totally different system to the one coming directly up. One coming directly up is a pendulum that you've got two always moving. And the second section went to berg is a two independent funny force. The first uniform opened also in december 2024 funny four system is a system which means that the cables that the cable car hangs on, they are as wide, if not wider, than the cable car itself. And the cable car itself is much, much closer to the cables, especially compared to the one coming up from steberg to moon, because it's built like this, it gives it incredible stability. So that means we've got a much better chance of getting the customers from the valley to the summit in poor weather conditions, but more importantly, I'll say, getting them back down again after they've been up there if the weather changes and the section that opened on Saturday a couple of days ago, that's the same for. Four system, so through the winter season. So since the middle of October, we've closed the shield on and we've been building the second 24 section that goes from bear up to Scholten, and that was completed and then opened on Saturday. We

Carolyn Schönafinger: 10:14

will talk about a little bit more about the cable car rides shortly, because I was lucky enough to ride on those first two sections in January, which was absolutely fantastic. But could you perhaps talk our listeners through what happens when they arrive at the valley station, if they're planning to visit and head on up to the summit of the short one? Can you talk us through what they can expect for each leg of the excursion, sure.

Alan Ramsay: 10:42

Well, your arrival, if you're coming to us through the love to burn Valley, you're going to arrive either in a car, self drive car, then you drive into the park or find a parking space and walk to the ticket office. If you come by bus on a tour or with the Swiss Post busses, then they will drop you right outside the station building in stickelberg, which is brand new. Outside the station, there's automatic ticketing dispensers. So if you need a ticket, you can go straight to the machine, plug in your information and buy your ticket, and you get a QR code if you're not sure or not happy working with an automatic machine, and you want to speak to somebody, you can go in, and there'll be someone in the ticket office from eight in the morning till six at night, and they will sell you the ticket and explain what you need to go and where you're going make sure that you get exactly what you need, because you've got a journey that takes you from more and you can still go to Gimmelwald, you can come directly up to Moren. You can get out in beer, and you can get out in Chiltern, and it may be different depending what you want to do. So they'll help to advise you there, once you have your ticket, you walk up stairs, or there's a lift. If you're not keen on walking stairs, you can walk up a take the lift up the first floor, and from the first floor, the cable cars will depart. There's turnstiles there with an orange kind of light, and you show the QR code that's on your ticket, let it read it there, and you walk through the turnstile and enter the cable car. All the buildings are designed the same, so when everything's finished, there's always two cable cars arriving and departing, and there's a middle section between those two cable cars, and the entry point into the cable car is always in the middle. You enter the cable car, the doors will eventually close, and you will head up to the next station, in this case, from stecken bird to murn. When you arrive in Murren, you will depart on the outside. So if you go up the left one, you'll leave on the left, and if you go up the right one, you'll leave on the right. You walk through the building to in Murren, and inside the same building, at the other end, you will see the cable cars that are leaving from Murren up to Berg. Same system applies there. You'll have a turn still before they'll eventually be two cable cars leaving here, and you enter at the midpoint between the cable car, through your QR code, enter into the cable car, and it will leave to head from moving up to Berg, and the same thing again. There you're going to arrive in a station. If you go up the left hand cable way, you'll depart on the left. If you got the right, you'll depart on the right. When you arrive in Berg, you depart from there. You walk through the building the final section, and again, it'll be the same system. Enter in the middle and arrive in the left if you're on the left or the right. And the right will be the departure. And you'll be standing on top of the shield con at 2970 meters above sea level. Once you're at the top, there will be escalators taking you from the station up towards the takeaway area, and then you have the revolving restaurant up at the top.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 13:49

Okay, so tell everyone perhaps a bit about that revolving restaurant, because it was a key player in that James Bond movie. But what can people expect at the restaurant today? So

Alan Ramsay: 14:01

because the building was built in the summit at the very top of the building, on top of the summit, we have a restaurant, and the restaurant revolves 360 degrees. So the outer tables, there's about 3132 tables hitting up to eight people, and these tables and chairs will revolve 360 degrees. It takes 45 minutes to make a full revolution. You can reserve a table online at the bottom right of our homepage and the website, you can click on the knife and fork and make a table reservation. Make sure you get up there and plenty of time for the table reservation, because it's going to get busy up there with a new cable car, but you can sit there and enjoy and go round to table reservations an hour, hour and a half long, and so that means you'll go around two times during your dinner.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 14:52

But it's not only lunch or drinks that people can enjoy. So there's a delicious brunch available.

Alan Ramsay: 14:58

Yep, the famous silk on. Ranch starts at eight o'clock in the morning and goes on until two o'clock and at 11 o'clock, we move from a more breakfast day menu with sausages, bacon, waffles, scrambled eggs, muesli, yogurts and things. Then we move to more salad type things. There's five different soups, there's pasta, there's meat, there's all sorts of things there, but it covers every day you can think of. So you can be gluten free, let those free, vegetarian, vegan, halal, whatever you want. And we've got something there for you. So it's an easy one. It's only 38 francs from the brunch you can you've got an hour and a half to eat as much as you want. So

Carolyn Schönafinger: 15:40

what else can people do at the summit station? Well,

Alan Ramsay: 15:43

the restaurant's also got piano burger, so there's a picture of the burger stamped on top of the bun, and we do a beef or fish or chicken or vegetarian or vegan burger, so we've got them all covered there. But there's also umpteen different international dishes you can enjoy as well. Obviously, you can have a dry martini shake and not stirred Bollinger champagnes, the champagne of James Bond. So that's definitely a part of being up there. But there's a good selection of food and drink there one floor lower, we've got a takeaway area. So if you don't want to go for a long lunch or brunch, you can just grab a snack or a coffee. There you can go out on the terrace and to the skyline view platform to see igerman and just enjoy the view from 2970 meters above sea level. At the moment, we still have a walk of fame where some of the actors have left a panel with their imprint, hand imprints, a signature, a photo and a story about what they did when they were up there, memories of the area. And then if you go down one floor further, we do have a spy world, but we are not sure how long that's going to last. Because of the Amazon buying Ian productions, there's been a bit of backwards and forwards about how much double oh seven and our sense of humor. Work with new owners of the ion productions and the double or seven franchise, so it's going at the moment, and with a bit of luck, we'll have something good to open and if things don't work out, we'll find something else to do. So keep an eye on the website, and we'll keep you up to date there. So that's all the things up in the short term that you can do.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 17:17

Okay, so when people are either going up or down, as you said earlier, they can hop out at any of those points along the way. So if they've gone straight up to the top of the short horn and they want to stop at Berg station on the way down, what? What can they do there? Yep, on the way back

Alan Ramsay: 17:35

down to the valley, you will stop at Berg. I would always get out of beer. We also have a little Bistro, a beautiful, big terrace, and at the end of the terrace, we have a platform that we call the Skyline Walk. It's a see through platform that sticks out over the cliff. It's built in 2014 and it'll test your nerves for heights, because you have a couple of 100 meters above the ground with a straight top down the cliff face. If you look down through the flooring, you'll see the thrill walk. Now, the entrance to the thrill walk is at the back of the terrace, the opposite end to the Skyline Walk, and there's a walkway down there with a 200 meter Cliff path hanging onto the cliff. And as you go along there, you'll come across a tight rope, you'll come across some glass flooring, a cattle grid, and at the very end there's a tunnel you can crawl through, so that that'll really test your your ability to cope with vertigo and heights, a bed, most perfectly safe, easy to do. You can't go wrong, but it's not everybody's cup of tea. I

Carolyn Schönafinger: 18:40

think you're looking at me when you say that you have got me to go out on the Skyline Walk, but yeah, the thrill walk, I haven't raved that

Alan Ramsay: 18:49

yet. Yeah, I've managed to get almost everybody I've ever met to get out on the Skyline Walk, except my mother. She just wouldn't trust me whatsoever. But most would trust me and get out there and can at least get a photograph that we'll never forget. When for a few people, then the thrill looks just a bit too much. I mean, the cable car can be too much for some people too. But then I have got them a few techniques to help people overcome that and get up if they really, really want.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 19:15

Great. Okay, so after they've visited Berg the next section takes them back down to Murren. What do you recommend people see or do whilst they're in Murren? Sure,

Alan Ramsay: 19:26

murin is just a beautiful village. It's very special. It's car free, which doesn't mean that there's absolutely no traffic. It just means that there's no cars running around. There's transportation to get building materials to deliver to the hotels and restaurants and for emergencies, for construction, there are some vehicles up there. It's not them full of electric cars with struggling to get through the village. You'll find peace and quiet. The advantage of Murren is it's one kilometer long. It only has around 400 inhabitants. It is three states. Stations. So we've got our cable car station there. We've got the almond to Google station in the middle of the village, and at the other end we have the service that from the jungfra railways called the Mur BLM, which is the barn the train low to brown and to Murren. It's a train that goes along to group shop and then a cable car down to low to run. So that's the second way up to come up to moon the almond tubule itself. So beautiful, little funicular train that only takes four minutes and takes you up to the ALMA turbo. But the village is just a beautiful place to walk around us, basically two streets that are connected in various places, one kilometer long. So in an hour, you can walk around the village very easily, and there's a souvenir shops and a co op to buy some food or drinks. There's plenty restaurants and just breathtaking views from there as well.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 20:51

Yeah, and it's really, I don't know if anyone's ever pictured a Swiss mountain village. Murren is the quintessential you know version, isn't it? It's, it's all those wooden chalets and the huge mountain backdrop. It's, it's amazing. It's your chocolate box image. Absolutely, absolutely. So how long would you recommend people allow for an excursion to short on from the valley station or from the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

Alan Ramsay: 21:22

It depends. If you're in a hurry. You want to see it, you want to get up and experience it. You can do it from the valley in a couple of hours. You're going to be up and down in an hour, and you're going to have an hour on the top. If you have more time, I'd recommend it, because then you can get out at Berkeley. You can also get out at Murren. So you're looking at maybe three to four hours from the valley station to do it. But you can also extend it into a full day excursion, because you could do a longer hike when you're in Murren. You can also come back down and visit the village of Gimmelwald on the way back down, that's even smaller than murin, a population of 100 you could actually walk from mooring down. There's a road that will take you down, and it's very easy. I can do it in about 20 minutes, but if you allow about 40 minutes, because I often go to murre for lunch and then walk down to Gimmelwald, take the last cable car down back to the office, you can also go down and have a look around Steckelberg, because that's the place where the highest waterfall in Switzerland coming down. So you've got possibilities that would include Burg murin, almond, hubal Gable and streckelberg. So you can easily turn it into a full day excursion. And then you also have the trumabach waterfalls on the way back to low to bring. So if you're doing a lot of trouble back more in excursion, try and make it the whole day for that, because there's plenty to do. Yeah,

Carolyn Schönafinger: 22:45

absolutely. So do you have any tips, perhaps that we haven't covered, that you'd like to give to anyone who's thinking and visiting the silhouette? So you

Alan Ramsay: 22:53

can check on your smartphone. You can check on the TV screens everywhere to see what the weather's like. You always want to go up on a good day, but maybe your luck's not on your side. I would always suggest the first thing you do, if we see it's clear up top of the shelter and you get up there as fast as you can and enjoy it, spend a bit of time. If you're going to go for a branch, you can reserve on the website. It's always worth reserving a table. At the moment, it doesn't cost as long as people are good turn up on time. We shall keep it going that way. But if we have people making reservations and then they're not turning up and they're turning up way too late, then we might have to start putting in a fee to make sure that they actually come but hopefully that'll last a long time. You

Carolyn Schönafinger: 23:37

mentioned that you had a few strategies for people who aren't keen on cable car rides. What sort of tips would you give them to actually get in that cable car and brave it? Because I think when people think, oh my gosh, the world's steepest cable car, I'm really nervous. What would you suggest they do to make sure they can enjoy this experience?

Alan Ramsay: 23:59

Well, there are a couple of seats in the corners, and if you can sit down, I think you can sit down and not look out and just just look into the middle. If you can get a seat, there's support polls that you can hold on to so you can grab a hold of them. If there are people taking up someone who's struggling with vertigo, what I do is ask them questions. You ask them any kind of questions just to keep their mind going, because they won't work out why you're asking them questions, and it takes their mind off what's going on. And the big thing about the new cable car is that this deepest one in the world. As you leave the building, it's under four minutes, you're going to be back on terra firma and walking again, the second section is now only five minutes, and the third section is only five minutes. And I think, and I hope and believe that people that struggle, if they get over the first one, the second one should be a bit easier, because you've done it, you know, you can do it, and then the third one will get easier.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 24:57

And I think, personally, for me, who. Has always struggled with cable cars, but now I've kind of just pushed through that, and I just get in and go. But I think the the thing that I found about the new shield on cable cars the first two sections, was that they were just so smooth. I hate when they go over the pylons and the cabin sort of rocks a little. But you know, on those two it was just so smooth that it was very, very comfy. Yeah.

Alan Ramsay: 25:25

The other thing is breathing techniques. So if you breathe in deeply, push your stomach out. When you breathe in, breathe in deeply and for a count of four, and breathe out for a count of eight. And if you do that two or three times at the start, you're tricking your mind and your body into relaxing. And if you can keep that going by breathing, because the panic is when you start to take short, shallow breaths and you're struggling to that's what's going to cause a little bit of the anxiety to increase. And if you can fight it by breathing properly, you'll fool yourself into getting up there with with a lot more ease than otherwise.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 26:03

Okay, well, there's quite a few strategies for people to try now. Prices for the shield on obviously, you've mentioned earlier that people can just go and buy their ticket at the bottom station, if they don't have a ticket already, if they have a Travel Pass, like a Swiss travel pass or a burner Oberland pass. What discounts can they get for the Shelton excursion?

Alan Ramsay: 26:26

Well, at the moment, the full Shelton excursion is 108 francs return in 2026 that price is going to have to go up, because we have borrowed a huge sum of money in order to build this. So obviously the bank is wanting some of their money back, so we've got to make more money, so the prices naturally increase, because you've also got a higher quality and a much faster service. But to get good deals, there's several around you can buy a half fare card, a half year card in Switzerland, allows you half priced fares all over Switzerland, and that includes the triple the shelter. The Swiss Travel Pass is a pass that allows you free of charge on boats, busses and trains, because more in is part of the public transportation network, then you can go all the way up to more free of charge. This means that you can either go via Gimmelwald, the old route, up to murin, or you can take the brand new, steepest cable car in the world, and it's totally free of charge to murn, from Murren up to bear and to shield torn you get a 50% discount. That means, at current rates, then you will get that for 42 francs 80 for a return trip. So that will give you that instead of 108 for the full fare, you can pay 4280 with a Swiss Travel Pass. And new in 2025 is the burner overland Pass, which has been proved very popular in a lot of the markets, you can now travel on all of the shelter and bands transportation free of charge with the Bernado land pass. So that's the almond tubule cross from the valley floor all the way to the Shilton and back, free of charge, or included in the price, depending how you look at it. Okay,

Carolyn Schönafinger: 28:17

excellent. So if someone who's listening is coming to the Jungfrau Region, and they've only got time to do one mountain excursion. Why should they visit the short on

Alan Ramsay: 28:30

fairly easy number one, it's a 360 degree view, and you're standing on top of a Swiss mountain, which most of the other mountain excursions can't offer you. They don't take you all the way to the top of the mountain. But number two is you can ride on the latest and most amazing, new cable car system that includes the steepest cable car ride in the world. What more

Carolyn Schönafinger: 28:53

would you want? Simple as that, and yeah, the views from up there really are incredible. You've actually got to stand up there and see them, to believe them. It's it's quite amazing. Thank you so much Alan for giving us all that info about the brand new shield on cable ways. Where can people get more information, aside from on holidays to switzerland.com of course. Where can they get more info about the short on

Alan Ramsay: 29:22

the best place for information about the shelter is www.shilcon.ch, if you scroll all the way to the bottom of the homepage, you will find our project website, which is www, schltcorn, band 20x x.ch, and on that. We have lots of facts and figures all about the brand new cable car. There are images you can download and the lengths and and diameter of cables. And for the the tech new folks that want to know all the little pieces of pieces of when. Information. It's the perfect place to go. We also have videos on both. So there's a YouTube site for Chiltern Pete's Gloria, and there you will get videos all about the products that we have, but all about the project. So you can find out about how much copper we've got in the buildings, and how many tons of concrete, and all sorts of very interesting facts about what was done, like the building workers being flown up for the last five months. They were flown up to the shelter in order to work from Monday to Friday, and we would take them back down on the Friday the restaurant became a temporary building workers Hotel.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 30:39

Amazing. I'm sure there's plenty of interesting facts available on the website for people to read. Thank you again, and hopefully we've encouraged a lot of people to make sure that they include a visit to the shield on when they're visiting the Jungfrau Region. Thank

Alan Ramsay: 30:55

you very much for allowing me to appear again on the podcast. And if you come all the way to Switzerland and then don't travel in the steepest cable car the world. I'm sure you're going to miss out something and to to go on the shelter afterwards. It's an incredible experience. And I, I was just as excited on Saturday as I have been in the last 34 years.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 31:14

Wonderful. Well, I'm glad the opening went well, and now we can all get back up to the summit again. Okay, so has now that the final leg up to the shield on is now opened. Is that the end of the work, or is there still anything to be completed? No,

Alan Ramsay: 31:29

it was great to have the top section finished and finally being able to reach the shield on, but the work is far from finished. We, as I said, before, we're opening the we're sorry. As I said before, we're dismantling the old cable car at the end of the winter season. And in between the old cable car and the brand new phone, we're going to install a second funny for and some of the building in more and on Berg. Berg is all ready for it. More than has got to be finished, and we'll be installing the new cable way through the summer, and that will open in November 2025 and once that's finished, we will then finish the second cable way from Berg all the way to the shield torn. That will take until the first week in April. So April 2026, we will finish the second 44 between beer and Chiltern, and so in springtime 2026 we will be finished with this project. But that we do, but we do have other projects to keep the interest going, but if I told you, then I would have to kill you.

Carolyn Schönafinger: 32:39

So what's, what's the reasoning behind having two fun new four cable ways between each of those sections? Is that, so that you can operate all year round?

Alan Ramsay: 32:51

A great question. It's because in the past, between moon and Berge was the pendulum cable way, and we had to close for 345, weeks every autumn, plus a week in spring in order to do safety checks and to do a complete revision of the system, because we've got autonomous phony for cable ways in these two sections, it means we can, we can service and maintain one of the cable cars while running the other one independently, because it's autonomous, and because of that, it means we are now having silt on open 365 days a year. Okay,

Carolyn Schönafinger: 33:31

excellent. If riding on the world's steepest cable car doesn't convince you to visit the silt on the views from the summit certainly will. A quick look at the shield horns website or the photos that I've included in the show notes. Will give you an idea of the breathtaking panoramas that you can see from both the summit at 2970 meters above sea level, and from the Berg intermediate station, the VISTAs are truly spectacular. If you're keen to visit the schulturone, don't forget that Rail Pass holders are entitled to some generous discounts. And starting this year 2025 burner Oberland pass holders can travel all the way to the summit for free, which is incredible value. I'll include links to get more information about the various Swiss rail passes and the schlorn in the show notes for this episode, and you can download a copy of my free guide. 21 useful things to know before you visit Switzerland from there as well, the show notes are at holidays to switzerland.com. Forward slash episode 131, thank you so much for joining me today. If you've enjoyed the episode, please consider sharing the podcast with your family, friends and colleagues who are also planning a trip to Switzerland, and if you enjoy the show, I'd be super grateful if you could leave a five star rating or. Review wherever you listen to podcasts, thanks so much until next week. Cheers. You.