Behold the tramway, master of mountains! On gargantuan latticework towers formed by hammer and fire we have strung steel, spun fine as gossamer! We have taunted the gods, and forged a path to their exalted dwelling place!
Symphony in the sky
Upgrading Europe's highest transport system
A Leitner/Pininfarina Symphony cabin was unveiled at Innsbruck’s Interalpin ski show, but a whole convoy of them will soon be making their way to what is perhaps the world’s most iconic tram station — the Klein Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland. The 25 cabins on a new cableway will deliver 2000 skiers an hour to the 4000+ metre station, which offers access to year-round glacier skiing and the most stunning views in all of the ski world. The elegant cabins join a host of other amenities in the surrounding ski area, from Michelin-starred rustic mountain restaurants to all-day Champagne-party sundecks. It will also offer easy access to the Italian side of the mountain, home of the less-posh Breuil-Cervinia resort, which promises Italian hospitality without a whiff of high Italian design. —DKG
And now that we’ve done that, let’s everybody load up into this shipping container for a ride to the café.
For all the breathtaking engineering that goes into building a mountain tramway, the tram cabin itself seems to be something of an afterthought. There are good reasons for this, most of them in the realm of strength and durability, and a few in the realm of motion sickness. On smaller gondola cars — the six- to eight-seaters — there have been some attempts at upgrades, including heated leather seats and Bose sound systems at China’s Yabuli resort, a one-off working sauna-in-the-sky at Finland’s Ylläs, and the BWM-inspired sky limo at Austria’s Hochzillertal, but there is no reason for a large tram cabin to be any more glamorous than a subway car.
But design legends Pininfarina are bringing some glam to the tram, in a partnership with manufacturer Leitner Ropeways, the same company responsible for that Bimmer gondola. The “Symphony” finally rethinks the tram cabin, providing strength through the joining of two shells, rather than through traditional box construction. This allows for bigger doorways, bigger windows, and a more efficient layout for its 28 seated passengers (an additional 7 can stand).
The seam between those shells — like the red stripe of stitching around a baseball — houses LED exterior lighting, and integrates the bumper and the vents for a more streamlined look. Inside, there’s a more efficient climate control so those big windows don’t fog up, discreet and hue-tunable LED lighting, and even hidden speakers.
Pininfarina’s Symphony is the harbinger of a trend. When the global quest for outdoor experiences intersects with growing global wealth, it overlaps at ski resorts, and that means more upscale design in the uphill conveyances. We just hope the cabins they don’t become so lavish that passengers forget to look out the windows.
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