Funivia del Furggen
Count Lora Totino's 1952 cable car to a 3,492-metre shoulder of the Matterhorn, built as the first step towards a lift to the summit itself; a haul rope broke under ice in 1993 and it was never restarted.
- Region
- Aosta Valley
- Country
- Italy
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- 1952
- Year closed
- 1993
- Reason for closure
- On the first start-up of the day a haul rope weighed down with ice touched the ground, snagged and broke. Cervino S.p.A. chose not to repair it: the line had always run at a loss in extremely hostile conditions high on the mountain, and few skiers ever ventured onto the Furggen slopes, so restoring it would have meant spending heavily on a lift that lost money.
History
The Furggen cable car climbed from Plan Maison above Breuil-Cervinia to a shoulder of the Matterhorn at around 3,490 m, and was the pet project of Count Dino Lora Totino, the industrialist behind much of Cervinia - it was conceived as the first stage of an ambition to run a lift to the summit of the Matterhorn itself. Built in 1952 by Agudio with the Società Nazionale delle Officine di Savigliano, it was a single-span line 2,887 m long rising 931 m, with cabins carrying 25 people, and it arrived inside the mountain, passengers walking out through a tunnel cut in the rock. It was always a prestige installation rather than a paying one: conditions at that height were brutal, breakdowns constant, and the Furggen pistes below it were steep enough that few skiers used them. In 1993 a haul rope loaded with ice sagged to the ground on the first start of the day, snagged and broke, and Cervino S.p.A. declined to rebuild. The line has hung there ever since, one of the best known dismissed ropeways in the Alps - the summit station and its tunnel still standing at the top of a mountain that carries some of the busiest lifts in Italy a few ridges away. Its recovery has been the subject of architectural theses at the Politecnico di Milano and its records are held in the Politecnico di Torino historical collections. Note on the location: the coordinates given mark the cable car's mountain gallery as recorded in OpenStreetMap rather than the exact summit station.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Funivia Plan Maison - Furggen | Gondola | Agudio | Single-span aerial tramway of 2,887 m with 931 m of vertical rise and 25-person cabins, built 1952 by Agudio with the Società Nazionale delle Officine di Savigliano. Out of use since 1993; the summit station and its rock tunnel are still in place |
Sources and further reading
More in Italy
Location
45.9449, 7.7085