Vallée Blanche Cable Car
passenger cable car
The Vallée Blanche Cable Car (Italian: Funivia dei Ghiacciai; French: Télécabine Panoramic Mont-Blanc, previously Télécabine de la Vallée Blanche) is a passenger cable car linking a mountain peak above Courmayeur (Italy) to a peak above Chamonix (France) by passing over the Mont Blanc massif, in the Alps. The engineering was developed by Vittorio Zignoli of Polytechnic University of Turin. No helicopters were used, and all the workers were chosen among locals and alpine guides. After a construction period of four years, it began service in 1958.
The cable car connects the peaks of Aiguille du Midi (3,778 m (12,395 ft) elevation) and Pointe Helbronner (3,466 m (11,371 ft) elevation), over a distance of some 5 km (3.1 mi). The two peaks have their own cable car system connecting them to their nearby villages. The French Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi connects the peak of Aiguille du Midi to the village of Chamonix, while the Italian Skyway Monte Bianco (Funivie Monte Bianco) connects the peak of Pointe Helbronner to the village of La Palud, just north of Courmayeur.
This tourist attraction spans the valleys between the two peaks, high above the Mont Blanc Tunnel, which carries automotive passenger and freight traffic under the two peaks.
System
The Vallée Blanche Cable Car has fixed track cables (one each direction) carrying 12 groups of 3 small cabins each which are pulled by a haulage rope of 10,200 m (33,500 ft) in a single loop.
The cabins take some 30 to 35 minutes for the whole distance, including 5 short stops corresponding the stops of the cabins arriving in the stations at either end.
“Vallée Blanche Cable Car” enters the record as passenger cable car. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Vallée, Blanche and Cable can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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