Sestriere Historic Cable Cars
The three pioneering cable cars that made Sestriere and effectively launched Italian ski tourism, built between 1931 and 1937 and all dismantled in 1986; the Sises summit station is still standing empty on the ridge.
- Region
- Piedmont
- Country
- Italy
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- 1931
- Year closed
- 1986
- Reason for closure
- Obsolescence. After more than half a century the three original cable cars were beyond their technical life and were dismantled in 1986, replaced by modern chairlifts and drag lifts serving the same terrain - the Sises summit is now reached by a ski lift rather than a cable car.
History
Sestriere, on the col of the same name in the Piedmontese Alps west of Turin, was built from nothing in the early 1930s as a purpose-designed ski resort, and the machinery that made it possible was a set of three cable cars. The Alpette-Sises line was inaugurated in the winter of 1931, the Banchetta followed in 1932 and the Fraiteve in 1937. They were among the earliest cable cars in the world built specifically to carry skiers uphill, and they are generally credited with giving the decisive push both to skiing in Italy and to the birth of the wider tourist industry that became the Vialattea, today one of the largest linked ski areas in the Alps and an Olympic venue in 2006. Sestriere joined the Kandahar international racing circuit in the 1950s and hosted the event in 1951. All three cable cars were taken down in 1986, more than half a century after they were built, and replaced by modern lifts on the same lines. What survives is the upper station of the Alpette-Sises on Monte Sises, a piece of 1930s Italian mountain engineering standing abandoned on the ridge above a working ski area; a project to restore and repurpose it was put forward in 2019. Technical specifications for the three lines and their manufacturers are not available in accessible sources, and this entry covers the historic installations rather than the modern resort.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Funivia Sestriere - Alpette - Sises | Gondola | The first cable car at Sestriere, inaugurated in the winter of 1931. Dismantled in 1986; its summit station on Monte Sises was left abandoned and is the subject of a restoration proposal | |
| Funivia Sestriere - Banchetta | Gondola | The second of the three, built in 1932. Dismantled in 1986 | |
| Funivia Sestriere - Fraiteve | Gondola | The third and longest reaching, built in 1937 to Monte Fraiteve. Dismantled in 1986 |
Sources and further reading
- https://www.funiforum.org/funiforum/node/281?t=233
- https://www.lagendanews.com/sestriere-lidea-di-restaurare-la-stazione-a-monte-della-vecchia-funivia-sestriere-alpette-sises/
- https://www.dovesciare.it/news/2019-03-17/sestriere-un-progetto-riqualificare-la-stazione-della-funivia-sises
- https://www.valsusaoggi.it/sestriere-funivia-sises-progetto-per-restaurare-stazione/
- https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Lattea_(comprensorio_sciistico)
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Location
44.9585, 6.8787