Freight Cableway Remains

Medium | 2 hrs

At the end of 1915 a freight cableway was constructed: from its lower station in Kranjska Gora, the cableway went up to Vršič and then descended to Črča. In the autumn of 1917 an extension was added to the station at Kal-Koritnica. The concrete blocks you see here, at the Šupca viewpoint, are the remains of the cableway.
The freight cableway acted as an additional means of supplying the 10^th Austro-Hungarian Army corps on the slopes of the Krn Mountain Range. In winter, when snow made the Vršič road impassable, this was the only way to supply the troops. In the spring of 1916 a huge avalanche buried the road and the cableway under snow, so it needed to be moved further east. The cableway was divided into 2.5-km sections. Each section was powered by a 20-35 HP engine, and the maximum height difference between two ends of a section was 350 metres. The haulage steel wire rope ran at a speed of 1.5 m/s. The carts, able to transport up to 100 kilograms loads, were suspended from the steel rope by means of an automatic grip. The transporting capacity of the cableway was 250 tons per day at 16-hour operation and under normal working conditions. In strong wind, the cableway did not operate. Along a steeper section on the southern side of Vršič, another, less powerful type of a cableway was used.
In addition to being a winter supply route, the Vršič freight cableway played a very important role in the delivery of military supplies for the Twelfth Isonzo Battle in 1917, when the 14^th German Army broke the front line and pushed Italians to the river Piave.

Text: Infoboard of the Triglav National Park at Šupca
Photos: (1–3) Fundacija Poti miru, (4) Dom Trenta