Two modern Moving Carpets with special galleries in the Pyhrn-Priel region
Over the past two seasons, Hinterstoder-Wurzeralm Bergbahnen AG has invested heavily in expanding its family-friendly infrastructure around the top station of the funicular. At the end of 2024, together with the Austrian conveyor belt specialist Sunkid, a Moving Carpet was built, the beginning and end of which are covered with an Evolus gallery. The middle section runs in a concrete gallery, directly under the funicular rail. The "Sunny Kids Park" was also given a modern Sunkid facility for the 2023/2024 season, with a wooden-look gallery that blends in perfectly with the natural surroundings.
The installation, which was built last season and serves as a feeder from the Kinderland to the funicular and as an ascent aid for the beginner-friendly upper section of the Wurzer descent, has a transport capacity of up to 2,000 people per hour. Operations manager Christoph Schimpl summarizes the overall project: "The new Moving Carpet is a great asset for the mountain station, the Kinderland and the Wurzer downhill runs - in other words, for our positioning as a family ski area. The Ski School used to have a huge skidoo trailer, which was used to take the children back and forth. Or the children had to walk back to the funicular station."
Sunkid project manager Michael Neuböck adds: "What was important in this project was the precise coordination of everyone involved with the construction company for the concrete tunnel under the cable car route. This was built to the centimeter and thus our conveyor belt with the special gallery was also consistent." After all, a Sunkid Evolus gallery covers both the beginning and the end of the conveyor belt, while the middle section runs in the concrete tunnel - and the connecting dimensions are crucial here. "For the gallery," says Neuböck, "we manufactured a special substructure with wide covers in the area of the concrete tunnel. Thanks to our covers, the concrete tunnel can be used over the entire area."
Schimpl adds: "The concrete wall was built because of the four-metre-high embankment that was there before. We can close the concrete tunnel with a mesh foil. This will prevent snow from getting in here in future."
The second 77-metre-long Moving Carpet in the "Sunny Kids Park" has almost the same options as the latest installation on the Wurzeralm, with a Sunkid snow pit, gallery swing doors at the entrance and exit, slide-up emergency exits and an external i-CONTROL operating terminal. The visual highlight here are aluminum gallery arches coated in a wood look. Hinterstoder-Wurzeralm Bergbahnen AG opted for dark oak - however, in coordination with Sunkid, various other wood looks and RAL colors can be realized. This means that every customer can design their installation to match the corporate design or the surroundings according to their own wishes.
