The elevator begins to move gently and a few seconds later the doors directly opposite the entrance to the gondolas open.

The new construction of the valley station on Rüdesheimer Oberstraße, which only integrates two walls of the almost 70-year-old predecessor building, is now so far completed that visitors with walking disabilities and other physically restricted visitors can easily visit the "Germania" on the Niederwald.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

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The lift from a Bad Camberg manufacturer, which can accommodate up to 26 people, is the heart of the approximately 4.5 million euro investment in the modernization of the cable car.

After the early end of operations in mid-October 2021, the old building was largely demolished.

The options of building an upstream elevator tower in front of the valley station or building on the forecourt were rejected for urban planning reasons.

Now a conventional elevator does its work in the new building.

He is used intensively, says cable car managing director Rainer Orben.

Above all by the often older cruise passengers, who are increasingly landing in Rüdesheim and who are chauffeured from the pier to the valley station with the "Riesling Express".

Completion by spring 2023

Cable car operations were interrupted longer than expected due to the demolition and new construction of the valley station.

Instead of at the start of the season at Easter, the cable car was not put into operation until "Father's Day" in May.

For the transitional period, Orben chartered buses that chauffeured more than 10,000 passengers up the streets to the Niederwald monument.

Now the elevator works smoothly and the wider staircase is more pleasant than its predecessor, but the interior of the valley station still resembles a shell.

Completion including the facade and the fundamental redesign of the forecourt as well as the installation of disabled and customer toilets is reserved for the third construction phase until spring 2023.

A worthwhile investment, says Orben already.

It is the second after the construction of the mountain station on the Niederwald in connection with the installation of new masts and the purchase of new gondolas in 2004/05.

At that time, 4.5 million euros had been invested.

The cable car has been one of the most popular tourist offers in Rüdesheim since 1954.

It owes its construction to the initiative of citizens who did not want to be satisfied with the provisional bus service introduced after the end of the war in 1945.

These buses were the replacement for the old cogwheel mountain railway, which had been built in 1884/85 and which carried more than 240,000 passengers to the monument, which was inaugurated in 1883, in the first year of operation.

In the pre-Corona year of 2019, around 700,000 visitors trusted in the up to 100 gondolas that were suspended from the approximately three-kilometre-long steel cable and reached their destination after ten tranquil minutes of hovering over the vines. 

Cable car guests return again

Then came the corona pandemic, and in 2020 the number of cable car passengers dropped by 30 percent and in 2021 by as much as 40 percent.

In the meantime, the guests are returning, also on the hotel ships.

The horror was all the greater when the cable car recently failed due to a hydraulic defect in the drive unit installed in the mountain station and more than three dozen passengers had to be roped down in a spectacular way or rescued from a helicopter.

According to Orben, the cause was a defective valve through which hydraulic oil had been lost, meaning that the safety brake could no longer be activated.

This meant that emergency operation via the existing diesel unit was also not possible.

More frequent checks and other technical precautions are intended to prevent the incident from happening again.

During a recent visit, the district's two disability officers, Anita Seidel and Günter Soukup, were satisfied with the conversion.

However, the forecourt on the hillside remains an obstacle, which is difficult for wheelchair users to negotiate without help.

For the upcoming redesign, a height difference of around two meters between Oberstrasse and the ticket booth has to be overcome.

For this purpose, small serpentines with a gradient of 7.5 percent are to be created.

The desirable maximum of only six percent incline is structurally unattainable.

Anyone who is good on their feet has had one of the most popular tours in the Rheingau available since the cable car was put back into operation: With the "Ringticket" you can take the cable car up to the Niederwald, followed by a three-kilometre walk through the Ostein Landscape Park with spectacular views Views of the Rhine Valley to the Niederwald hunting lodge.

From there, take the cable car down to the red wine village of Assmannshausen and take the Bingen-Rüdesheimer Rhine boat past the Bingen Mouse Tower back to Rüdesheim.