Original subtitles

[narrator] In Switzerland's soaring Western Alps,

an elite team of engineers is embarking on an epic mission.

I feel we were writing history here in Switzerland.

They are constructing a new state-of-the-art cableway

in the heart of one of the country's most celebrated ski resorts.

In this harsh, rugged environment,

the team must battle extreme elevation...

[Daniel] If you're scared of heights,

this is maybe the wrong job for you.

...to build a mountain cable car system,

that will scale the heights like no other.

This super cableway

ranks in a league of ambitious new engineering wonders

that are bigger, faster, taller, and more advanced

than anything ever constructed before.

This is the inside story of the extraordinary challenge

of building these giants.

Nestled in the Swiss Alps

is the Mürren Schilthorn Ski Resort,

dominated by the majestic Schilthorn Mountain,

standing nearly 10,000 feet tall.

Every year, it attracts over 400,000 visitors

who come to hike the mountain trails

and enjoy Schilthorn's famous ski slopes.

At the summit sits the iconic top-station

known as Piz Gloria,

from where skiers can reach the highest runs.

Inside, its celebrated revolving restaurant

offers 360-degree vistas.

Access up the mountain is via an aging cable car system.

It's the linchpin of the local tourist economy

and provides an essential service

for the neighboring mountain communities.

But now, the old cableway is no longer up to the task

and needs a massive upgrade.

Christoph Egger is the CEO leading the project.

[Christoph] First of all, the age.

The existing cableway has been built in 1965,

so it's almost 60 years old now.

Second, the capacity of the cableway is not enough.

The plan is to build a brand-new cableway,

a huge sky train with four all-new stations.

It will have a new route up the imposing Mürrenfluh cliff,

slash travel time to the summit to well under 30 minutes,

and more than double capacity to 800 passengers an hour.

This is how they'll do it.

The first challenge is to climb nearly 2,000 feet

from the Lauterbrunnen Valley

to the top of the Mürrenfluh cliffs.

To scale them, engineers install the steepest

cableway in the world with an incline of 57 degrees.

Next, two parallel cableways run over one and a half miles

to where engineers will build a giant supporting tower.

They must rebuild two stations to house

the super heavy equipment

that pulls the cable cars along the route.

At the summit is the rotating restaurant

called Piz Gloria.

Here, engineers must install

new extra-large panoramic windows to showcase

the amazing vistas.

Constructing this mega cableway

is a huge engineering challenge.

Schilthorn can be tough,

and its winters are brutal.

This is really one of the most challenging

places for construction.

The engineers must haul everything they need

via a network of temporary cableways

that connect each site.

They'll need to rely on helicopters

to deliver equipment and building materials

to the most inaccessible places.

The first big challenge is to connect the two stations

separated by a gigantic cliff face.

To get the cable car over the top, engineers need

to build a tower that hangs right over the cliff edge.

Raphael Reinle oversees the build.

[Raphael] This wall is almost vertical,

600 meters high.

We need to place a tower

direct on the cliff with an angle of 20-25 degrees

to support our track ropes.

It will be the steepest aerial tramway

ever been built in the world.

To build the tower on a near-vertical cliff

will be no easy task.

Engineers must first blast and drill deep into the cliff

to create anchor points in the solid rock.

A convoy of trucks will transport big excavators

and crane parts to the closest village, Mürren.

Temporary cable wires rigged all along the route will help

carry materials close to the tower build site.

Engineers will use a crane to hoist each beam into place.

Then, workers must bolt the beams together while

they dangle above a sheer 2,000-foot drop.

It's critical that the finished structure tilts 20 degrees

towards the slope

so that the weight of the cable and cars

pushes the tower into the rock.

The engineers' first challenge is to clear away the topsoil

to expose the rock beneath.

The gradient is too steep for a conventional digger.

So, the team uses this special spider excavator.

It has a pair of articulated hydraulic legs in place of

its two front wheels.

This allows it to climb down the mountain

to the precarious excavation site.

The next task is for the engineers to dig

the foundation for the tower.

But sinking them into the mountain will be difficult.

[Raphael] This is a very hard alpine rock.

Explosives is the only way to dig these hard rocks

here in the Alps.

The engineers start by clearing the loose rock

and debris from the blast area.

They use the special temporary cableway to ferry equipment in

and loose rock out.

Once the site is clear, a specialized crew drills

14 boreholes for the explosives.

Each one is between three and eight feet deep.

They calculate that this detonation requires

15 pounds of explosive.

That should blast away over 700 cubic feet of rock.

A worker called a blaster

connects the charges to a detonator,

positioned a safe distance away.

The rest of his team lays giant mats over the blast area.

These protect the workers from flying debris.

The team retreats to a safe distance

and prepares for the blast.

[siren wailing]

[muffled explosion]

The detonation is successful.

Now we can make the foundations of the tower,

and then we can assemble the tower itself.

The team assembles a lattice

of one-inch-diameter steel rods.

Workers pour tons of concrete in this mesh

to form the foundation.

The engineers must haul up all of the huge beams

that make the tower, a total weight of over 110 tons.

The only way to erect this structure

is for workers to bolt it together.

All the components are lifted into place.

The largest weigh nearly two and a half tons.

[Raphael] If the assembly team drops some material or some tools,

it's 600 meters deeper in the valley,

so it's very dangerous.

It takes the team four months to assemble

the 100-foot-tall tower.

The engineers must now install the final elements,

the cable shoes that sit on top.

These hold the cables at a specific height and angle

to allow the cabins to pass over the tower

without hitting it.

Both shoes arrive in pieces.

The on-site crane lifts each component of the shoes

to a team of workers on the tower.

All 27 tons of the cradle shoes are slowly assembled

over two weeks.

Tower 1 is now finished, but it's just the beginning.

Now we take the next step.

The challenge for engineers is to demolish the old station

and build a super-strong new one in its place.

Engineers in Switzerland are building

the world's steepest cableway.

Their next challenge is to complete the section

from the mighty Tower 1 to Birg station,

three-quarters of the way up Schilthorn Mountain.

The station here is part of the existing

60-year-old cableway.

Its foundations and winch equipment are strong enough to

pull its two small cabins up and down the mountain.

But the new cableway will operate larger

and heavier cabins.

They need a pair of cables to carry them.

The new system must also be faster to ferry up 800 people

every hour to the top of the mountain.

The foundations of the old station are too weak

to withstand the 1,000-ton pull of the new system.

The challenge for engineers is to demolish the old station

and build a new one with a super-strong base.

Sabrina Benkert leads the team

on this crucial part of the project.

Working on this station is such a responsibility

because the cable forces are so big,

and it's difficult to anchor it in the rock.

This is how Sabrina's team will do it.

The new Birg station sits on the edge of an alpine cliff,

8,800 feet above sea level.

The four two-and-a-half-inch diameter,

high-tension cables it carries

constantly pull downwards on the structure.

Their huge weight will drag

the station over the cliff edge.

To prevent this, engineers must reinforce the foundation of

the new station with 660 tons of concrete and steel.

They drill through the concrete slab

and nearly 50 feet into the rock.

Into these holes, they install six vertical

and six inclined super-strong anchors and then attach them

to the pylons that hold the cables.

The first challenge for engineers is to tear down

the existing station.

They use special demolition machines

to speed up the process.

It takes them three months to complete the job.

The team is now ready to build the mega foundation

for the new Birg station.

A temporary cableway delivers

about 160 tons of steel reinforcement.

A team of fabricators turns these bars into boxes.

The on-site crane places these into the shuttering.

The new foundation requires 660 tons of concrete.

So engineers build a special plant on site

to deliver a steady supply.

It takes the team one and a half months

to complete the concrete pour.

The giant foundation slab sticks out 10 feet

from the rock face.

The unsupported section is an obvious weak point.

The engineers' solution is to make a series

of mega-sized supports

to hold up the front of the foundation.

Workers create two sets of steel frames

and fill them with concrete.

These supports stabilize the overhang,

redirect the load of the structure above

back into the mountain,

and prevent the foundation from snapping in two.

The final challenge for the engineers is to anchor

the cable into the rock.

Workers use a special remote-controlled drill

to punch 12 holes through the concrete foundation

and nearly 50 feet into the bedrock.

They install a super-strong cable anchor into each hole.

These anchors transfer the load on the cable

into the mountain itself.

Over the next 16 months,

the team builds the new Birg station

on top of the foundation.

Workers install the cable car pylons and machinery.

They wrap the walls and roof in copper panels to protect

the structure from the extreme weather.

With the major components in place, it's time for engineers

to construct the next part of this mega alpine endeavor,

a massive tower on the route's longest stretch.

In Switzerland, engineers are building

an ambitious new alpine cableway.

Their next mission is to construct

a single massive tower

on the route's longest nearly two-mile stretch.

The tower must be 180 feet high to lift the full weight

of the cabins clear of the slope.

But building a super-sized tower at this location presents

Daniel Hunziker and his team with a big problem.

The challenge here is that we are on a slope

with muddy ground,

and this is moving slowly a little bit over the years.

The tower's architects design a structure

with an innovative three-legged system

to counteract ground movement.

To anchor the tower to the mountain, first the teams

must use excavators to dig three shafts.

The shaft that points up the mountain must be 10 feet

in diameter and 36 feet deep.

The two shafts that point down the mountain

must be 20 feet wide and 20 feet deep.

All three shafts will be filled with concrete to create

firm foundations and then connected to each other

to help hold the legs in place.

The team will use a helicopter to lift a giant crane

up to the build site.

The crane will then raise 200 tons of steel

to assemble the tower's legs.

Engineers will then adjust each of the legs to fine-tune

the tower's position and ensure that it can carry the huge load

of the cable without collapsing.

The first task is to dig the foundation for the tower.

Excavators remove over 175,000 cubic feet of earth

to dig all three shafts.

But digging deep holes here presents a dangerous problem

for the engineers.

The muddy, fractured rock could collapse in on them.

To prevent this, workers line the shaft wall

with a mesh of steel rebar.

It takes the team eight weeks to dig and reinforce

all three foundation holes.

The next step is to fill them with concrete.

The site is inaccessible to cement trucks,

so engineers use the temporary cableway

to haul in over 35,000 cubic feet of concrete,

nearly nine tons at a time.

It takes the team six and a half months

to fill the foundation holes

and complete the concrete base.

Now the teams face their next big challenge,

building a huge 215-foot-high crane.

We need a crane which is higher than the tower itself.

The only way to do this is by helicopter.

If you're scared of heights,

this is maybe the wrong job for you.

The helicopter has to bring up the crane in sections.

The workers must quickly bolt the sections

of the crane together before the next one arrives.

The helicopter has to get precariously close to dangle

the crane parts within reach.

Now the workers must attach the cabin.

Next, they need to attach the beams that hold

the counterweights and lifting mechanism.

Finally, the last counterweight arrives.

The workers must grab hold and quickly detach it

while working 215 feet off the ground.

With the crane assembled,

the team can begin work on the tower itself.

The engineers use the temporary cableway to bring in

all 3,600 pieces of steel that make up the tower.

The crane lifts each one up,

and workers use hand tools to fit them together.

Four weeks into the tower build,

and the workers are ready to install

its critical rope shoes.

These will ensure the cabin and cables

run smoothly over the tower.

[Daniel] Today it's windy

and we have snowfall

and cold temperatures.

As an engineer, you can plan everything

except for the weather.

The team assembles all four shoes on the ground.

They then start the difficult task of mounting them

onto the giant structure.

Because the rope shoes are too heavy for the crane,

we have to pull them up with this chain hoist construction.

The assembled shoe weighs almost 15 tons

and is over 80 feet long.

The most difficult thing is to keep your fingers warm.

With cold fingers, it's really difficult

to tighten bolts.

It takes two months to complete the tower build.

Now the engineers must take on their next challenge,

installing the cables which support

this entire colossal project.

Engineers in Switzerland are building

a state-of-the-art cableway.

It links the village of Stechelberg

in the Lauterbrunnen Valley

to Piz Gloria on the summit

of the mighty Schilthorn.

Their next challenge is to install the cables

that will carry the cable cars up and down the mountain.

The new cableway uses two types of cable.

Track cables are static.

They bear the weight of the cabins and help to keep

them upright and stable.

Haul cables are moving steel loops.

Huge bull wheels at the stations drive them around

like a conveyor belt.

Each cable car attaches to this super-strong wire.

The workers must install a total of 770 tons

of haul and track cable from the valley floor

to the summit of Schilthorn.

Overseeing this massive job

is rope technician Werner Lengacher.

The volume of this project is very challenging

because of the size itself.

It's not just one section, it's three sections.

So when we're pulling rope here, that is also tool-wise

or machine-wise, a very big challenge,

how to coordinate everything.

The first challenge for Werner's team is to drag

the track and haul cables

from the station at Stechelberg to Mürren.

The distance is over half a mile

with a massive 2,500-foot vertical rise.

This is how they'll do it.

A low loader delivers drums of steel cable

to the station at Stechelberg.

Next, engineers tie a lightweight pilot line

to a helicopter.

The helicopter takes this line up and over the edge of

the cliff and pulls it through the towers and stations.

Workers on the ground tie a slightly thicker rope

to the end of the pilot line,

which workers then winch up to Mürren.

They repeat the method with progressively thicker ropes

until they have a rope that's strong enough

to haul up the steel cables.

The final stage is to splice together

the ends of the steel haul cable

to create a loop.

A convoy of giant low loaders

delivers the spools of cable to Stechelberg.

A team at the top of Tower 1 installs a set

of temporary rollers to guide the pilot line

over the tower and across the mountain.

The distance from the valley floor to Tower 1

is about 2,000 feet.

The only way to take the pilot line up there is by helicopter.

An engineer attaches the nearly half-inch-thick pilot line

to the helicopter.

And it climbs up to the workers waiting on Tower 1.

The helicopter must keep a safe distance.

Venture too close, and its rotor blades

could strike the cliff face.

The workers successfully thread the rope

through the rollers on Tower 1.

On Tower 2, team members ready themselves

for their turn.

The helicopter now advances up the mountain and delivers

the end of the pilot line to Mürren station,

where it is attached to a powerful winch.

The first stage of the operation is complete.

[Werner] The first rope pull is always the hardest.

The 12-millimeter has gone up well.

After the 12-millimeter,

we'll put a 16-millimeter rope in

and then a 32.

And once that one's up, then we can hook onto

the track rope and pull that up.

Engineers attach the giant track cable.

The winch at Mürren pulls it up the mountain

and anchors it into the station.

When all the cables are in position,

the team's next challenge is to turn

the one-and-a-half-mile-long haul cable into a loop.

To do this, workers first thread both ends through

a suspended platform that's nearly 200 feet up in the air.

Next, they unwind 200 feet of cable.

[Werner] Every five to six meters, we have a person lifting

the rope up and pulling the strand underneath it.

Everybody is in the same rhythm,

and it sounds -- it's like a beat.

Dum-dum. Sounds pretty cool.

Next, the team carefully intertwines the strands

from both ends of the cable.

Workers use hammers and clamping plates

to bind them tightly together.

It takes a whole day to splice the cable

into a super-strong loop that can lift cable cars

from the valley floor up the mountain.

The team threads the track cable and installs loops

of haul cable

all the way to Piz Gloria at the summit of Schilthorn.

We're all very excited. It's time to go have a beer.

This mighty new cableway

is ready for the next phase of construction,

building an entirely new station

around their world-famous restaurant.

Engineers in Switzerland are building a brand-new cableway

up Schilthorn Mountain.

At its summit sits Piz Gloria station.

The 1969 James Bond movie,

"On Her Majesty's Secret Service,"

made it world famous.

It houses a revolving restaurant

with panoramic views of the mountains.

But this iconic structure is incompatible

with the new cableway system

that will ferry double the number of visitors

to the top of the mountain.

The engineers' plan is to keep the famous restaurant intact

while they build a whole new station around it.

Chief architect Jürg Beutler oversees construction.

[Jürg] We have to make new foundations, new reservoirs,

new electrical stairways and the big windows

to have a big view.

Here we see the view from Piz Gloria, the old museum.

At the middle, we make the new station here and this octagon

just around a new basement.

Biggest risk here will be the construction

under the restaurant.

The team's challenge is to enlarge and strengthen

Piz Gloria's foundations

without destroying the iconic structure above.

Building the new station is no easy task.

The team has only five months to complete the construction,

and it must do it between October and March,

when the weather is at its worst.

Within these five months, everything has to be done.

It's cold, minus 20, 25 degree.

The team's first task is to demolish the existing basement

and clear away the rubble.

Next, workers install steel girders to support

the existing structure

and make the frame for the enlarged foundation.

Then, they pour concrete into frames to make a solid floor.

Once dry, a steel crew moves in

to build the new cableway station.

The weather is good and progress is fast.

The team is on track to complete the new structure

before the deadline.

Piz Gloria offers an unrivaled panoramic view

of the Swiss Alps.

The designers of the cableway want to increase the size of

the windows so that more people can enjoy the spectacular sight

from the summit.

The new glass must be super strong to keep out

the worst alpine weather.

[Jürg] These windows, they are thicker

because of the wind.

Here, up in 3,000 meters is very hard wind.

Today, the team must install two supersized windows.

Each one measures 16 feet by 16 feet.

The only way to get something this large up to the summit

is by helicopter.

Installing it is a challenge for the pilot

and crew on the ground.

The most dangerous thing when the helicopters come up here is

when he's near the building and he has to put the glass

between the scaffolding and the wall.

If unexpected wind comes up, it can be smashing the window

into the wall, and it would be very dangerous.

The helicopter delivers the frame without a scratch.

The team's next challenge is to install

the three super-sized pieces of glass into the frame.

Workers attach a bracket with special suction pads

to a 1,000-pound pane.

The mighty on-site crane then lifts the glass

to where it's needed.

The team can then install it precisely into the frame.

Jürg inspects the window for defects.

You have a spectacular view here.

It's wonderful.

This whole project was a challenge,

and the result we are proud of.

We get good feedbacks from everywhere.

Piz Gloria's modern facelift

and new cable car station

completes the cableway's ground-based infrastructure.

Next, engineers will need to find a way to attach the cabins

that will carry up to 800 passengers an hour

to visit this stunning summit.

On Schilthorn Mountain, cableway engineers

are getting ready for the final phase of construction.

They must now attach the cabins that will carry

up to 800 passengers an hour to the summit.

All six cabins have a lightweight aluminum frame.

Each is coated with layers of protective paint,

complete with panoramic windows,

and weighs five and a half tons.

The next challenge for the engineers is to secure

the first two onto the cableway.

Every cabin on a cableway

attaches to a special metal frame called a hanger.

The hanger attaches to a carriage unit.

This rolls along the cable

to move cabins up and down the mountain.

A team at Mürren station installs

a four-and-a-half-ton carriage unit to the pair of cables.

The workers attach the hanger

to the bottom of the carriage unit.

Next, they run the carriage unit and hanger down the cable

to Stechelberg in the valley below.

Workers tie ropes from the hanger to a waiting cabin.

And a winch hauls it into the air.

When we lift up the cabin to the running gear,

we are normally a little bit nervous because everything

has to fit very precisely.

The team installs two cabins wrapped in protective covers

onto the first section of cableway.

Next, they must fit the cabins to the second section

between Mürren and Birg stations.

Now we have the cabins here in the valley.

That was the easy part on the highway.

Now we have to go up with the material ropeways

to the top.

And that will be a big challenge.

The team uses the temporary cableway to transport

each cabin to Mürren.

These cabins are larger, so they must run on a pair of

cables called a funifor system.

This is the first funifor we built in Switzerland,

and it's because of the wide rope gauge.

This system is going to be very stable in alpine winds

and can take winds till 80 or 85 kilometers per hour.

When the two cabins arrive at Mürren, workers lift and attach

them to cables that will ferry

passengers along the second section of the route.

Now, it's time to install the cabins

to the third section,

from Birg station to Piz Gloria at the summit.

This will be the biggest challenge yet.

[Raphael] It's a very dangerous transport.

We have to bring them across the snow fields

to the installation place.

Special snow-tracked vehicles haul the cabins

along tight ski runs.

The engineers begin at daybreak.

They mount the cabin to the temporary cableway

and ride it up the last mile run from Birg

to the very top of Schilthorn Mountain.

It's to attach the funifor carriage and hanger.

The team makes their final adjustments,

raises the cabin,

and bolts it on.

The epic cableway is finally complete.

To build this spectacular sky train,

this team of skilled engineers has worked at dizzying heights

to construct mighty steel towers,

haul hundreds of tons of steel cable

to the top of a mountain,

and secure new stations deep into the bedrock.

Now, this revolutionary cableway is ready to shuttle

visitors to the top of Schilthorn Mountain

for decades to come.