Le Remontoir is a funicular-like
inclined elevator
An inclined elevator or
inclined lift
is a form of cable railway that hauls rail cars up a steep gradient.
Introduction
An inclined elevator consists of one or two inclined tracks on a slope with a single car on each carrying payload. In ...
in
Le Locle
Le Locle (; ) is a Communes of Switzerland, municipality in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
It is situated in the Jura Mountains, a few kilometers from the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds.
It is the third smallest city in Switzerland (in Swit ...
,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
. It links the town's centre with
Le Locle railway station located above. With a length of 62 m, it climbs a difference of elevation of 24 m.
The lower station is located in ''Rue de la Côte'' at a small square named ''Sidmouth's Square''.
History
When the railway line from Neuchatel to Le Locle was built in 1857, the current, off-centre site of the railway station was chosen for cost reason. It was maintained for the current station building of 1883. Projects in the 20th century sought to improve access.
In 2010, the city unanimously approved funding for a project of two elevator towers linking the centre to the railway station.
Following concerns about its impact on the cityscape of the World Heritage site,
Federal Office of Culture
The Federal Office of Culture (FOC) is an administrative unit of the Federal Department of Home Affairs, based in Bern, Switzerland. The agency has two extensive areas of responsibility: promoting Swiss culture and preserving the country’s c ...
mandated
Diener & Diener
Diener & Diener is an architectural firm established in Basel, Switzerland in 1942. The second generation of Diener & Diener has been active since 1980. The Basel office, along with its subsidiary in Berlin, has been headed by Roger Diener, since 2 ...
for an alternative. The resulting project with an inclined elevator
was compared to
Polybahn
The Polybahn, also known as the UBS Polybahn, is a funicular in the city of Zurich, Switzerland. The line links the ''Central'' square with the terrace () by the main building of ETH Zurich, which was formerly called , and from which the ...
.
The necessary additional funding
was approved in 2012.
The elevator was built by
Inauen-Schätti.
It is named after the
remontoir.
The elevator was opened to the public on
and officially inaugurated on .
By 2016, it made an average of 530 runs per day.
There were 30 technical incidents in 2015.
In 2016, the square at the lower station was named ''Sidmouth's Square''.
The 187,000 runs in 2018 represented 12,061 km.
References
[
]
[
]
{{Switzerland-transport-stub