Ascending the heights
The Rax cable car has been carrying passengers up to the Rax plateau since 1926. Austrian Post is congratulating it on its 100th anniversary with a unique stamp block.
The Rax, like the Schneeberg, is one of Vienna’s local landmark mountains, providing an important recreational area close to the city, as well as being a landscape and water conservation area. By 1900, the Rax mountain was already a popular destination for a day out, but at that time it could only be explored on foot. It was only after the First World Warthat the idea of providing mechanical assistance for ascending the mountain could be put into practice, and after around two years of planning and building work, the cable car with two cabins was opened on 9th June 1926. Even today, the Rax cable car, the first aerial cableway for passenger transport in Austria, is considered a technical masterpiece and a symbol of progress. The journey from Hirschwang an der Rax to the mountain station on the Rax at an elevation of around 1,550 metres is an ideal way to access the high Alpine mountain landscape with its many hiking trails, snowshoe tour routes, climbing tours, restaurants and manned mountain huts where you can also spend the night.
Driven by electricity, over the course of its 2,160 metre-long route, the Rax cable car ascends around 1,000 metres in approximately eight minutes, and, except when closed for maintenance, is open all year round. Both propulsion motors are located at the mountain station. There is room for 30 people in each cabin, and the cable car transports around 200,000 passengers up the mountain every year. The centenary stamp block comes in the shape of a modern cabin that opens out, with the removable stamp on the inside featuring a historic photo of the cable car.
