TL;DR
Silvretta Montafon is replacing its ageing Freda chairlift - but not with something new. The resort is having a 1999 four-seater chairlift, retired from Sölden, dismantled, shipped to Vorarlberg and rebuilt with new electronics, cable and clamps. It has to be running before March 2027, when Silvretta Montafon hosts the FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships - the biggest winter sports event Vorarlberg has staged. Here's how a reused lift ends up cheaper.
Silvretta Montafon is replacing its outdated Freda chairlift with a lift that isn't new at all - it's a 1999 four-seater pulled out of Sölden and rebuilt from scratch in Vorarlberg.
The lift being retired is a fixed-grip two-seater dating to 1981, in the Hochjoch sector, and it matters more than its age suggests. Freda serves freeriders and snowpark visitors specifically, so the resort is treating this as an access upgrade for that part of the mountain rather than a like-for-like swap - and with the FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships arriving in March 2027, that access has a hard deadline attached to it.
Why buy used
Instead of ordering a new installation, Silvretta Montafon sourced a detachable four-seater chairlift built by Doppelmayr in 1999 and retired from , complete with weather protection covers. The lift is being fully dismantled, transported to Montafon and reassembled on the new site - not simply relocated, but rebuilt to current technical standards. That means new electronics, a new haul rope and new clamps throughout, along with two towers that are being rebuilt entirely rather than reused. The old station cladding isn't expected to survive the dismantling process and is being replaced outright, with Vonier Architects designing the new stations to suit the site.
