When the cable car from Obermais to St. Kathrein began operation in 1923, it was a technical sensation. The engineer, Luis Zuegg from Lana, succeeded in bridging the 2,300 metre-long stretch with only three intermediate supports by being able to run the cables more tightly. It was pioneering work that brought about dramatic changes in the transportation of people and materials. Until then, the only connection between Hafling and Meran was a steep, stone-flagged track. With pack animals and primitive means of transport, the farmers carried their wood and animals down from the Tschögglberg into the valley to sell them at market. A laborious undertaking that sometimes even lasted several days – depending on the distance to the market in question. Then there were the messengers. Usually they were single women or widows, who earned some additional income by transporting goods between Hafling and Meran. In a back basket that weighed up to 30 kg or more, they carried eggs or butter into the valley and brought goods that could not be made on the farms – such as buttons, coffee or sugar, from Meran up onto the mountain. For heavy items such as construction materials or animals that could not walk the difficult path down the mountain, there was a goods cable car, which continued to operate in parallel between Obermais and St. Kathrein after the construction of the passenger cable car. When in 1933 the road from Hafling to Falzeben was opened and in the following years more and more roads were built on the Tschögglberg, many a Vespa also found its way onto the plateau, thanks to the goods cable car. In general, the locals in Hafling and the surrounding area were always very inventive when it came to transport. Luis Reiterer can still remember well how the first public bus with 40 seats was transported from Meran to Hafling back in the day: “Sepp Greiter, head of the Klammsteiner company, was determined to pull the bus up the old footpath with an excavator and winch. To do so, in some places retaining walls and fences had to be removed and even small rocks blasted away. Step by step, day by day, they worked their way upwards and – barely believably – after about a week, the bus actually made it to Hafling in one piece with only a few scratches and bumps.”
The ever better accessibility meant that more and more people from Meran and the surrounding areas sought out the villages below the summit of the Ifinger. However, not everyone could afford the journey by cable car, since at that time, one return journey cost 5 lira. A considerable amount when you think that on average, a day’s work paid only 7-8 lira. People were all the more pleased by the introduction of what was known as the “Haflinger Hour”, which enabled the locals to buy cheaper tickets at 8 am, 12 noon, and 2 & 5 pm. And so that the Meran businesspeople could reach their holiday homes on the Tschögglberg at the weekends after the shops had closed, the cable car ran a special service on Saturday evenings at 8.30 pm too.