The Harder spotlight

A small glimpse of the wider world

Visible from afar, it sends its focused beam into the depths of the Bödeli valley. Nothing is safe from its bright light, nothing remains unseen. Who knows how many happy hours on balmy summer nights were abruptly interrupted. Built as a navigational searchlight for a warship, it found its way to the Harder Kulm as a "favorable opportunity" thanks to the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) in Berlin. The Oerlikon machine factory supplied the necessary converter unit to power the searchlight with direct current. A circuit diagram, dated October 20, 1910, suggests that the searchlight was already being used as a luminous advertisement just a few years after the Harderbahn funicular railway opened. For operational reasons, a railway engineer always had to spend the night at the mountain station. Thanks to the searchlight, he had the extraordinary pleasure of being the only one in the area "watching television.".

With the new electrical voltage came the end.

In 1971, the Harder-Kulm received a new power supply, increasing the voltage from 220 volts to 380. The old spotlight was left behind. But five years later, the dusty object was rediscovered by chance in the attic, and its history was revisited. However, obtaining replacement carbon sticks for the spotlight proved difficult, and enthusiasm for the nostalgia project remained limited.

The first open carriages of the Harderbahn

High performance was in demand.

The "outdated" spotlight was replaced by a high-performance mercury vapor device. Better suited for illuminating sports fields than as an advertising medium high above the Hardermanndli. No wonder the state-of-the-art spotlight rarely lit up the evening sky. Whether out of respect for its age or sheer convenience, the old spotlight survived in a corner of the spacious attic. And what a miracle: in 1984, a shipment of the rare round carbon rods turned up at a cinema projector company. Now the venerable spotlight was saved, and soon the carbons inside the spotlight glowed brighter than ever. The arc of light, one of the brightest light sources besides the sun, was reflected in the highly polished concave mirror. For another twenty years, it cast its beam of light with pinpoint accuracy across the Bödeli region.

A technical defect

in the power supply caused it to go out again in 2006. Did this mean the end? Not at all. With great care and an understanding of the nostalgic technology, they succeeded in bringing the now almost 100-year-old spotlight back to life. The "Harderfründe" volunteered to operate it.

The new panoramic carriages of the Harder funicular.