May the 23rd, 2023 - Following months of delays, issues, closures and the like, the Sljeme cable car finally got up and running, promising to be one of the capital's top attractions. The profitability of the cable car has now been called into question.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, last year, i.e. in the first year of it being in actual operation, the Sljeme cable car transported 356,417 passengers in total. When we realise and understand that one of the most expensive cable cars in all Europe was opened on February the 23rd of that year, and that it was closed for 52 days undergoing repairs or because of bad weather conditions, we arrive at a figure of 259 working days last year. This results in a figure of slightly more than 1376 passengers per day.

When these figures are put into context with the maximum hourly capacity of 1,500 passengers in 84 gondolas, it becomes clear why the Sljeme cable car, which carries a price of 537 million kuna without VAT, has long been labeled a megalomaniac project and a monument to the rule of the late mayor Milan Bandic and HDZ in Zagreb, writes tportal.

According to ZET data, the revenue of the Sljeme cable car in those 259 days stood at about one million euros, or 3,861 euros per day, while at the same time, the costs for the employees, without those for maintenance and energy, were all at the same level. Until the year 2034, the City of Zagreb will pay slightly less than six million euros for it from the budget. This amount refers to the capital cost of the Sljema cable car, and 50 percent of its operating costs will be allocated from the city budget itself.

It's worth recalling that in the first two months of the Sljeme cable car's operation, it wasn't possible for people to transport bicycles, but after this possibility was introduced, more than 7,500 one-time tickets for bicycles have been sold to date. Considering the many requests, especially from downhill biking fans who love to cycle down Sljeme, from May the 6th, ZET introduced daily and annual tickets for cyclists.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated news section.

August the 4th, 2022 - The City of Zagreb's Backo mini express became a museum for little trains back in 2019, and it is now being threatened with closure. 

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Mladen Miletic writes, Zagreb's Backo mini express turned little train museum attracted global interest thanks to its "setting" of 150 trains and their compositions per 1,500 rails in a mere 350 square metres of exhibit space, and in addition to Croatian and foreign tourists, the museum was also visited journalistic teams from China, Japan, Korea, Australia, and elsewhere.

During his visit to Zagreb, world-renowned Danish conductor Michael Schønwandt also visited the location in the very heart of Zagreb (Gunduliceva). But the global coronavirus pandemic and the tragic Zagreb earthquakes of 2020 saw the trend of many visits turned very much on its head.

“Over the last five years, we've been able to get around one hundred guests a day, and today we're record these figures on a monthly basis. In five years of existence, we haven't experienced such a bad summer. There are almost no Croatian guests visiting anymore, and foreign ones have become very rare.

The issue being faced by the Backo mini express train museum is also exacerbated heavily by the ongoing renovation of buildings in the heart of the city following March 2020's devastating earthquake, meaning that everything has been regularly being covered in dust, there has been construction work, there has been scaffolding,'' explained Antun Urbic Backo.

As the number of visitors continues to fall day by day, and Zagreb's tourist traffic is nowhere near at the level it was before the global coronavirus pandemic emerged, the future of the Backo mini express train museum in the very heart of the Croatian capital is being called into question, with the threat of closure continually hanging over their heads.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

April the 18th, 2022 - The Sljeme cable car, which has been plagued with issues and been open then closed, is now open once again. This time, the new Zagreb attraction has a new service for its users.

As Vecernji List/Dario Topic writes, the Sljeme cable car (Zicara Sljeme) was opened and then closed down, and has now been reopened once again. The now up and running Sljeme cable car, which is back in action following some additional noise reduction has new offers for its users - new working hours and a brand new service.

Given the warmer weather of spring and significantly longer days, which will certainly encourage more and more residents and guests of the City of Zagreb to take the Sljeme cable car up the mountain into nature and enjoy various outdoor activities offeed, the new working hours of the cable car are on weekdays from 10:00 to 19:00, and on weekends, holidays and public holidays from 09:00 to 07:00.

In addition to the above, having listened to the needs and suggestions of both recreational and professional cyclists, who have shown great interest in transporting their bicycles up onto Sljeme using the cable car, those in charge are pleased to announce that this service has now been made available, as reported by ZET.

In addition to purchasing a regular ticket, cyclists will have access to an additional ticket for the transport of their bicycles in the amount of just 20 kuna in one direction. In one single cable car, it is possible to transport two people and two bicycles. Passengers entering the cable car itself by bicycle are obliged to pay attention so as not to damage the equipment or endanger other users when riding the Sljeme cable car, and in order to be transported safely to their destination on Zagreb's famous mountain.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

Sljeme is a favourite destination for many of Zagreb's residents. From skiing in the winter months to hiking and enjoying the views in the dense forests just above the Croatian capital in the summer months, what you can do on Zagreb's famous hill varies with the changing of the seasons. The Sljeme cable car, a project that was in the works for a very long time indeed, is yet another addition.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 17th of July, 2020, there will be about eighty gondolas placed at the Sljeme cable car, they will move six metres per second and will be able to carry 1,500 passengers in just one hour. The very first cabins of the Sljeme cable car, mounted on steel cables with which they will slide along, were installed over recent days.

One was photographed at the very top of Medvednica, which is the first time that a gondola has (almost) reached the height of the TV tower itself, given that the new Sljeme cable car route is one hundred metres longer than the old one was. One cabin is ready at the lower station, and the first test rides are along the route, as has been found out unofficially from the construction site, will begin at the end of August.

The opening of the Sljeme cable car itself is planned for All Saints' Day, according to a report from Vecernji list.

The new cabins, on the other hand, are 2.1 metres tall and two metres wide, they will accommodate a maximum of ten passengers at a time who will be able to sit on two folding benches. They will also be adapted for people in wheelchairs, and they will be able to accommodate stretchers for the injured.

Skiers and the like will be able store their equipment in special carriers, but there will be no such facilities for transporting bicycles, which will therefore be able to be transported in the gondola itself. The cabins were delivered by an Austrian company specialising in the construction of the Doppelmayr cable car, where all the equipment comes from. They arrived late, as the borders were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For more on the Sljeme cable car and other things to do in the Croatian capital, follow Total Zagreb or check out Zagreb in a Page.