Suddenly, a bright modern cable car swooshes by with 30 tourists gawking out the windows. I’m watching the Schilthornbahn mountain lift from the terrace of a hotel in the tiny traffic-free hamlet of Gimmelwald, high in the Swiss Alps just south of Interlaken. My friend Walter, who runs the hotel, joins me with a drink and tells me a local tale illustrating how the Schilthornbahn is good for more than tourism. In Gimmelwald, the modern world began in 1965 with the arrival of the cable car. Before that, mothers ready to give birth had to hike an hour downhill to the valley floor for a ride into Interlaken. Many mothers didn’t make it all the way to the hospital. Just outside of Interlaken, a curve in the road is named for Zita, a Gimmelwald baby … born right there. Today, the all-powerful Schilthornbahn connects Stechelberg on the valley floor with …