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http://www.ksl.com/?...-tramcar-cables

Nice update of the tram ;)

Nice find.

I am guessing that they are replacing the track ropes since they mention they are replacing four ropes. They also say that the tram will pull the new ropes. I am curious as to how they would do that. Has anyone here been apart of track rope replacement like this? I have been apart of new haul rope installation, and haul rope replacements but never work with track ropes.

They do talk about closing the area underneath the tram ... maybe they're going to pull the new cable up the mountain, then after it's pulled, lift it up onto the towers?

(since it's stationary, there's no real easy way to haul it across the towers, like you would with a haul rope)

http://www.snowbird.com/tramcables/
Not a lot of details here, but a few things not mentioned in the KSL article.

I'm guessing the cables will be pulled, one at a time, by the cabins. There will be many additional items to take care of, such as slack carriers and obviously placing the track ropes on the towers. Looks like a fun project!

I think K.O. Was misquoted in regards to using the cars to pull the new ropes. Our plan is to socket the new rope to the old rope. Lift the haul rope off the sheaves, and pull it to the side on all towers. Then move the old rope off the saddle and down on to the sheaves, so in a sense use the tower sheave much as you would for a haul rope replacement. Then we will pull the old and new ropes to the Peak. Put the new rope on the saddles and repeat. Sounds pretty simple huh!

Wow, what a neat and simple idea!

monkey, on 02 April 2016 - 07:15 PM, said:

Thanks for the info. That is the idea that makes the most sense. Do you expect the socket to pass over the sheaves easily, from what I remember they are pretty large.

So the existing sockets will be removed after the counterweights are lifted and the track rope we are pulling is rigged and detensioned in the station. We then pour new sockets on both the new and old ropes and use a special connection intended for the job, to attach the two. The new ropes will be staged to the north of the bottom station, then fed through the station and up the hill. Meanwhile at the Peak the winch, horizontal spooler,etc will be below the top station and above tower 4. The plan is to deflect off the top saddle and pull the ropes back downhill, when we get what we need then up and over and around the ballards.
I know I am breezing over a lot the smaller details like all slack carriers on the ground or the fact we still have 100"+ base, but I just want to give the basic ideas involved. We jokingly call this type of a job as "camping", and we expect Mother Nature to have her say and give us another 100" of snow during this job. There will be plenty of photos taken and I will post some.

monkey, on 04 April 2016 - 05:59 PM, said:

I look forward to the pics.

Definitely. Paid for a tour with a 30-rack a few years back, was impressed by the size of your marquee lift. Makes the size of the project that much bigger.

Always happy to give a tour!

A few pictures of week 1, which was spent getting everything staged. Overtime is in abundance.

Got a Bell Jet Ranger III doing the work, eh?

RibStaThiok, on 02 May 2016 - 09:16 AM, said:

Got a Bell Jet Ranger III doing the work, eh?

Looks like an A-Star to me....
Dino

yup your right. I should have looked closer at the main rotor head.

The rigging of tower 2. Pulling a 14 mm rope spliced to a 22 mm rope for the reave, that when done is then pulled 50 meters uphill to detension track rope #1. A view from the ride to torque the plate clamps. I have many more photos and much more progress has been made but I don't have to much spare time right now to post them all.

Last night we landed the new rope on bollard 1. The weather has been mostly rain, lightning, snow, wind, lightning, wet slides the an hour or two of sun followed by more snow. We hope for better weather to come. In the first picture you can see the socket making its way over the first set of rollers on tower 1 notice the nice weather, so you can get all sweaty climbing towers. Then the socket making its way through the trees in Mid-Cirque between towers 3 & 4. Crossing tower 4. Then resetting the milking machine (A brillant piece of equipment that I will explain later) to clear the socket, notice more snow. One last one of Peter aka the Amazing Spider-Man!