36 replies to this topic

[Limelight]

So whats an Rexx? Maybe thats what I was hearing.

[Peter]

Ummm have you ever skied Crystal??? Rexx is short for Rainier Express.

[Limelight]

Skier, on Jul 28 2006, 04:23 PM, said:

Ummm have you ever skied Crystal??? Rexx is short for Rainier Express.

Been sking at Crystal for years, just never called it Rexx I guess.

[Peter]

The worst day I have ever been at Crystal was when Forest Queen, Rex and Chinook were all broken down. Quicksilver, Gold Hills, and Miners Basin were all closed, so the only open lift was Green Calley. I wish I had gotten up there before the breakdowns! They ended up sending everyone home.

Another bad one was at Sun Valley when the power went out, all the quads shut down. Apparently the only guy who could start up the auxillary engines was stuck on the lift! Go figure. They were really nice about it and gave refunds.

[chasl]

Skier, on Jul 28 2006, 08:35 PM, said:

The worst day I have ever been at Crystal was when Forest Queen, Rex and Chinook were all broken down. Quicksilver, Gold Hills, and Miners Basin were all closed, so the only open lift was Green Calley. I wish I had gotten up there before the breakdowns! They ended up sending everyone home.

Another bad one was at Sun Valley when the power went out, all the quads shut down. Apparently the only guy who could start up the auxillary engines was stuck on the lift! Go figure. They were really nice about it and gave refunds.

That is why any area I am working at, I have a team of operators that are properly trained to run an auxillary engine in this type of emergency. All operators are trained to run a certain type of lift, that includes the auxillary, for example if you are trained to operate a fixed grip lift you are trained to operate any fixed grip auxillary, but not a detachable. you must be trained to operate a detachable in order to operate an auxillary engine on this lift. I also have a requirement that in order to operate a detachable you must have been the lead operator on a fixed grip lift at least one full season.
No E-Max I do not have this requirement for the surface lifts. ..... Yet.

[vons]

While I worked at Copper all lifties where trained to run aux on the lift they operated. As a foreman I usually made sure that all of my crew had hooked up and decoupled the aux at lest once a month. We ran the aux once weekly to practice the switch over and to get our required aux run hours. The first week of every month we would run the aux for half the day so it ran under load. The 5 day foreman and 2 day foreman (crew leaders) had to know how to hook up the aux and train others to do so. So usually there was at least one person per lift plus maintenance personnel on sleds who could hook up in an emergency.
At Copper all of the detachables have full load rated standby engines, only a few of the fixed grip chairs can run on aux full operation most are evacuation only and often the fixed grips are harder to connect than the high speed lifts. The Poma detachable lifts have only lever to switch gearbox input and the lone Doppelmayr has two bolts to insert in the brake-disk coupler. By the way Timberline EXP. can run just as fast on the diesel as the electric. So other than overheating B lift running on aux is not a big deal.


Just remember to shut of the 480VAC when you do run on diesel.

[liftmech]

I'm surprised Crystal had trouble running on aux. When I was there (and probably Bill remembers this as well) all foremen were required to know how to switch over to the standby engine on their lifts. The individual operators may not have known, but the foreman could talk them through over the phone if they couldn't physically be there.

[Splicer]

The long terminal on the Green Valley bottom terminal is to provide for a 5 meter tension carriage. The lift profile made splicing difficult so with the more common (less expensive) 3 meter carriage, they would have lost most of the carriage travel after the splice and the tension was transferred from the rigging back to the lift.

[liftmech]

Where does one splice on that lift? The only flat area I remember was near tower 7 on the old lift, just downhill of the big bowl halfway up.

[Splicer]

About 3 towers up from the bottom terminal, there's "kind of" a road, it's not great. My feet were sore after the splice from standing on a sidehill. The flat area further up is inaccessable to vehicles (forest service restriction).

[skier14]

Skier sorry about that sun valley aux incident. Our lifties are 80% foreign so my guess is 50% of those cant speak english fluently and about 99% of them cant speak through a sound powered phone and be understood. So Sun Valley policy is only trained lift maint. personel are allowed to run an aux evac. the guy on the lift must have been the mechanic for that lift doing a line inspection.

Chasl i wish we could train lifties but if im on that lift when it goes down i personally dont trust them to run our aux. Plus our lifts cant be switched to aux with a flip of a switch or lever. In stead we have to hook up a drive belt and then start the lift by pushing start and fast at the same time (sounds easy but its apparently hard for some people).

Splicer i have a question on Lift 10 Challenger, SV where will you do the splice on that lift next year?

[mikest2]

Splicer, on Aug 12 2006, 02:27 PM, said:

About 3 towers up from the bottom terminal, there's "kind of" a road, it's not great. My feet were sore after the splice from standing on a sidehill. The flat area further up is inaccessable to vehicles (forest service restriction).

Geeeez Norm, I'm going to stop spending all that money landscaping splice areas if you're comfortable working on sidehills. (not saying I've ever seen a liftline with a sidehill)

[Splicer]

SV lift #10 splice will be done around tower #4 on the other side of the river, there's a flat spot just up the hill before it gets steep again. There will be a problem placing the spool in a strategic location with the Warm Spring base facility in the way (which wasn't there when YAN built the first lift) We may have to splice it just across the river on the steep hillside (yuck). It will be quite a pull, 5600 meters of 45 mm.

[lastchair_44]

45mm....argh...biggest we have is 42mm on our Detachables

[liftmech]

We have one 50mm, we'll be re-splicing it in two weeks (8 inches left on the rams).
So chair 3 originally had only a 3-metre carriage runway? That seems rather short to me, but the whole lift is short too. I have 3-metre rams on the Flyer, but I have several lengths of extension plate supplied by Poma that I can add into the equation. I think I end up with almost 10 metres of travel all told.

[skier14]

that splice on lift 10 sounds like it will be fun ... okay maybe not

[Bill]

liftmech, on Aug 4 2006, 11:34 AM, said:

I'm surprised Crystal had trouble running on aux. When I was there (and probably Bill remembers this as well) all foremen were required to know how to switch over to the standby engine on their lifts. The individual operators may not have known, but the foreman could talk them through over the phone if they couldn't physically be there.

Yup. I remember, I had to be trained. Pretty simple too. A few modification and you were running.