14 replies to this topic

[Peter]

This line was in Skiing Mag this issue:

"When thieves stole chair #69 from Pebble Creek Ski Area last December, the crime seemed like just another harmless burglary carried out by pubescent boys. Then Pebble Creek Manager Mary Reichman explained that the lift was calibrated to a specific running weight and that the missing chair could cause the cable to derail. In other words, no 69, no skiing. The chair was returned immediately."

This sounds like a great way to get a chair back, but not really true technically. If it were calibrated to a specific weight, then how would it deal with different amounts of people at different times? One chair does not seem very significant to me. Industry folks, what do you think?

[skierdude9450]

That's completely absurd! There's no way that that could derail a chair, otherwise the lift would be shut down if it had the chair taken off. But the kids don't know that, and evidentely it worked, and they got the chair back. I don't even believe that story. It takes some pretty big tools to get a chair off the cable, and I don't think that they had access to those, and if they could get it off with their bare hands, then that lift shouldn't be running in the first place.

[Peter]

Well, that is not completely true skierdude. It implies that the lift was closed, hence the "no skiing" part. And if you want to see a chair taken off with just a piece of wood check out the Vail Highline destruction video from YouTube that was posted on another thread. There is a reason whay I posed the question to the industry folks, although I think you are right about the derailing part.

[aug]

Removing one chair from the line would not disable the lift or leave it in an unsafe manner to run(assuming the haul rope was not damaged improperly removing the grip from the rope) . However the unloaded section of the haul rope may lift the depression sheaves from a spring loaded combination sheave assembly.If this has proximity switches for rope monitoring some faults could occur at the combination assemblies. Additionally, in less than design conditions ,the lift coud derail easier. If replacing the chair was not in the budget, re-spacing of the remaining chairs on the line would most likely satisfy the un-equal loading on the line.

This post has been edited by aug: 19 September 2007 - 09:41 PM

[JustJeepIt]

If one less chair is that big of an issue, just throw on the maintenance chair to make up for it.

[Eric23]

This happened quite a while ago. I think summer 06. Also they had taken all the chairs off for maintenance so all they had to do was go up there at night and take it.

This post has been edited by Eric23: 19 September 2007 - 10:21 PM

[liftmech]

I run the Flyer less one chair during the winter when I NDT grips, but I also don't have any combo assemblies as Aug mentions. That could cause some interesting loads.

[skierdude9450]

The Steamboat Gondola runs with about a 45 sec. (7 car) space in the line for transporting goods up and down the Gondola. It seems to run just fine, but again it does not have any compression assemblies, just support and depression.

[WBSKI]

Most chairs at W-B have a 2-4 chair space in the line. For what, i dunno..

Also, I have seen a stolen chair at Forbidden Plateau: http://skiingbc.info/data/24/photos/orange...e%20Chair07.jpg

They had the last 8 years to get it off the line (of course, the hanger is still there but who wants the hanger anyways? Its just extra weight..)

[mikest2]

[quote name='WBSKI' date='Sep 20 2007, 04:25 PM' post='65691']
Most chairs at W-B have a 2-4 chair space in the line. For what, i dunno..

On a detach the is a gap, usually after the last chair(#), on most of mine it is about 1.5 carrier spaces. If you remove a chair for maintenance, you will see two gaps, my dopps will keep the spacing intact with a chair off. If you had trouble with your passive spacing (cadence system) you might want a larger gap after the last chair so that you can make the day without resorting to active spacing (stopping and holding chairs) which requires you to run slower for (hopefully) one revolution.

[Allan]

Someone has ripped off one of our Thiokol carriers this year. According to Doppelmayr CTEC we aren't allowed to run with a gap, but we can re-space the three or so carriers in front of the missing one to take up the space. The bottom line for us Canadians is if the manufacturer says we aren't allowed, we can't do it. Well we could, but could also face having the installation shut down by the BCSA.

[Peter]

Can you not just get one new chair?

[Allan]

Yeah we can, but since D-CTEC doesn't stock them (or didn't show any interest in building them) we've got to get the built by Murray Latta. Once they set the jig up for one chair, you might as well order more than one - the first one's the expensive one!

[skisox34]

That really bothers me how someone could think that going and taking a chair is the right thing to do, whether or not the lift can run with one chair missing. I think there should be a shoot on site rule for anyone caught taking a chair!
On another note, the K-1 at Killington used to run with gondolas off all the time for NDT work and such. You just had to make sure if there were 4 gondys off to leave a space after you counted 14 carriers when you were launching in the morning. On the other hand the Skyeship had it where you could choose a specified # of carriers to launch and then it would automatically space them accordingly.
I remember Sugarbush last year I believe Super Bravo was running a chair shy because there was a good space (more than 1 1/2) between the last carrier and the first.
I've never seen a fixed grip run with a space though.

[Carl]

I do believe the point was missed here.

Mary outsmarted the jerks. Plain as day.

Carl