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skierdude9450, on Dec 24 2007, 07:57 PM, said:
Yesterday I was at Breckenridge and it was extremely windy. (What else is new 
) The detachables were already running at their lowered speed for high winds (I'd estimate about 800 fpm) but they kept slowing down all the time. You would go about one tower before slowing down, and I figured that it couldn't be from people falling, because the mountain was basically vacant, and people don't even fall that much on Quicksilver. It took about 18 minutes to get up the Peak 8 SuperConnect, which normally takes a little over 8!!! There was an anemometer on the tower at the windiest point which was connected to the com line. So I wonder, can an anemometer send a signal to slow down the lift if the wind is too strong? Does it automatically slow the lift down? What is the wind limit for most lifts before they have to slow down or stop? (From the rider's point of view, I'd rather keep on truckin' through the wind gust, rather slow down for it.)
) The detachables were already running at their lowered speed for high winds (I'd estimate about 800 fpm) but they kept slowing down all the time. You would go about one tower before slowing down, and I figured that it couldn't be from people falling, because the mountain was basically vacant, and people don't even fall that much on Quicksilver. It took about 18 minutes to get up the Peak 8 SuperConnect, which normally takes a little over 8!!! There was an anemometer on the tower at the windiest point which was connected to the com line. So I wonder, can an anemometer send a signal to slow down the lift if the wind is too strong? Does it automatically slow the lift down? What is the wind limit for most lifts before they have to slow down or stop? (From the rider's point of view, I'd rather keep on truckin' through the wind gust, rather slow down for it.)The Independence Lift at Breckenridge has digital anemometers that are monitored by the PLC. There is an auto-slow (40 mph) and an auto-stop (60 mph), these settings are adjustable through the HMI. The reason it is adjustable is because chair swing and cable movement will vary with the direction. Many standard lifts can run in a constant 50 mph cross-wind, some can only sustain about 30 mph; however, with today's Cable Position monitoring sensors the lift will trip on these when the wind is causing serious problems with the cable alignment. So although the wind may not affect the riders, or cause dangerous chair swing entering the terminals, it can cause dangerous situations where the cable moves out of the center of the sheave trains on lightly loaded towers...
