Sugarloaf Chair -Breaking News-

[powhunter]

That sucks...I hope the injured recover quickly, and nothing negative comes out of this

steveo

 

[Newpylong]

no finger pointing. The chairs are inspected by the tramway authority. Tragedy.

 

[whitemtn27]

Just out of curiosity, what was the logic behind those double-double chairs? I've only ever seen them there and at Bromley, I think. Why would a mountain choose one of those instead of a quad, especially given the wind concerns?

 

[thetrailboss]

Just out of curiosity, what was the logic behind those double-double chairs? I've only ever seen them there and at Bromley, I think. Why would a mountain choose one of those instead of a quad, especially given the wind concerns?

That design predates quads, which did not come about until the early 1980's. The "double-double" design allowed for a lift to have the same start point and different ending points.

Attitash, Burke (though not completed), Bromley, and Sunday River had similar lifts that were designed and built by Hall or Borvig.

 

[wa-loaf]

Looking at some of the pics the snow conditions look great ...

 

[wa-loaf]

Some pics from someone who fell off the chair here:
http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=32565

 

[ceo]

OK, looking at those photos, I'm wrong: it was the tower before the one at the start of the long span.

I'm not surprised the chairs hit the ground when the cable fell; what surprises me is that it fell in the first place. I thought the sheave trains had cable catchers for just this purpose.

 

[snafu]

That was literally chair-breaking news, hope everyone is okay, from the sound of it no one was seriously hurt and some people have a good story to tell...

 

[WJenness]

From wa-loaf's link:

ccording to my mom, the crash appeared to be caused by a mechanic who was up on the tower banging on the shieve-train with a hammer or something, which they are known to do from time to time for god knows what reason, but he apparently knocked the rope off the wheels somehow.

Wow...

I can't imagine what it'd feel like to be that guy right now. :-(

-w

 

[thetrailboss]

From wa-loaf's link:



Wow...

I can't imagine what it'd feel like to be that guy right now. :-(

-w

Well, I've heard that rumor as well and I doubt that would happen. It had to be more than that. That line had a lot of weight on it.

 

[riverc0il]

Bummer. Sounds like it could have been worse and thankfully nothing serious. Perhaps some broken bones? Can't even imagine...

Those old Borvigs with the hanging sheaves whig me me out. I know accidents are rare on any lift and Borvigs probably have no higher incident rate than other lifts (any one have stats on that?) but the Loafs double doubles definitely weird me out. Probably just because they look so different than most other lifts, I don't know. The hanging sheaves thing is what really bugs me about them, regardless if they are safe from an engineering standpoint.

 

[bigbob]

From wa-loaf's link:



Wow...

I can't imagine what it'd feel like to be that guy right now. :-(

-w

I would be very surprised if he knocked the rope off the sheave wheel, that is under a lot of pressure. I was on that lift a week ago... Aren't there little catches outside of the sheave wheels to catch the rope if it derails?? Or does this lift predate that requirement?
I know on the Superquad the lift mechanics have to climb the towers to adjust the location of the sheave trains due to tower misalignment caused by the sun on the tower poles sometimes.

 

[snowmonster]

Just got the news. I hope everything ends well both for the skiers and the Loaf. Thank God for powder snow.

Bad news is always worse when you are far away from it. Take care out there, folks.

 

[darent]

just heard, hope everyone is ok. looking for info I googled it. the very first listing was for the Massachusetts-attorneys.com. go fiqure !!

 

[Rothski]

Pasted From the Sugarloaf Today Forum.

http://www.sugarloaftoday.com/chat/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3940&start=90

"This is what I saw:
Mid-morning, I chose Spillway West based mostly on the fact that there was no lift line (but a little on the fact that I did get stuck on Spillway East yesterday for about 10 minutes after I felt some "lurching" a la King Pine's Bullwheel incident of last March). As I unloaded, I noticed a lift mechanic on a snowmobile creeping slowly past the terminal of Spillway West and, surprisingly, heading right down Spillway. He was driving markedly slowly, eyes glued to the tower sheaves (pulley wheels). I thought nothing of it really, deducing that he must be responding to the issues that I felt yesterday (Monday, 12/27). I skied down Spillway (which, mind you, was amazing, even though it was all crud bumps). By the time I got to the bottom of Spillway, East was stopped, so I jumped on West and headed up again. Obviously, something was up as I had completed the entire trip up West while East remained unmoved. Two towers before the West terminal, that same lift mechanic was clipped in to the top of the tower, straddling the East side "T". He had a large screwdriver out and was using it as a lever to twist some kind of tension screw device which connected to the upward tower sheaves. I'm not an engineer but it seems like he was trying to correct the stresses on the sheaves or their housing. I did not see him hammering anything in my 30 seconds of observation. He was simply twisting a large tensioning screw. There didn't appear to be anymore ice or rime on the lifts, towers, or sheaves than there normally is and, in all honesty, this was a modest windy day for Sugarloaf standards. I unloaded and headed down Winter's Way for another amazing run. Spillway East was still stopped so I headed down to the Superquad. That is when I noticed, from the distance of the base of the mountain to Spillway, a lot of people scattered about the trail, just about where the steeper pitch of Spillway begins. I thought it must just be a team of patrollers beginning evacuations. Little did I know that the sheaves on the same tower I saw the mechanic working on had given way and the line had dropped.
Upon closer inspection, it didn't look like the lift had "derailed", but that those tower sheaves and their housing had either tweaked outward and rotated so that the cable had nowhere to go but off. It took about 1-1.5 hours to get everybody who hadn't fallen off of the lift. I saw at least a half dozen evac. teams helping people off. Everyone from the patrol to mechanics, even ambassadors (wow, they do do something!). As the evacs. were happening, so, too, were the rescues of those hurt in the fall. I saw two sleds go down Spillway with people bundled on them who were clearly hurt. Also, the two Bullwinkle's Bombardier Cats were taking relatives up to the hurt and taking people down from the trail. I think the mountain decided at about 11:30 or so to begin shutting down all lifts (including T-Bar #3) that accessed the Spillway area. At 1:30, Superquad, DRC East and West, and the T-Bar were all running until closing. Spillway West remained shutdown for the remainder of the day. King Pine and Timberline were never opened due to wind. Whiffletree, Snubber, Skidway, and Sawduster were all open during this time. I'm not sure about Bucksaw."

 

[TropicTundR]

ChairLift Safety

I was thinking semi-inflatable underseat padding or just having padded bars. I guessing such features add weight and decrease safety tolerances. Hope there are no long term injuries and the recent skiing fear mongering doesn't hinder.

 

[Cornhead]

I hope everyone involved is O.K., they are weird lifts. The support towers look like they are made of wood. I was intrigued enough to shoot some photos of them when I was there last Spring.

 

[ceo]

They're definitely steel. The white paint is new since I was last there (~7 years ago); they were green at first and then black for many years.

And one of those photos definitely shows a cable catcher on the sheave train. I wonder why it didn't catch the cable.

 

[jerryg]

Thoughts and prayers to those hurt. This was a very unfortunate accident and no speculation about the cause is going to do any good. It could have been any number of things and I hope the tram and elevator safety board can get to the bottom of it. This is a dark day for SL, but luckily no one was killed. The 2 feet of snow might very well have saved lives today.

 

[deadheadskier]

This was a very unfortunate accident and no speculation about the cause is going to do any good. It could have been any number of things

Yup, agree 100%