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Sugarloaf Lift Accident - 3/21/15

bigbog

bigbog

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deadheadskier said:
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/03/28/faulty-chairlift-may-be-replaced/


Interesting. Apparently CNLs sale of the mountain will hold up replacing the lift.

I wonder how many other capital projects for this off season at CNL owned resorts will now be placed on hold.
Click to expand...

Imho...Corporate America's pathetic minds have really turned insular(sp?) in the last 30-40 years. Quarterly profits outweigh any interest in quality skiing for advanced-expert skiers...and the picky-une attitudes of upper middle America, whining about their inability to get more and more special perks with purchased passes, has corporate management penny-pinching over important stuff(ie lifts)....

*Think there are those that might be re-thinking their 20 Year Plan... Wonder how many luncheons were set up to celebrate their new initiative at the start of the deep planning corporate project..lol.
As most everywhere...those who initially questioned top brass will most likely be the first out the door......
 
Last edited:
Edd

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Whitey

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Picture from today. Sunday 3/29. Wheel down. There were 1-2 guys working on it today but otherwise it's got that "waiting for parts" kind of look to it.
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festus

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Closing t-line is 100% reactive. We crashed lets make sure the other stuff is ok. Nothing proactive there.
Some technical info on the defective switch. SL is not being 100% truthful on how it works. It is called an underspeed switch. It is a wheel that rides on the bullwheel, when the bull wheel slows down to a set speed (the switch is adjustable) a signal is sent to drop the roll back dogs. Borvig says the switch should be set at half of design speed. So what this means is the dogs drop before the lift is stopped. And yes it will lift the dogs in reverse when the bullwheel hits the preset speed. Now code says that roll back devices must activate with in 36 inches of reverse rotation. The back stops on borvigs are about 30 inches apart. You would have to have serious hyper drive type acceleration to reach even 40%speed with in 36 inches. The switch is still available and recommended by the manufacturer because it works. Now lets talk e-brake or bull wheel brake. Code says the bull wheel brake must stop the lift in less than 3 feet. This is tested during load tests. 450feet is a bit out of the acceptable range.

Just felt the need to put out some tech stuff. I am angry as are a lot of people in the industry that SL is blaming Borvig. That particular switch may have been broken but it is not a design fault.

One last thing, Where is the state of Maine. 2 accidents in four years. Why are they not inspecting this stuff. The elevator inspector and boiler inspector that make up the team of tramway inspectors are in my mind not quite getting it done.
 
SIKSKIER

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festus said:
Closing t-line is 100% reactive. We crashed lets make sure the other stuff is ok. Nothing proactive there.
Some technical info on the defective switch. SL is not being 100% truthful on how it works. It is called an underspeed switch. It is a wheel that rides on the bullwheel, when the bull wheel slows down to a set speed (the switch is adjustable) a signal is sent to drop the roll back dogs. Borvig says the switch should be set at half of design speed. So what this means is the dogs drop before the lift is stopped. And yes it will lift the dogs in reverse when the bullwheel hits the preset speed. Now code says that roll back devices must activate with in 36 inches of reverse rotation. The back stops on borvigs are about 30 inches apart. You would have to have serious hyper drive type acceleration to reach even 40%speed with in 36 inches. The switch is still available and recommended by the manufacturer because it works. Now lets talk e-brake or bull wheel brake. Code says the bull wheel brake must stop the lift in less than 3 feet. This is tested during load tests. 450feet is a bit out of the acceptable range.

Just felt the need to put out some tech stuff. I am angry as are a lot of people in the industry that SL is blaming Borvig. That particular switch may have been broken but it is not a design fault.

One last thing, Where is the state of Maine. 2 accidents in four years. Why are they not inspecting this stuff. The elevator inspector and boiler inspector that make up the team of tramway inspectors are in my mind not quite getting it done.
Click to expand...

What?Proactive is pulling the T-line gearbox apart when it was scheduled for the end of the year.Proactive is finding the worn driveshaft and instead of shutting the T-line or KP lifts down for the remainder of the season and do the work then,getting the parts and turning those lifts this season.Proactive is running a cat shuttle to the top while this work is being done.And why is the state not inspecting this "stuff"?They were all inspected every year and the KP had a vibration test done the week before.The switch may be a different matter but not sure what your talking with reguard to you other 2 points.
 
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festus

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SIKSKIER said:
What?Proactive is pulling the T-line gearbox apart when it was scheduled for the end of the year.Proactive is finding the worn driveshaft and instead of shutting the T-line or KP lifts down for the remainder of the season and do the work then,getting the parts and turning those lifts this season.Proactive is running a cat shuttle to the top while this work is being done.And why is the state not inspecting this "stuff"?They were all inspected every year and the KP had a vibration test done the week before.The switch may be a different matter but not sure what your talking with reguard to you other 2 points.
Click to expand...

We can play semantics. They did close tline early, they did open the box before this summer that is proactive. They did it however because they nearly killed over 100 people on the KP lift. That is a reaction. The snow cat is a reaction to the box in tline being bad. And so you know the state inspectors did not have their names on the preseason inspection. That inspection is done by the insurance company with outside contractors (who are qualified.) But the state inspectors or any person from the elevator and tramway authority are not required to be there. The issues with King Pine and the issues on Spillway where big issues that the state authorities where totally unaware of. That is lack of oversight.
I am not trying to pick fights here, I was just trying to point out that SugarLoafs story does not add up and they are throwing the parts manufacturer under the bus to save face. This has negative repercussions for the entire industry and should be done with careful consideration.
 
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doublediamond

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I'm gonna guess you work for Partek.

Testing of the electronics indicated a part didn't function properly. They looked into it and found out it was original, so a design flaw. The state pretty much even said so. VT Passenger Tramway Division inspected the three Borvigs in VT. Guess what... one failed for the same reason (Suicide Six)! How hard is that to understand? Borvig effed up years ago. End of story.

Now the cause of the whole shindig was the drive shaft snapped. So they proactively inspected the other lift of the exact same model and year. And found there was an issue with it as well. The shut 'er down to fix it. End of story.
 
Sotto

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doublediamond said:
I'm gonna guess you work for Partek.

Testing of the electronics indicated a part didn't function properly. They looked into it and found out it was original, so a design flaw. The state pretty much even said so. VT Passenger Tramway Division inspected the three Borvigs in VT. Guess what... one failed for the same reason (Suicide Six)! How hard is that to understand? Borvig effed up years ago. End of story.

Now the cause of the whole shindig was the drive shaft snapped. So they proactively inspected the other lift of the exact same model and year. And found there was an issue with it as well. The shut 'er down to fix it. End of story.
Click to expand...

Get your facts right! As designed the underspeed switch works when maintained properly, key word being maintained! The lift at Suicide Six didn't fail anything, it never had an underspeed switch installed(lift predates B77.1 recommendations). Borvig didn't eff anything up, once the full report comes out you will see. As of now we only have one side of the story and that's from SL.
 
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Jully

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festus said:
We can play semantics. They did close tline early, they did open the box before this summer that is proactive. They did it however because they nearly killed over 100 people on the KP lift. That is a reaction. The snow cat is a reaction to the box in tline being bad.
I am not trying to pick fights here, I was just trying to point out that SugarLoafs story does not add up and they are throwing the parts manufacturer under the bus to save face. This has negative repercussions for the entire industry and should be done with careful consideration.
Click to expand...

Yes they are reacting to the King Pine incident, but it's not fair to blame them as being reactionary with Timberline shutting down. Inspecting another potential problem lift with just a few weeks left in the season is proactive in my book.

A reactive response would have been to run Timberline, then when that lift fails follow the same procedure as they are following with King Pine. Acting in a reactionary way I've always taken to be not learning anything from your mistakes and essentially treat each mechanical malfunctions as isolated, and not put 2 and 2 together and realize timberline might have the exact same issue. They could have easily come up with a BS reason as to why Timberline is different from king pine, as was mentioned earlier in this thread actually, but instead they bit the bullet and pulled it apart. That gets some praise in my book.

Obviously this situation is horrible and yes we only have 1 side of the story, but Sugarloaf, in my opinion, is handling the situation post accident as best as they could. Yeah it sucks, and I've always assumed they are at fault more than the they are admitting, but they've saved a lot of face in my mind through their communication and post accident responses.
 
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