The NEW Magic Mountain

[Newpylong]

I didn't see it moving much today when I checked so yeah my guess is they havent finished the list yet and weren't able to run it all day as planned.

 

[hughconway]

I didn't see it moving much today when I checked so yeah my guess is they havent finished the list yet and weren't able to run it all day as planned.

Odd. It's almost like they need something that is not yet in hand to get the lift open.

 

[ne_skier]

So long as it’s spinning for Saturday it doesn’t make a huge difference for me. Don’t think Black was going to be running weekdays anyways. Still given the precedent I’ll be biting my nails till the first chair goes up.

 

[JoeB-Z]

Odd. It's almost like they need something that is not yet in hand to get the lift open.

"Nabob of negativity" Spiro Agnew.

 

[Keelhauled]

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go past" - Douglas Adams Magic Mountain.

 

[slatham]

Where do you see that ? On snow report at https://magicmtn.com/snow-report/ I see “Black Line Quad needs a little more time with punch list so we expect it this week, after Monday. It needs some run time.”

Snow report early Sunday morning. Apparently before the reporter had his/her coffee and realized the reality of the situation…….

 

[MidnightJester]

Snow report early Sunday morning. Apparently before the reporter had his/her coffee and realized the reality of the situation…….

Odd. It's almost like they need something that is not yet in hand to get the lift open.

So was wondering ??
What is the true history of this lift now??
What parts are new?
It was a dual company manufacturing and originally then moved mountains? Installed and Refurbished by one company only now. Heard someone mention a Alpha generation lift?
What kind of redundant parts are around for the next 20 years plus?

 

[doublediamond]

The lift came from Stratton, an 1986 install. Alpha is not a generation, it’s a model. The Alpha model has been around for decades (1983 or earlier to present) with upgrades along the way. IIRC the last new Leitner Poma Alpha fixed trip in New England was installed in 2019 (Killington’s North Ridge). Alpha fixed grip lifts are still made though many customers are opting for the cheaper Skytrac fixed grip lifts which is a brand fully owned by Leitner Poma

The only problem is that Leitner Poma doesn’t service parts for their older lifts like Doppelmayr does with all the brands they’ve absorbed over the years. So when Magic built the new Black they quicly found out there was engineering/construction issues which necessitated requiring no longer in production combination sheave train designs. The robe was coming off sheaves due to too light of load on some towers. Magic had to get someone to custom fabricate the necessary assemblies (read mucho $$$) as they couldn’t find any in bone yards around the country. 1986 sheaves and sheave trains are not compatible with modern sheaves and sheave trains despite the lift model is still in production.

Then Magic “found out” that the haul rope had to be replaced despite that they already had one ordered and on site (a year long process to custom make these). Stratton probably timed the replacement of Snow Bowl Quad due to the need to replace the haul rope.

The only other weird issue is that for some reason Magic decided to wait install the brittle bars (sensors that trip the safety circuit if the rope comes off the sheaves) until after the necessary sheave train assemblies were replaced which meant doing it this winter rather than while they were waiting on the sourcing of the replacement parts. That was a dumb move but they may have not had the $ to get it done earlier. After all there was a lot of finger pointing between Magic and their contractor and several instances of contractor-initiated work stoppages (which usually mean they’re waiting for more money from Magic).

Allegedly some part broke and a second-hand one is being sourced now.

 

[doublediamond]

And to add on one more thing…

I highly doubt the issues with the lift are really enginnering. Large scale ropeways have been built for over 130 years and for skiing for over 90. It’s fairly easy (for an engineer who does this kind of work) to calculate dynamic and static loadings along the rope in order to calculate placement of towers and numbers of sheaves. Yes Magic was shoehorning in a used lift onto a more complex alignment. And yes there’s not many ropeway engineering firms. But the one used by Magic is reputable and does a lot of lift re-installs.

I would put my money on an issue from construction: 1 or more tower foundations in wrong location and/or at wrong elevation or wrong angle; or 1 or more towers were constructed with the wrong length tube (like Tower 13 is supposed to be 30’ and Tower 14 is supposed to be 35’ and they were swapped by accident).

 

[JoeB-Z]

Black post inspection punch list complete and running at full speed at 5pm. More run in tomorrow.

 

[Newpylong]

Wonder if we'll ever know. We had the same issue with the same engineering firm on a reinstall. They tried to make the profile work with the number of towers we had even though it should have used 1 more. The end results was tons of deropements until a breakover train was turned into a compression train. The lift no longer derails at that location but it does in a different location because the tower was not set properly.

 

[ne_skier]

Sun has set and Black still running at design speed on webcam. Looks like they used the lift to carry down the remaining empty load test barrels that were sitting by the unload area.

 

[IceEidolon]

I don't see a way they reasonably could mitigate the pond issues that stopped early season snowmaking this year. "Build a second dam, one that isn't in the path of runoff" is a tall order. So would adding even a relatively small well to directly feed the pumps.

As for pump room GPM, that isn't where I would put money this year - at least not as a first priority. I'd finish a summit connection (so you can feed water up either East or West 400 line to the summit) and a pump room cross feed so the 300 and 400 pumps could be each other's backups and also feed e.g. Lower Carpet at 1000 gpm instead of just what the 400 pump can do.

The tradeoff is to get a permanent HKD tower on, say, every other or every third hydrant from Sunshine Corner down to Showoff. Maybe a couple of SV14 on the learning area, or another couple Impulses on Talisman too. Ideally there'd be at least a handful of towers on all the wide sections of Lower Carpet, and then you really are looking at more pump capacity once you can actually start 40 Impulses at once between portables and fixed towers. Exactly which spots get guns depends on priorities and budget but I think I said the obvious ones. Heck, there's some used Rubis sticks for pretty cheap if you want to buy someone else's problem - 17 guns gets you 12 on Lower Carpet, 3 on Vertigo, and two for the learning center.

But 800-1000 GPM on certain trails is achievable with 20' of pipe and a couple new valves in the pump room, not $100k+ of new hardware.

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled drama.

 

[jimmywilson69]

So is the thinking that black would only run on weekends? Isn't this a newer lift? I would think black becomes the every day workhorse and red is the capacity backup, right?

 

[Smellytele]

So is the thinking that black would only run on weekends? Isn't this a newer lift? I would think black becomes the every day workhorse and red is the capacity backup, right?

Red is in a better location than Black when coming from the east side. West to red is easier than east to black.

 

[Newpylong]

I don't see a way they reasonably could mitigate the pond issues that stopped early season snowmaking this year. "Build a second dam, one that isn't in the path of runoff" is a tall order. So would adding even a relatively small well to directly feed the pumps.

As for pump room GPM, that isn't where I would put money this year - at least not as a first priority. I'd finish a summit connection (so you can feed water up either East or West 400 line to the summit) and a pump room cross feed so the 300 and 400 pumps could be each other's backups and also feed e.g. Lower Carpet at 1000 gpm instead of just what the 400 pump can do.

The tradeoff is to get a permanent HKD tower on, say, every other or every third hydrant from Sunshine Corner down to Showoff. Maybe a couple of SV14 on the learning area, or another couple Impulses on Talisman too. Ideally there'd be at least a handful of towers on all the wide sections of Lower Carpet, and then you really are looking at more pump capacity once you can actually start 40 Impulses at once between portables and fixed towers. Exactly which spots get guns depends on priorities and budget but I think I said the obvious ones. Heck, there's some used Rubis sticks for pretty cheap if you want to buy someone else's problem - 17 guns gets you 12 on Lower Carpet, 3 on Vertigo, and two for the learning center.

But 800-1000 GPM on certain trails is achievable with 20' of pipe and a couple new valves in the pump room, not $100k+ of new hardware.

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled drama.

I like this thought process and I have been advocating for the common manifold (or a simple cross feed if no pump changes are made to start). The caveat with the dissimilar pumps on the same feed is they'll have different curves, so depending on where they are making snow one could be working against the other. IE, they wouldn't want to approach the top of the designed TDH of the small pump even if the flow numbers still look good due to having the 400 also operational. Without knowing what the TDH of either are, that's an operational move only they can make. Maybe the 300 would still be effective up to the top of Green. But as you said, at minimum that gives them both pumps available on the 300 line which is a huge difference.

 

[letitsnow1]

with the amount of people that show up on weekdays a quad is completely unnecessary. It's gotta be cheaper to run red

 

[ne_skier]

Red is in a better location than Black when coming from the east side. West to red is easier than east to black.

Was going to say this. Plan was always to have just Red spinning on weekdays and early/late season weekends when the capacity of two lifts isn’t needed as per the original press release. Due to the situation you stated I think Red taking priority would make sense here, but on the peak weekends that are up for debate on lift priority, I think it’s likely now that you’ll see both lifts spinning anyways.

 

[letitsnow1]

From today's snow report

Black Line Quad's punch list is complete and now getting some much needed non-passenger runtime at full-speed. Watch for a potential opening to skiers and riders at anytime.

 

[MG Skier]

I’m on red now. I’ll let ya know.