Lift tower collapses in NZ

K.C.Deane

K.C.Deane

Active member
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During early afternoon on Tuesday 15 June staff deicing and checking the High Noon Express at Turoa discovered tower 9 has been damaged as illustrated in the attached photos (which were taken on the 16th). The line had been checked and deiced the day before. Preliminary assessment is the tower has sustained significant shock load from natural release of cable ice and this is not due to any design or structural defect in the lift.

Yesterday we had a clearance in the weather and have been able to commence removal of all damaged components and expect to have this complete by the weekend.

Doppelmayr are fast tracking delivery of all necessary plans and specifications that may be required to achieve reconstruction of a new tower. We have engaged a NZ engineering workshop to undertake this work. Current expectations are this will take up to two weeks from when the damaged components are delivered to their workshop.

From the preliminary assessment completed to date our best estimate is the lift will be out of action for 3 – 4 weeks.

 
Yeah I would imagine all they have to do is unbolt the tower and put a new one in. Easier said than done I would imagine. Pretty crazy to see a lift tower like that.
 
yeah thats why I said easier said than done. And I dont think taking the chairs off would have helped. Although the chairs being iced up added extra weight , in the description is said that the ice melted off of one side, leaving the other side loaded with ice which pulled it over.
So maybe have the chairs and cable deiced could have helped.
 
scary shit... but funny that rime like that collapsed it, at mt bachelor, rime gets so gnarly, so much worse than that
 
...not to mention what do they do with the cable. I'm wondering how they get the cable back up once the tower is replaced. Sounds like a tough job made more difficult by the conditions.
 
oh boy...

ANYWAY, i'm just super impressed they're going to make all the repairs as quickly as possible... something tells me it's not going to be the easiest job in the world fixing that shit in all that snow.
 
shouldnt be too bad, its basically fixing a dual side derail while adding a new tower, i think removing the old tower will be hardest to not damage the rope. still crazy that all the ice crippled the tower like that.
 
Heard someone say that as it ices so badly at Ruapehu, the line can still freeze in crawl mode. I geuss they'd need to have someone up there through the night also. But yeah its a bummer for sure considering its like the central lift . I imagine they're doing absolutely everything to get it running for the school holidays in a couple of weeks .
 
Shit thats crazy. I'd expect it would be expensive to run the lifts through the night though...
 
Yo, Im heading there in like three weeks (opening weekend is in two weekends), lift is two years old and is BIG news for turoa.. its our first Ultra speed, padded seats and Foot rests Chairlift... BIG DEAL!.. sucks for Ruapehu cause last year on the other side of the mountain, (different resort, Whakapapa, there cafe got burnt by an arson.)
 
yeah well it is on a volcano thats still alive and did partially erupt bout two years ago so volcanic activity could have possibly effected it as well
 
I think they're got pretty unique conditions up there that results in more ice than would usually be expected.

It's gonna stuff up their season, no doubt about it. I mean the lead time on a lift tower must be a month or two unless they can supply plans and have it built locally. Even then it'd be a good month to fix probably
 
Well it's winter there now, so prob not. If you're going to Ruapehu, then yes, i guess it could prob effect you, but seeing that there is alot of resorts in NZ, especially ones that are more freestyle oriented, you could prob just go to one of them.
 
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