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carsey


Posts: 400
Joined: Jan 2016
Last Visited: 17:11
22nd Apr 2021
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 22.08hrs on Mon 1 Oct 18
jelly2 Wrote:
Not a great financial position to have to absorb extra costs either:






Edited 2 times. Last edit at 20.33hrs Mon 1 Oct 18 by jelly2.


There was plenty of snow in the west in the 2017 season? Was it really that bad in 2017 for the east or are they getting confused with the 2016 wash-out?

TroutWrestler


Posts: 162
Joined: Jan 2006
Last Visited: 18:01
16th Feb 2021
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 23.21hrs on Mon 1 Oct 18
Are my season passes worth the Rfid card they're printed on? My 5yo and 7yo can't walk up to the Ptarmigan basin if there is no low-level snow.

flugeryl


Posts: 2307
Joined: Oct 2004
Last Visited: 12:40
11th Mar 2021
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Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 10.55hrs on Tue 2 Oct 18
1. Very bad news
2. Opportunity for other resorts
3. Ski Tourers will have an awesome time
4. By the law of sod...there will be huge amounts of snow this season

Be Nice to Skiers, they have it hard enough already

mtq1000


Posts: 596
Joined: Oct 2008
Last Visited: 18:19
15th Apr 2021
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Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 13.30hrs on Tue 2 Oct 18
Sod 'em. They have ruined Cairngorm over so many years and finally maybe some of these particular chickens are coming home to roost.

Doesn't bother me as I have maintained a no payed uplift approach to Cairngorm for some years now and will continue to observe it until significant change occurs.

oldagedpredator


Posts: 635
Joined: Mar 2006
Last Visited: 18:17
19th Feb 2021
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 20.18hrs on Tue 2 Oct 18
You do have to wonder why - if the issue was known before the chairs were stripped out it still went ahead. My money is on either going to be a bargain basement liquidation or super duper gondola and mountain strip out solution.

Hipennine


Posts: 1061
Joined: Dec 2005
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 07.46hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
Much talk about the "economic impact on the operator" by HIE - to be hoped this isnt the softening up for a massive public bail-out of Natural Retreats. Irrespective of the funicular problems, the balance sheet surely isn't strong enough to sustain the financial position?

Beastie


Posts: 128
Joined: Dec 2013
Last Visited: 09:19
17th May 2020
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 08.06hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
oldagedpredator Wrote:
You do have to wonder why - if the issue was known before the chairs were stripped out it still went ahead. My money is on either going to be a bargain basement liquidation or super duper gondola and mountain strip out solution.


Working where I work I suspect there will be a chairs team and a funicular team with different management chains who don't speak to each other.

jabuzzard


Posts: 885
Joined: Jan 2010
Last Visited: 11:02
16th Apr 2021
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 11.25hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
oldagedpredator Wrote:
You do have to wonder why - if the issue was known before the chairs were stripped out it still went ahead. My money is on either going to be a bargain basement liquidation or super duper gondola and mountain strip out solution.


Yes if you read Alan's report gained via a FOI request the problem has been on the radar since 2016, and the chairs where stripped out in haste in 2017.

jabuzzard


Posts: 885
Joined: Jan 2010
Last Visited: 11:02
16th Apr 2021
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 11.29hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
TroutWrestler Wrote:
Are my season passes worth the Rfid card they're printed on? My 5yo and 7yo can't walk up to the Ptarmigan basin if there is no low-level snow.


I would guess that if the funicular does not run due to being busted and the report that Alan got via a FOI request shows that they knew this before selling you a pass for this season, then you where miss-sold and could demand your money back. That is because they where aware of the issue as far back as 2016, they cannot claim it was unexpected.

However you are going to have to wait till the season is at least started before asking for a refund as they may well be able to fix it before the season starts. In fact one desperately hopes they can otherwise the fall out is going to be devastating for the local economy.

awrightski


Posts: 158
Joined: Jan 2016
Last Visited: 10:02
2nd Dec 2020
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 11.33hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
If that is the case it would appear Ooops1 and Cairngorm Mountain LTD are blatantly lying to their customers (*ex-customers) on their Facebook page stating the problem has only come to light "in the last few weeks".



Doug_Bryce


Posts: 1373
Joined: Jan 2003
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 12.42hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
Interesting read on the excellent parkwatch Scotland blog. Even without the impending broken funicular crisis it seems that Cairngorm is in serious danger of going bankrupt...

[parkswatchscotland.co.uk]


The obvious risk here is more public money being spent after bad. The funding of Scottish ski industry by HIE over past 20 years needs immediate investigation by Scottish government. Some £25-30 million has been poured into Cairngorm since 2001. Arguably that has been 'anti-funding' from a snowsport perspective : it has changed Cairngorm from a ski resort to train-set plus expensive summit cafe.

Neither local area, nor Scottish ski industry, has benefited from public money being spent in this way.


SnowmanDave


Posts: 186
Joined: Dec 2013
Last Visited: 12:36
3rd Mar 2021
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 15.33hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
A few points:-

In buildings you have to have vertical expansion joints every 6m on external walls.....those concrete beams are over 6m pier to pier..so WHF did they insitu cast solid around the joint/gap between the two pre-cast units???

I know they pre-cast the beams with an angle & not a straight vertical end so to be able to fit the beams at differing slopes, but why did they not then place a 12mm vertical divider in the formwork to totally separate the two beams...so after insitu casting the beam "infill" they are then left with a 12mm gap between the now completed beam units..this to be filled with a suitable expansion joint sealant.

That would have stopped any cracking due to expansion /contraction due to weather..also acts a vibration stop due to moving loads...as is pointed out in the report they saw the cracks expand by 1mm visibly when a train passed over it..


PS I am a qualified architectural technologist...


Re Natural Retreats ...I stated in a thread way back when they took over...that they are a rip of company with a very tangled web of sub companies, ownerships, shareholders etc..& would most probably asset strip CGM to pay for other stuff...looks like Parkwatch have found the info out on that...


HIE...can't organise the proverbial in a brewery....but show them a fancy powerpoint presentation & speak middle management BS & they will throw money at you...& yes I have had dealings with them in the past & have been to their small business meetings....biggest load of USA type BS you ever heard...

---That was not a fall, I intended to do that!---

alan


Posts: 10768
Joined: Nov 1994
Last Visited: 17:02
27th Mar 2024
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Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 16.28hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
The track is built in sections varying around 300m in length with the beams sitting on bearings that allow expansion / dynamic movement. Each section is buttressed by a thrust block which resists the downwards pull of gravity on the superstructure supporting the track. Expansion joints in the track are situated on some of these.

Been send a photo that suggests there is a problem in places where rather than track having moved, the support piers are either slipping or they are being pushed down slope by the force of mass movement of the snowpack and/or ground with an effect they are being tipped up slope (base moving down and out tilting pier head towards ground on uphill side). Such an effect would effectively reduce their height which could be contributing to ‘excessive deflections’ in the beams.






Edited 2 times. Last edit at 19.16hrs Sat 2 Dec 23 by winterhighland.

Attachments: 3CFE49AB-26F5-41D9-9240-339E6F9E67E5.jpeg (126kB)  
moffatross


Posts: 1525
Joined: Mar 2006
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 16.39hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
Doug_Bryce Wrote:
Neither local area, nor Scottish ski industry, has benefited from public money being spent in this way.

If say Moffat (about the same sized town as Aviemore) had had £2M per year spent to prop up a year-round visitor attraction in the hills above town, it'd help combat the local gloom that occurs as the tourists leave in the first week of September and don't return until April. And if you don't drive here, you haven't got many other work options than seasonal hospitality jobs because we're in the middle of the longest gap between railway stations in Scotland, the 55 mile stopless stretch between Lockerbie and Lanark and have shite bus services to boot.

So while the HIE money wasn't well spent, the local area to Cairngorm will have had significant benefit from nearly £2M per year being spent there in year-round jobs because its tourism has been propped up with public money. Aviemore itself reminds me of a wee Aberdeen in that it doesn't really know how good it had it until it stops having it. The community really need to wake up and fight now, else they'll end up poorer just like the rest of us in rural Scotland.

SnowmanDave


Posts: 186
Joined: Dec 2013
Last Visited: 12:36
3rd Mar 2021
Re: CairnGorm Funicular - Operation stopped as safety precaution
Date Posted: 17.35hrs on Wed 3 Oct 18
alan Wrote:
The track is built in sections varying around 300m in length with the beams sitting on bearings that allow expansion / dynamic movement. Each section is buttressed by a thrust block which resists the downwards pull of gravity on the superstructure supporting the track. Expansion joints in the track are situated on some of these.




Not talking about the beam to pier expansion...I'm talking about the beam expansion along its length...& by joining the pre-cast beams together by casting insitu at the sections/joints between each pre-cast beam section they are making the effective total length of the beams much greater by adding the precast sections together with insitu cast infill

Thus you have forces of expansion & load deflection from the pre-cast section interacting with the insitu cast section which has a different set of forces....thus the weak point is the cast joint....& here you get failure...

They should have cast with vertical expansion joints at every section thus every pier to pier section can move differently to the next one...to accommodate ground heave due to frost etc. & also the train loads as the angle of the train on each section causes different loading as it passes over each section...think of the flat sections where the weight is more distributed between the two piers...then the steeper sections where the downhill pier will always carry more weight...

Basic structural & foundation/load design..

...& I have noticed these joints when I have been ski-ing & have wondered at their suitability before...

PPS...as this work to fix is not accounted for in costings as too young in the life span...I bet NR will want nothing to do with it as this is design failure from the start when HIE contracted it...therefore HIE problem..I hope NR want "out"...

---That was not a fall, I intended to do that!---



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 17.45hrs Wed 3 Oct 18 by SnowmanDave.

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