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The Future of Skyride
- Thread starter DistortAMG
- Start date
DistortAMG
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- POTC Disneyland Paris
Based on experience in the construction industry.
I don't think you've been involved in many construction projects in this country based on your comment.
Sure it is technically possible at a huge rush, huge cost and cutting corners (China would have no issues in that time frame). But it's not possible not in this country with all the legislation and red rape and commissioning. Completely unfeasible.
venny
TS Member
I spent six years building one of the largest single university buildings in Europe. But, yeah, what would I know about the construction industry…
New chairlifts are routinely constructed over short periods across Europe every year. Their logistics are regularly more complex than the site at Towers, atop mountains with more limited access, steeper inclines, without existing infrastructure in place and over lengths far exceeding that of the Skyride.
Spare us the armchair analysis and red tape cliches. It’s a poor attempt to excuse Merlin’s decision to deliver this project at lower cost, at the obvious expense of it taking far longer.
New chairlifts are routinely constructed over short periods across Europe every year. Their logistics are regularly more complex than the site at Towers, atop mountains with more limited access, steeper inclines, without existing infrastructure in place and over lengths far exceeding that of the Skyride.
Spare us the armchair analysis and red tape cliches. It’s a poor attempt to excuse Merlin’s decision to deliver this project at lower cost, at the obvious expense of it taking far longer.
Dave
TS Founding Member
What exclusion would you apply when for quite significant parts of the route the Skyride goes over park areas (Mutiny Bay and Dark Forest)?
I know you are wedded to the cost cutting idea, it doesn’t matter that the evidence doesn’t back that up and that people with connections to the park have said that’s not the case. You are clearly
not going to change your mind.
Yeah that’s why it’s still poor but saying it’s due to cost cutting has no evidence to back it up. If you want to come on here and sing the “Merlin neglected Towers for 15 years” song then I will happily join the choir.
The enviroments I have worked in if anything is happening at height everyone needs to wear hard hats and an exclusion zone is set up, a screwdriver falling from a height can do really bad injury, but to set up an exclusion zone under the entire cable to do work would be mental, you couldn't get to mutiny bay, you couldn't get to rita/13 (differnt cables i know) as such I imagine they are manipulating and working with the cable over night and doing the work required, I have not seen anyone phisically working on the towers but each time I go I see differnt towers in the middle of being worked on so it looks like they are doing work over night.
also it is important to remember that they may be doing other work on the parts, from what I have seen they remove the wheels, and the whel supports, maybe the problem required the wheel support to be rewelded or something so that has to be sent of or worked on, thus meaning the tower is left like that for the duration
also it is important to remember that they may be doing other work on the parts, from what I have seen they remove the wheels, and the whel supports, maybe the problem required the wheel support to be rewelded or something so that has to be sent of or worked on, thus meaning the tower is left like that for the duration
venny
TS Member
You’d use an exclusion zone around the area you’re working on. Why there’s some assumption that you’d work on the whole thing at once, I don’t know. One would assume that you could tackle a couple of the stanchions at a time. An exclusion zone around most of those wouldn’t be a big deal. Fairly easily implemented with tethered tools as you’d expect from most working at height.
If they wanted to fix the cable, that could be done relatively quickly by just pulling a new one through.
I’m basing my conclusions on what we know about the situation, but if there’s evidence to show that Merlin are throwing money at the project and it’s impossible to complete it quicker, please share it with us. I’m not aware of it, but happy to change my opinion if there is evidence to show otherwise.
The work requires them to remove the cable from a tower, this could go bad for example if the cable slips off another tower, crashing it to the ground thus they would have to put an exclusion zone arround the cable as they were taking it off a tower. and even between towers, there is a large distance, if it is between the garden ones you would have to exclude a large part of the garden.
it is important to remember that the cable can probably be off of only a few towers at once so they have to take it off that one, remove the wheels and support, work on them then rebuild it, then move to the next tower, how long dose each of those steps take? it may be the removing the cable and putting it back on may only be a small amount of the time but the work taking place can only be on a few parts at once, if the work takes a while it may make little differnce if the cable is replaced over night or not, we really don't know much info
they remove the cable from a tower from the looks of things to remove the wheels, for instance with some stations they had ratchets to pull the cable down to remove it from those wheels.
I don't know how you would do it otherwise unless if you remove the entire cable.
here is a picture from a while ago of the tower next to the wickerman with no wheels, or wheel supports attached:
DistortAMG
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- POTC Disneyland Paris
Would you care to provide an example of one that has been built, tested and commissioned in just over 5 months......I'll wait.
Spare me the armchair assumptions that this can be done safely in that time frame.
DistortAMG
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- POTC Disneyland Paris
I agree it's been closed longer but the point is not moot.
The argument was put forward earlier on that a brand new system could be built and ready in the closed season, therefore they are being lazy. A point I strongly dispute.
The lazy part not so much, there is no doubt that probably plays a part to why we are here today. But the other point, not a chance.
Steve74
TS Member
They need to do something with capacity though on busy days...joining at Forbidden Valley to go to Dark Forest always has a large, slow moving queue and puts me off using it to such a degree that I decide to walk through the gardens! I think the problem is that you can quite often have 1 or more gondolas pass through the station because people aren't getting off. So maybe they should introduce (or enforce if it is already in place) a rule that means joining guests at FV will fill up gondolas where they can. Or maybe, every 2nd or 3rd gondola that leaves Towers Street should be empty letting guests fill it at Forbidden Valley.
I am not sure,
they have done up the station, so if they had some sort of renovation budget they could, but new cars shouldn't require that long down time, most the time will be unloading/loading the cars and testing as they already come off the rope into a storage shed, so it isn't like there any gain in doing it now rarther than a few years (aside from benifits tied to new station etc). They could renovate the current cars during this down time, as that would take some time.
They need to scrap the current queuing arrangement for it.
Its farcical. The idea someone “can’t” wait 30 seconds for a cable car I really struggle with, obviously ambulant access is another issue
Dave
TS Founding Member
The cars are ok as they were replaced in 2009 so 15 years old. The previous gondolas where 22 years old before they where replaced. Plus the existing gondolas are still supported by Poma.
jon81uk
TS Member
But that assumes they got the old stanchions out during the previous closed season. Whereas everything appears like they had planned to open the ride this year but it was just before opening they found further issues.