 Poster: A snowHead
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It seems somewhat nonesensical to be removing sheaves, if some new foundations are required...should not the foundations have been completed in summer time?
I'm guessing there will be no chairlift for this season...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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OK quite the thread bump, over a decade since the last post!
So here we are again with the Cairn Gorm Funicular out of service for structural safety concerns after just 7 months of operation after £25.6million was spent on repairing it. It is unclear if we are talking a closure measured in a week or two (tickets were on sale from tomorrow at the start of the week but that has no been put back to 9th Sept), months, years (again) or permanently.
Rumours are circulating that since the initial design concept for the repairs were put together that the concrete beams (which were supposed to be steel in the original design) have in almost 5 years since the October 2018 shutdown already deteriorated sufficiently further that the strapping applied to the beams as part of the repairs are no longer adequate mitigation against the loss of strength in the beams.
A photo on a post on Parks Watch Scotland shows the condition of the concrete beams! 
https://parkswatchscotland.co.uk/2023/03/06/is-the-funicular-at-cairn-gorm-safe/
Which brings me to why this thread was bumped, 11 years after the last post and 18 years after the original post.
As readers familiar with the unfolding Cairngorm debacle since the start of this thread, the Coire na Ciste and West Wall Chairlifts were ripped down in late summer 2017 in a rush - when HIE already knew the funicular was in serious difficulty. Just under a year later the funicular was placed under 'reduced operating parameters', which had a minimum operating temperature 4c and a maximum cross wind of 30mph. This carried through September into October with the funicular only operating on limited days, before the plug was pulled with a full shutdown in October 2018.
HIE new what was coming, hence the sudden activity to smash up the Ciste Chairlifts in late August / early September 2017. Removing the chairlifts enabled HIE to present fixing the funicular as a fait accompli. Any rational commercial operation would have brought the chairlifts back in to service so there was a backup when the inevitable happened to the funicular. It does not mean HIE acted irrationally, but they acted purely out of institutional self interest.
As for the post that started this thread, 18 years on from CML claiming that the chairlifts were obsolete, such that parts could not be sourced and it was not possible to maintain the chairlifts. GMD Mueller Chairlifts of the same design continue in service, indeed the Mount Perisher Double Chair in Australia opened 6 months prior to the White Lady Chairlift, and is in its 63 season operation. We're not talking a single lift up a field type operation here, but Australia's biggest ski area owned by Vail Resorts.
It used to be different day different story with CML. Now its a different decade, same bullshite with HIE.
It is imperative that if there is to be a future for snowsports on Cairn Gorm that HIE is removed from the picture. A straight transfer of the Cairngorm Estate to the Aviemore and Glenmore Community trust is not possible until the liabilities of funicular debacle are addressed, but an interim step of bringing the land under the management of Forest and Land Scotland, so the entire Glenmore Forest Park is under one body that is experienced in land management instead of a development quango is possible and should be done as a matter of urgency. The operating company should be handed over to either the community trust or former owner - Cairngorm Recreation Trust, with the same funding commitments has HIE had given to the operator under its ownership.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@haggishunter, totally agree. HIE need to be removed from the picture as you say. Their record over the funicular fiasco is an appalling one of mismanagement, and vandalism of the Ciste lift infrastructure driven by institutional self interest and self protection, as your post states.
The ones to suffer from HIE's mismanagement are, in no particular order, the taxpayers, the snowsports community and the local Aviemore businesses! 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Wow, to take what sounded like Scotland’s best ski resort, then spend all that money but actually make it worse than it was is no small achievement!
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