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7/29/2019 Spilling the Gears [PIQUE]
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60 | April 5, 2012 | www.piquenewsmagazine.com
STO
R
Y
60Feature
STO
R
Y
60Feature
In which our intrepid reporter tells all, going
behind-the-scenes of the Whistler Gondola to
explore its innards, revealing what is to come
for the workhorse, and what tales have been
spun both inside and out, from its lift lines to
its challenges.
I
ts mid-afternoon, and Im
rolling in to Olympic Station
on the Whistler Gondola.
A dreary sky looms above,
rain spattering the cabins
well worn, wrap-a round
windows. As the temperatures drop to a
hint below zero at the Olympic Stations
1,000 metres, the rain turns to slushy
snow. Its another late March winter storm,
and Im here to meet Wayne Wiltse, Lift
Maintenance Manager though I tend to
think of him as the chief engineer of this
hulking, mechanical beast of a people-
mover, occasionally throwing his arms up
in the air and shouting I just canna make
it go any faster, Capn!
Stepping out beyond the cabins
creaking doors, I do what Ive never done
in my 24 years of riding the gondie I
open the door of the sacred computer
room and poke my head in. Flashing
lights flicker across the glass-doored
computer cabinet. An alarm sounds.
The phone rings, and a blue-jacketed
liftie looks up. An inquiry or two to
the disheveled Ozzie team reveals that
nobody knows who Wayne is. After
assuring one and all of my Press status, I
am led to a staff room tucked in behind
the pop machines yet another secret
space I had no idea existed and wait.
Wearing a black jacket of my own,
everyone eating lunch assumes I am an
off-duty engineer until I pull out the Nikon
DSLR camera and strap on the flash.
Hey mate, drawls the liftie across the
table from me. You work here right?
Not quite, I say. But Im in the right
place, here on a mission. He nods. I
could tell, he says. Youve got the racoon
eyes. I look at the lifties tag; hes from
a place called Walla Walla. You cant be
no tourist, he continues, gesturing at my
goggle tan. Indeed.
Flashing the Control Room
Within a few minutes, Wayne walks in, a
bearded, bear-like man who is everything
you imagine an engineer to be kind of
big, rough and tumble, fast on dispensing
as much wit as knowledge. Hes covered in
as much oil as clothing. I like him upon
first glance; I can tell hes going to show
me the goods.
With the brisk attitude of a man with
things to do, places to be, Wayne suggests
we start in the computer control room
that looks out onto the incoming cabins.
As we swing open the door, I immediately
pose the question. Can I take pictures
with the flash? I say. This is apparently
a serious matter, ever since Ive been a
grommer hauling little skinny skis, Ive
always wondered what would happen if
I popped a flash in the computer room.
Would the system go into shutdown, acidic
smoke drifting from the ancient circuit
boards?
Sure! says Wayne, of course!
But what about the sign? I ask,
gesturing to the etched letters displayed
prominently on the glass door. NO
CAMERA FLASHES, it reads.
TheWhistlerGondolaInsideandOut.Alookunder
thehoodoftheWhistlerGondolaaftermorethan56,000hoursofoperation.StoryandPhotosbytobias
c.vanVeen
SpillingtheGears
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Feature STORY
Oh, chuckles Wayne, who then
proceeds to explain to me that back in
1988, when the gondola was constructed
by POMA America, the engineer had
to burn an EEPROM memory board
with ultraviolet light (EEPROM, by the
way, stands for Electrically Erasable
Programmable Read-Only Memory, an
ancient technique for memory storage
used back in the 1980s, when cell phones
were hauled around in briefcases and skis
were as thin as your wrist). Apparently his
interdiction against camera flashes during
the construction phase became enshrined
in lore, and now remains etched into
history. So yah heres another whopper
to go along with Where do they keep the
moguls during the summer?: Why cant
you take pictures of the Gondie computers
with a flash? THEY WILL EXPLODE.
Lucky for those of us who ride the
line day-in and day-out, everything in the
computer control room has since been
changed; the safety control system was
upgraded in 1998. That said, many of the
flashing controls still look like they were
designed for a cameo in a Bond film
starring Sean Connery. We turn to the
long, desktop control system that faces the
incoming cars. Big blue, red, and green
buttons that look like they belong on the set
of the original Star Trek series are labelled
with big and serious capital letters. A
few dashboard mounted computer screens
show wind and temperature readings.
Smaller screens with green printout
letters blink information with old-school
severity. TRANSFER ANNUNCIATOR
says one. SEC 2 ANNUNCIATOR, says
another. Apparently this is a computer that
annunciates.
This computer screen is annunciation.
It tells you what is going on, says Wayne.
Synchronization is good. Master control
from this station is on. If theres a problem
with one of these gates, the computer will
annunciate the problem on this screen.
Fascinating. I raise a Spock-brow.
We go over the pane ls. Diffe rent
screens give wind speed at towers 13 and
20 (sorry, no tower 27 readings; check
your speed at lift-off) . I gesture at the
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main computer readout. On this screen
is your stop history and speed history,says Wayne. He checks the time on the
screen. The time is wrong, and hasnt
been corrected for daylight savings time,
perhaps since 1988. A bit of math and
we sort it out, scro lling throu gh the
self-checks and safety-checks that began
at 5:15a.m., with the lift running since
7a.m. without a stop its been a good
lift day, with low wind.
As for the glass computer cabinets ,
they now hold modern processor
boards, but
a million
wir es sti ll
c o n n e c t
everything together, revealing the legacy
technology that runs the beast. Waynepops the doors off to get me a better
look. Above the glass computer doors
are the infamous flashing lights, showing
the position of cabins on the line. Cabins
can be marked with the big blue button
as they leave the terminal; once tagged
they will set off that familiar alarm
bell as they enter the station (I am sure
many think what I did when first hearing
that disarming klaxon: whoops, almost
lost another one!). Usually this is done
to send up supplies such as flats of beer
and send down the composting. Its not a
smart system; the cabins arent geotagged
in any modern sense. Every morning the
lifties build a tracking list, noting the
position of each cabin on the line with agood ol notepad. Thats pen and paper
no slick iPads here.
If we have a storm cycle rolling
through, like tonight, says Wayne. Well
take cabins off. Theyll all be parked inside
here and downstairs. Then when they
input the cabins in the morning, theyll
record their number and where they are. So
if they want to find one, they can, but its
not easy. And they never do.
So dont go worrying now about your
cabin number for lost gloves, for chances
are they wont really know where the
cabin is anyway.If youve ever glanced up at the gears
and cogs of Olympic Station, youll notice
that the gondola is not one but two. Up
among the iron girders is a clinking chain
that pulls the cabins from the lower to
the upper line, transferring passengers
methodically from one bullwheel to the
next. With the gondola fully operational,
running from the village to the
Roundhouse, Olympic Stations computer
room is master control. Wayne gestures
at the two drive panels that control the
speed of the lines. Im tempted to crank
them up, but resist the urge; the bottom
line is already running at the maximum
speed of 5.5 metres per second, which is
achievable only when the wind is below39 km/h. I am curious as to the beasts
hypothetical limit, but figure now is not
the time to begin touching things, because
hey, Wayne is leading me outside, past the
DO NOT WALK BETWEEN CABINS sign,
to the ladder.
For the first time in my life, I walk
between the cabins. The ladder that leads
up above the cogs and gears to the gang
planks and fast spinning things and yellow
pipes and emergency stop-ropes.
Feature STORY
1. Wayne Wiltse, at command central.
2. The promised land (for engineers).
3. Fingering the Transfer Annunciator.
11
3
2
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Up Into theInnards
Its all mechanical,
says Wayne. Like, thespacing of the cabins,
and driving the cabins
through the stations.
We are standing below
the ladder, with cabins
passing by on either
side. He nods, and
heads on up. I swing
my camera over the
shoulder and follow,
gaining the metal-
meshed walkway some 20 feet up. Be
careful when were above the bullwheel,
he says, and dont pull that red rope.
The bullwheel weighs three tons. The
red rope, running at waist-height alongside
the walkway, stops the whole show.The hum and noise of the machine
is loud, but smooth. Wayne details the
deceleration process for me as the cabins
come up from the Village; the other side,
of course, does it all in reverse, with an
accelerator. The power is taken from the
bullwheel, through the drive shafts, to
the decelerator, says Wayne, gesturing
at the numerous spinning wheels and
clamps, which are at waist-height beside
me. We duck under two fast, spinning
pipes painted yellow. I clamp my toque on
tight. As the cabin comes in, the grip will
open, dropping it onto the carrier, running
the same speed as the haul rope. These tires
slow it down, matching the speed to the
chain. The result? A smooth transition,slowing the cabin down from the fast
bullwheel line to the meandering pace of
the station chain. A number of sensors
and switches ensure that everything is in
place; a metal rail, for example, ensures
that the grip is aligned properly. Everything
is mechanical; if something doesnt click
right, the whole system shuts down.
Dropping back down the ladder,
Wayne points out the massive hydraulics
that maintain constant tension to the lines,
4. Whistl ers lar gest untapp ed rave space.
5. Things to keep in mind.
6. The heart of the beast runs on a 1/4 drive belt.
7. In case of zombies, remove from wall.
8. Looking out at the storm.
4
8
5
6
7
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which allows the friction of the drivewheel
to operate efficiently. These hydraulic rams
accommodate the changing weight and
sag of the gondola especially noticeable
after sales on chicken wings and pasta in
the village.
Behind the Blue Door &Down into the Guts
An inauspicious blue door opens to reveal
metal stairs leading down into a huge,
cavernous parking garage, cluttered with
open-air work cars, ambulance cabins, and
ordered stacks of parts of every size and
description. Two-thirds of the gondies cars
can be stored down here. At two storeys
tall, its the biggest untapped rave space in
Whistler. Massive cement columns provide
the structural foundations of this echoing,
ideal dream-goth-dungeon supporting
arches originally built to hold a 10-storey
hotel on top.Huge sheave trains lie in neat rows,
ready to go for the spring shutdown and
rebuild. Wayne leads me past the stacks
of sheaves no, not the hand-fashioned
prisoner weapons of choice, but what you
and I would call the wheels that support
the gondola cable to a maintenance
bay in the back. Here, gondies as well as
quad chairs can be rolled in, hanging at
accessible heights for the repair crews.
Grips and hangers are repaired regularly,
with 25 per cent taken out of service and
tested using spray-on magnetic particle
that reveals wear and tear when shocked
with electrical current under ultraviolet
lights creating a psychedelic nightclub
atmosphere for the jumpsuit mechanics.Meanwhile, Stuck in the Middle with
You by Stealers Wheel plays on the stereo.
With a subtly-graffitied, 1970s-era Workers
Compensation Board poster on the cement
wall, the atmosphere is a bitReservoir Dogs.
Two mechanics yank away at a gondie
in the dock, fiddling with the door. I
realize that this location would provide a
trulyexcellentlocation for a Heavy Hitting
Films Horror Film Fest entrant. Just sayin.
(If youre around in the fall, do check
out Whistlers infamous festival of low-
budget, amateur horror filmmaking, held
on Halloween.)
In 2007, all the grips and hangers
were replaced during a $4 million, major
overhaul, which included the gearbox atG4, station rails, bullwheel bearings, and
rails. Last year, the gearbox at G2 was
replaced as well. If you think your car is
a burden, imagine how many bits and
pieces of the gondie require upgrading on a
regular basis; each repair is double-checked
and signed off by not one but two techs.
Wayne points out the parts charts on
the walls schematics detail each and
every part, with the appropriate numbers
for reorders. Specialist tools are neatly
kept in labelled places for some reason
I am immediately drawn to the heaviest,
most brainless implement of them all,
the orange Dead Blow Hammer, which,
as Wayne puts it, gives you a little bit of
jam when you need to wack something.A plastic hammer with a little lead shot in
it now this is the protagonists tool for
said-possible-horror-film-shoot.
Then we waltz into the motor room.
A massive spinning drive shaft leads
up from floor to ceiling. Backup electrical
drives and emergency motors sit like
lurking rhinos, colour-coded yellow, green,
and blue. A spinning disc is guarded by
metal grates; it spins at 1,600 rpm when
the gondie is running at full speed.
As Wayne points out to me, everything
Ive seen so far is entirely mechanical;
you can almost run it all with bailing
wire and duct-tape. Unlike the Peak 2
Peak, computerization is minimal, and
there is very little black-boxing of its coreoperations. Like an old car, you can get
under the hood and wack at it.
Midlife Cabin Crisis
Several upgrades are rolling out across
Whistler Blackcomb in the coming few
years including improvements to the
Whistler Gondola, possibly as early as
summer 2014, but more likely beginning
in 2015.
Its our primary
workhorse for Whistler
Blackcomb, and carries
more passengers than
any other lift in our
company, says DougForseth, Whistler
Blackcombs Senior
VP of Operations,
who has also ridden
the gondola several
thousand times in
uniform, jumpstarting
i n n u m e r a b l e
conversations during
the 15-minute ride.
It has done that in
its current state since
1988.
Though the gondie
was upgraded in
2007 with heavy-duty
components so that itscapacity is now greater
so it can haul more
ass, basically what
has not been done
yet is a new paint
job, says Doug. The
cabins are really the
next big thing.
So heres what
to expect. First, the
number of cabins will
probably increase from
156 to about 190. And
there will be new, walk-
in cabins, still with
skis on the inside
keeping it easy for liftiesdealing with twintips
and rockered planks
but with comfortable,
assigned seating for eight. Yes no longer
will the strange, oblong benches, too high
for some, too low for others, upend tourists
and locals alike. It will be much more like
the Excalibur gondola, notes Doug, and will
enhance carrying numbers from 2,150 per
hour to about 2,640. This means shorter lift
lines, and better service, says Doug.
The cost of the upgrad e racks in at
around $45,000 per cabin, making it a
$7 million upgrade that will benefit both
winter and summer riders. Solutions for
bike carriers are still being brainstormed,
with bike carri ers a possib ility. Upgrading
the gondie will likely take place around
the same time as the Harmony upgrade
to a six-pack lift, and the transfer of the
Feature STORY
GONZO NOTES TO THEWHISTLER GONDOLA::
A generation ago, back in 1988 when hair wasbig and pants were bright and tight, POMA
America came to Whistler and said, lets get
shakin on up to the hiiiigh alpine. And lo,stretching all the way past the old triples,all the way up to the Roundhouse and Pikas, a
gondola was built, a modern chariot for thoseseekers of the powder stashes. Long before
Blue chair was removed and Harmony installed,back when two-seater, colour-coded woodenchairs were London Mountains mainstay formsof transport, there was the Whistler Gondola.
As of today, this year of Mayan propheciesthat is 2012, the Whistler Gondola has beenin operation for 56, 414 hoursand counting.Or more precisely, the Upper Whistler Gondola
has clocked a few hundred hours more thanthe Lower (probably to ferry staff membersseeking to break the records of the GondolaChallenge). Indeed, the Upper and Lower
gondola are technically two distinct lifts.The lower gondie is number 4.22, with the
upper claiming 4.23 (which leads me to wonder:who got Poma lift 4.20?).
The gondie stretches some 4,998 metres,suspended by some 63 towers, operating at a
maximum speed of 5.5 metres per second, andhauling our collective corps up (and thensome) 848 vertical metres. Whereas the Peak2 Peak is a stroke of minimalism, hangingsuspended cars across the Fitz Valley like,
well, some kind of bird on a wire, theWhistler Gondola is a workhorse, a beast ofburden, a two-birds-in-the-bush metaphor. Infact, it is a metaphori, that which transports
us around, herding our heavy, valley bodies upinto the lightness of being metapherein.
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existing, quad Harmony chair over to
Crystal on Blackcomb, replacing the old
triple. The top five list of the master plantimeline also calls for the renovation
of Rendezvous, which has found itself
increasingly popular as a destination
eatery for Peak 2 Peak sightseers. The
$5 million expansion would increase
seating and enhance the back-of-the-
house, though no word on the all-night
disco yet.
If no one wants the old gondie cars,
they might be auctioned off though only
time will tell whether local ski culture will
find the gondie as attractive as the old
Creekside tinbox.
Flowing with theForgeries and Fakes
It depends on how it wakes up in the
morning, yknow, says Dan, describing
his relationship with the Whistler
Gondola. If its freezing up there, and
doesnt have a good night, it plays up
a bit. But usually we get along quite
well . Th ere s a few days , wh en i ts sup er
cold, when it doesnt want to wake up
in the morning, and we have to call in
the maintenance guys to help us out.
But usually its happy, and we have a
work ing rela tion shi p 90 per cent of
the time.Dan Pooley has been the lead lift hand
for the Whistler Gondies Village base for
the past two years. Hes one of those
forgivably handsome Brits, and like me,
chuckles at nearly all aspects of
the universe that flows around
him. He used to work in Leeds
Castle, organizing highbrow
banquets and dungeon
tours; the mountain figured
this was good experience for
packing the sardine tins on a
daily basis.
As Im talki ng to Dan about
dress-up parties and the high
morale of Guest Relations
its evident he digs his job another liftie hands him
a mangled 7-Eleven ticket.
They see this kind of thing
every day, and have in place
a fast track priority to bounce
people up who have issues
with thei r tix. Bet ween 9
and 10:30a.m. is our busiest
point weve got ski school,
two lines of kids, normal
ski school, three lines (from
the maze), says Dan, who is
smoothly scanning passes as we
speak. We estimate he easily
scans hundreds of thousands
of people a year. Its pretty
hectic, he adds, his eyes out
for scams, including photocopy
forgeries and dudes wearing
fake moustaches to cop their
buddys pass.
Yes hes seen them all. The
guys who drop their skis and gloves,
creating a diversion while someone
else squishes past or the dazed
loner who stands off to the side,
pretending to be lost or looking for
something and then tries to pull
a fast one. Then theres the crowds
that just mob you.
Most of them, says Dan, just
arent that good at it; last year he had a
group flock him when no one else was
in the maze. It was beyond obvious. Imnot that stupid, says Dan. At least try
something better than that. He has had
women hand him 555 numbers, with
offers of aprs hook-ups (sorry girls, not
worth losing a job over). Then there are the
regulars, a few infamous characters, true ski
bum squatters, dreaded and recognizable,
hawking clipped tickets, which try near
daily to slip in. It doesnt work, and
everyone is politely sent on their way. Last,
but never least, theres the inebriated.
Weve had a few guys who have
come along completely drunk, pants
falling down to his knees, could barely
even walk, stumbling around, says Dan.
We do get a few, and we have to send
them away for safety. Sometimes theres
lift line conflicts between anxious and
agitated tourists, swearing at each other,
parkrats taking on the gapers, etc. Dans
job is to keep the herd grinding forward
in peace.
But there are ways to make your
powder morning a faster flow, especially
if rolling single and suave. Coffees and
muffins to hold a place in line are never
a bad idea, says Dan, with a chuckle. Wejust want to keep the vibe good, says
Dan. Well shoot you up the line to ride
with your friends if youre nice and help
us out.
THE GONDOLA CHALLENGE::
The Gondola Challenge has been complicated over the past few yearswith
the addition of the Peak 2 Peak, it now requires an extra ride(r) or twoto complete the whole circuit. Theres also the added confusion of how tocomplete the route. Up Creekside, down the Whistler Gondola, up Blackcomb,then P2P over? Or begin with the 15-odd minute epic of the Whistler Gondie?Tough calls for the ol up-and-down.
Besides the P2P which is the hardest to pull off, precisely becausegetting a cabin to yourself requires some, errr, finessing the WhistlerGondola by far has the most space for testing the cabins cable clampers.
For two generations now, newbies have practiced getting on and off thevarious gondolas with the cabin classic.
Feature STORY
Clowns to the left, jokers to the right---Dan Pooley
welcom es the fakers.