Our lift maintenance crew has been busy working on the Garfield lift project. The first steps involved removing all the carriers, dropping the rope off several towers to ground level, tagging out the haul line in both directions with heavy duty rigging before ultimately cutting the old haul line in half. We rented some specialized equipment for the next steps in this project. A single drum tensioner-puller is used to pull in the old rope onto a spool. On the other end, a hydraulic braking reel stand is used in conjunction to hold the spool of new line and while controlling the process in letting out the new rope. Both machines were anchored to heavy equipment and all systems tested before the removal of the rigging on the old haul line. Once the system was established to now hold the load, the crew started pulling in the old haul line while releasing the new one at a rate of about 50 ft. per minute. It’s a slow and cautious process. For reference, our fixed grip lifts typically run at 450-500 ft. per minute. The rope has now been replaced and tagged off in both directions once again. The next step will involve a rope splice which is a complicated process as described a few years ago in a post about a splice conducted on the Panorama lift line. Kudos to our Lift Maintenance team! Stay tuned for the next steps of the project.