Sainte Foy Tarentaise : 16 September 2020
This is how the big boys do Meccano. Here are some photos and video footage of the action whilst installing the pylons on the new Arpettaz chairlift in Sainte Foy.
Big boy Meccano starts with a big project, like building a ski lift. The individual parts are brought in on lorries and put together using heavy lifting equipment.
This is an overhead pylon gantry, fully assembled and ready for transporting to its pylon.
Sections of pylon are also lined up, numbered and ready for transporting into position.
In Part 8 of our ‘Not the Official Engineer’s Report’, we showed the work taking place underground to secure a strong foundation for these pylons. There is a lot of concrete buried underground, but all that now remains above ground to connect the pylons onto, is a baseplate like this.
These pylon and gantry sections are too heavy for the helicopter used previously, so this time a huge Super Puma helicopter has been brought in from Switzerland to do the heavy lifting. First, the pylon sections are delivered to, and fixed onto, their respective baseplates.
These are bolted into position and securely tightened.
It requires a lot of careful coordination, deft flying skills, and well organised operatives on the ground, (and up the pylons!). Three big heavy component parts and some very large nuts and bolts were used to erect this pylon.
Next the gantries are flown to their respective pylons.
They are lowered to ground level so that two guide ropes can be attached. The gantry is then raised aloft and gently lowered into position on top of the pylon. The guide ropes allow the gantry to be turned and correctly lined up into its rightful position.
The men up the pylon have to secure the gantry with more large bolts, before releasing the helicopter’s lifting cable.
Thank you Teddy for the close up photos of this work. My hard hat wasn’t up to the required spec for close up access this time!
This carefully coordinated operation took three and a half hours to erect seven pylons. A mighty morning’s work bringing together some meticulous planning and high-performing, well-drilled operatives. To give you an idea of how this plays out in real time, here is a video of a gantry being delivered and secured. Thank you Grégory Roy, Chef des Pistes in Sainte Foy, for this video.
This is how the big boys do Meccano in Sainte Foy!
Read other articles about Sainte Foy on the Time to Ski blog page
