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Those repairs are a mess. The original design seems to have put the joint between the precast span and the insitu infill in exactly the worst place for cracks to form from shear load. That might not matter so much in direct structural terms as concrete should never be assumed to carry tension, but in that environment any cracks will allow freeze thaw. The external ties are presumably required because there wasn't enough shear reinforcement or because it's compromised by water ingress to the cracks. It's been designed by somebody with no understanding of how construction workers think, or Murphy's Law. (Digression - Murphy's Law is often thought to be the same as Sod's Law but isn't. Sod's Law is just the bad luck happens, the toast falls butter side down, while Murphy said that if your plan is flawed, that flaw WILL cause it to fail, so get rid of the flaw). Spherical washers sitting directly into the bushes would have been much more foolproof. A slight incline on the rods wouldn't stop them doing the job.
Toboggan ride at Cairngorm. Trying to justify the money wasted on the funicular ?
More than that - the whole Visitor Management situation is being reviewed so that it would allow walkers out of the top station after taking the funicular up and full-height MTB trails are being considered.
More than that - the whole Visitor Management situation is being reviewed so that it would allow walkers out of the top station after taking the funicular up and full-height MTB trails are being considered.
Why not? Coire Cas is ruined anyway. Won't be any worse with a few downhill tracks.
More than that - the whole Visitor Management situation is being reviewed so that it would allow walkers out of the top station after taking the funicular up and full-height MTB trails are being considered.
Probably overdue to be honest. Skiing / snowsports have a very unclear future in Scotland due to climate change. Increasing access and diversifying the activities on the mountain is probably the only way it can continue to operate.
As far as I recall, the original argument preventing access to the summit from the funicular was to limit the summer footfall on what is a very delicate, easily eroded, alpine tundra terrain. It had nowt to do with the snowsports. 😉
C.
If there was nothing on the mountain now then I am pretty sure it wouldn't be built there now. Fragile and rare ecosystem and all that. However we are where we are and if its to remain a resort it needs proper mountain bike trails. IMO its either stop throwing good money after bad or further development done as sympathetically as possible. It cannot struggle on as is.
I seem to remember before they built the current bike park thing they were offering bike rides down the mountain but you had to use their supplied bikes. Not sure if it actually happened as I didn't look into it again after that.
Even in winter it was always my least favourite of the Scottish resorts to go snowboarding (I'm a Glenshee die hard out of my "local" three, then Glencoe for the two further away).
they were offering bike rides down the mountain
Yeah, but it was shit. You had to descend the main access track, which is wide, steep and covered in loose gravel. I've ridden up and down it and wouldn't recommend it.
As @tjagain says, we are where we are. Maximising the use of Coire Cas barely affects the mountains as a whole and those in search of quite need only head around the corner for 10 minutes.
However, I don't think the upper corrie makes sense for MTB tracks. They will regularly be affected by wind and low cloud and will get the early snow. A much better idea would be to have tracks starting at Coire Cas then heading down to Glenmore. Once past the Sugar Bowl they'd be out of sight in the trees, ecologic impact would be minor as it's mostly non-native, commercial forestry, they'd be less affected by the weather and they could provide uplift via a couple of electric buses, charged by a small run-of-river hydro scheme. Unfortunately this area belongs to FLS and they won't even maintain the only footpath from Glenmore to Coire Cas.
Plus - gotta maximise use of the funicular 😉
Good idea to try to become less dependent on skiing although it might well be too little too late.
The effing funicular should have gone from lower down!
There is no use case that could significantly offset the enormous cost of keeping the Funicular going. Any income from MTB would be a drop in the ocean compared to the millions to be spent.
Unfortunately there is also no way of getting the millions of pounds that would be needed to shut down the Funicular in an ordered manner.
So they'll just keep in drip* feeding money into it for the foreseeable
Top of my lottery goals would be launching a private prosecution against the felons involved in the railway and subsequent mismanagement of CGM. An utter travesty
* Can you use the word " drip" when you're talking millions PA?
There is no use case that could significantly offset the enormous cost of keeping the Funicular going. Any income from MTB would be a drop in the ocean compared to the millions to be spent.
Unfortunately there is also no way of getting the millions of pounds that would be needed to shut down the Funicular in an ordered manner.
So they'll just keep in drip* feeding money into it for the foreseeable
Top of my lottery goals would be launching a private prosecution against the felons involved in the railway and subsequent mismanagement of CGM. An utter travesty
* Can you use the word " drip" when you're talking millions PA?
Financially, throwing more money at it makes no sense - there’s an unavoidable cost to remove it and make good the site at its ‘end of life’, which I seem to remember was a condition of the original funding award from the EU. In real terms, that cost probably increases year on year, while they continue to patch up a poorly designed and constructed facility. I’ve seen a few people suggest that it would have been cheaper overall to rip it out when the track originally failed, and replace it with a gondola or covered chairlift, a la Nevisrange.
The rationale behind the support for ongoing incompetent decision making at Cairngorm is mystifying - hands in the till?
With a warming climate, how long is skiing going to be viable in the Cairngorms? Is it time to find an alternative strategy?
This is the "alternative strategy". Long term predictions are that the Ptarmigan Bowl will, for a while, be the only area in any of the existing Scottish ski areas to hold any snow. Quite how long that will be viable remains to be seen
And, in news that isnt remarkable for anyone who has been following the story, the railway is at risk of failure again, and they want money from the Scottish Government to build a chairlift to replace the railway.