Borer Lift AG realizes project in Corviglia
Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG replaced two small surface lifts in the Corviglia ski area with modern Sunkid Type N Moving Carpets. It was particularly important for the Swiss company to be able to operate the new installations safely and with maximum efficiency, even from a distance.
The first Moving Carpet to be operated directly by Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG was installed by Borer Lift AG in the fall of 2023 together with the cable car company's technicians to replace an outdated beginners' lift near the top station of the Corviglia funicular. The remarkable thing about the 105-metre-long Sass Runzöl Moving Carpet is that it is not aimed at children, but primarily at adult guests from a wide variety of countries who are skiing for the first time in the area of the Corviglia mountain station. In addition to a ski school booking office, the White Marmot restaurant is also located here, offering "high cuisine" and an upscale gastronomic offering.
For Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG, it was important to create a generally accessible, open offer for ski beginners in addition to the lifts owned by the Ski Schools. "We have positioned our new Moving Carpet in such a way that beginners who feel more confident on skis after a little practice can continue directly from the Sass Runzöl Moving Carpet down a blue run to the T-bar lift of the same name," explains Thomas Brunner, Head of Cableways at Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG. The Moving Carpet is normally monitored by a "remote control point" by an employee in the top station of the T-bar lift, which is around 20 m away from the Moving Carpet. A prerequisite for the official approval of this operation by the IKSS inspection body was that geometric shapes up to a size of 15 cm in the area of the exit of the Moving Carpet can be seen with the naked eye from the top station of the T-bar lift. The use of camera technology is therefore not necessary.
The construction of the Sass Runzöl Moving Carpet was preceded by a tight schedule: Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG only made the decision to purchase the two conveyor belts in April 2023. Construction work began in October 2023, just three days after the official permit was received, and was completed in time for the start of the 2023/24 season. "The first season of the Sass Runzöl Moving Carpet has been a complete success. Around 80,000 guests had used it by March 2024," says Head of Ropeways Thomas Brunner.
The construction of the second Moving Carpet ordered by Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG has been delayed by around six months due to a pending official permit. As this was only received in March 2024, it will not be ready for operation until the 2024/25 winter season. The 170-metre-long conveyor belt is to become a central component of the newly designed Mountys Land children's and beginners' area in the Marguns area near the top station of the Celerina-Marguns feeder lift. "The small T-bar lift in our beginners' area on Marguns is no longer up to date, partly because it can only be used on one side of the slope. With the new Moving Carpet, we will be able to teach children and ski beginners to ski on both sides of the slope in future. In conjunction with the expansion of technical snowmaking in this area, we are extending the beginners' area on Marguns to 10,000 m². In doing so, we are also creating a comprehensive offer for children and families that we can continue to build on," explains Sandra Gubler, the product manager responsible for Mountys Land at Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG. In addition to the Moving Carpet, the Mountys mascots in Mountys Land and the animal figures along the family descent from Trais Fluors to Celerina are also made by Borer/Sunkid.
Just like the Sass Runzöl Moving Carpet, the Moving Carpet in the beginners' area on Marguns is to be operated from a distance using a remote control point - in this case from the top station of the Celerina Marguns cable car. As the distance here is too great for visual contact, an additional video/audio monitoring system with noise level control is used. In addition, at least one employee is permanently present in the Kinderland on Marguns. "It is particularly important to us that one of our employees is always on hand very quickly in the event of an emergency," explains ropeway manager Thomas Brunner. Operating the Moving Carpets from a central point should above all ensure greater efficiency and more targeted deployment of personnel. The technical basis for this is the new Sunkid i-Control control system, with which all new Type N Moving Carpets are equipped. In the event of malfunctions, remote diagnosis and maintenance will be possible, either by the technical staff of Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG or, in particularly complicated cases, by Borer Lift AG from Wichtrach in Switzerland. The new Moving Carpets in the St. Moritz ski area are permanently connected to the Internet via data lines, and remote diagnostics and maintenance are usually carried out via VPN connections that are secured with a firewall.
"After we decided to install conveyor belts instead of two small surface lifts, we requested several offers for this package solution. Borer's offer convinced us primarily because of the price-performance ratio and the good experience we have had with the company since 2019," says Thomas Brunner. "Because we weren't entirely sure about the required conveying capacity, both systems are technically designed for a speed of 1.2 m/s. However, the practical operation of the Sass Runzöl Moving Carpet in the 2023/24 winter season has shown that the standard 0.7 m/s is completely sufficient," continues Thomas Brunner.
Borer Lift AG is delighted that two new Moving Carpets are now available for children and adults learning to ski on the slopes of St. Moritz. "With the completely newly developed Type N Moving Carpet, Sunkid has created a uniform standard with which we can cover the entire range of applications such as ski conveyor belts, but also logistics solutions, summer applications or water conveyor belts of all variants. This allows us faster project implementation times, a reduced number of components and simpler lifelong customer support for a system," concludes Axel Halder, Managing Director of Borer Lift AG.
Source: ISR 2/2024 (Dieter Krestel)
