Cairngorm Funicular

[gammy leg walker]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-46389488

[allanglens]

Interesting. I don't think that many people have any great love for CML, but there are a lot of jobs and local businesses that will suffer if it isn't sold on quickly. Much may depwnd on whether the plans for the community buy-out are well enough advanced to step in now.

[Caberfeidh]

It is no surprise that it has gone bust; it was poorly run and bound by ridiculous rules. They would let people out on the hill in full winter conditions but would not allow anyone to take winter mountaineering equipment with them. If the whole shebang has to be dismantled and all trace removed, who will pay for that? We all will...

[gammy leg walker]

With the Funicular now in administration is the Ptarmigan Café still open or has this closed also

[davekeiller]

It was already closed because of the funicular being unable to run whilst they did assessments of the track (the staff didn't walk to work!)
I'm guessing that everything's closed, but some of the stuff at the car park might just about manage to stay open whilst the administration process is ongoing.

[Border Reiver]

A friend and I were talking about this situation the other day and we were wondering why it has taken so long to find that there's a problem. Surely, structures like this should be inspected on a regular basis. Then any defects could have been dealt with quickly before they became major defects, maybe saving it from closure.

[davekeiller]

Structures like this are inspected at regular intervals. However, sometimes the problem is not immediately obvious. It's also possible that the problem had been previously detected and was being monitored, or there's something unusual going on due to the extreme environment, and so this was something the engineers didn't know to look for.

[mountainstar]

A good podcast here on the subject.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06td0c1

[Seamus]

Way more extreme conditions than those in the Alps ? Probably just lack of maintenance and finances to fix it like everything else in my opinion !

[davekeiller]

Let's wait until the facts have been established before leaping to conclusions.
Poor maintenance may or may not have been an issue, but it is inevitable that mechanical things wear out eventually, and sometimes unexpected things happen.

[prog99]

Way more extreme conditions than those in the Alps ? Probably just lack of maintenance and finances to fix it like everything else in my opinion !

Theres some truth in that. They don't get the big fluctuations of temperature in the winter that we get.

[Soldier of fortune]

Highland Island Enterprise has appointed two of it's directors to oversea the Ski Centre and have suggested that the taxpayer puts £27 million into over 10 years, what is worrying is that those ran it into administration still have jobs!

[davekeiller]

That does seem rather worrying.
Colleagues who ski tell me that they have felt a definite change with the new management over the past couple of years, and I don't see them being won back without a significant change of management at Cairngorm.