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Cableway putto the testat Hoover Dam
Roy TheissBoulder City News Editor
Touted as one of the engi-neering marvels in the worldduring its creation, the supportsystem for Hoover Dam is stillconsidered unmatched in theworld.
''This is one of the largest inthe world, if not the largest. It isnot the average cableway," saidDon Bader, field engineer for theBureau of Reclamation.
Engineers conducted stresstests during the first week ofApril on the cableway thatstretches between the walls ofthe Black Canyon walls.
In 1932, the engineers recog-nized a need for the cableway tolower equipment to the base ofthe dam.
Generators were installed in1935 after the dam was built andthe only way to get massiveequipment down to the damwas-and still is-by cableway.
The lower Portal Road used tobring supplies to the dam twistsand turns too often and thetunnel is too tightfor some oftheequipment, Bader said. Somepieces are as large as houses.
The cableway beneath the damis used approximately once amonth, Bader said, to lower 18-wheel oil tankers and otherequipment. Recently, the cable-way was put to the test when ithauled a 150-ton transformer.
The cableway's rated capacityis 150 tons.
CARRIAGE RIDE- Six hundredfeet above the Colorado River,workers finish testing the car-riage for the cableway.
During the load testing at thebeginning of April, slabs of con-crete weighing as much as 20tons were stacked on a cradleand dangled over the ColoradoRiver.
The first load test was 25%,then 50%, then 100% and finally125% of the rated capacity. Thecableway successfully supported187 tons.
TheJas'rt-'It":-o-=-a-:Td--:ifestwas-threeyears ago, Bader said, when thenew control system for the op-eration of the cableway was putin place.
Photos by Andy Pernick, regional photographerforthe Bureau ofReclamation, and Rob Weidenfeld, News staff.
ABOVE - RickOltrogge controls theflow of cable from thehuge spools at left. asit is released to spanthe 1.200-foot width
of Black Canyon.
RIGHT - Construc-tion inspector Bob
Moore stands at theinstrument panel in
the cableway controlstation.
FAR RIGHT - Work-ers prepare a slab of
concrete weighingclose to 20-tons for a
load test.
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