Saturday, July 14, 2018

(62) Golden Reef Mine Tramway Chapter 4 Tram Tower Installation


GOLDEN REEF MINE TRAMWAY
Tram Tower Installation
Chapter 4 of 5


This is the fourth part of the Golden Reef Mine Tramway project. The first three chapters discussed the history, design and assembling the towers. This chapter will discuss the installation of the towers.



FENCE INSTALLATION



Surveying the Property Before we could install the fence we had to survey the property to make sure the fence is on the museum property and the tram towers were placed on the map. Graham Surveying & Engineering, Inc. performed the surveying at no cost. They produced a map of the entire museum property with the stamp mill, fence and tramway placed on the map so that we could get a permit to build the fence and then the tramway.

Fence Construction We obtained our permit from the Town and commenced the construction of the fence from rebar welded together. The holes were dug for the fence posts and bought off by the Town and then we constructed the fence. The picture below shows the fence installed on the east side of the tramway exhibit with the double gate to allow equipment access.







TRAM TOWER INSTALLATION

Footings Layout We had to dig the footings, which was no minor challenge. The ground in the area is solid shale and we needed to dig the footing holes that were 2’ X 2’ X3’. The pictures below show the layout of the footings on the south end of the display.





Digging the Footings The picture below shows the crew using a jackhammer to break up the shale. This was very hard work and it took several days to complete the dig. Remember, we had five more of the holes that had to be dug for Tower #2.


 



The picture below is self-explanatory.
 




Installing the Forms We fabricated the (5) forms for each tower. The forms had to be in precise position and elevation to ensure to make sure that the towers would align perfectly. If they were off the cable guides would not align correctly and there would be excessive stress on the towers.
  


 

Pouring the Concrete We had (10) footings a little larger than 2’ X 2’ X3’. We hired a concrete pumper to aid in installing the concrete since there was no direct access to the forms.. It would have been much harder to wheel the concrete from the truck to the forms. As it was the pour only took a little over 30 minutes. The picture below shows the setup for the concrete delivery.


 



The picture below shows the pouring of the concrete using the 3” delivery hose. This saved us a lot of backbreaking work if we had to use wheelbarrows.


 






Forms Removal This seems like a simple task, but some of the forms got buried in the concrete. This made the removal a major activity.
 





Ready for the Towers The bases are now ready to accept the towers!
  




Towers Installation With the towers already in the area and the footings read for the towers, the next activity is to install the towers on the bases. This was done by our local electric utility, Arizona Public Service.
  




Both towers installed and bolted in place on the (10) footings.
 





NEXT: Chapter #5 Tramway Setup
















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