Palm Springs Tram Reopens After Ice Strands Passengers
PALM SPRINGS – The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which temporarily stranded 89 people amid a snowstorm Friday, resumed normal operations Saturday.
A News Channel 3 photojournalist was on board the last car up before tram officials decided to halt service while the situation was remedied. He says the car stopped several times on his way up to the top.
Ice on the cables triggered a computerized alert that prompted the operator to shut down the tram for more than an hour Friday, spokeswoman Lena Zimmerschied said.
“I think it was a strange combination of cold weather and all the moisture we had,” Zimmerschied said. “Normally we don’t have anything like this happen.”
The high at the upper station at 8,516 feet on Friday was 19 degrees, she said. A maintenance crew rode a tram to the frozen sections of the cable, climbed to a crows nest atop a cable car and chipped the ice off the cable, she said.
The cable cars — which carry up to 80 passengers — began running again, and the stranded visitors returned safely to the bottom of the mountain about 6 p.m., she said.
Maintenance crews spent the night testing sensors and, after a test-run, the tram reopened at 8 a.m., Zimmerschied said.
At the upper station Saturday, the temperature was about 32 degrees in the afternoon, and 4-5 feet of snow was on the ground, Zimmerschied said.
The attraction on Mount San Jacinto, which opened in 1963 and was upgraded in 2000, lifts passengers from 2,643 feet above sea level to an elevation of 8,516 feet via cars running on more than 13,000 feet of steel cables, according to the tram’s Web site.
