Pete's Log: Log Entry 316

Entry #316, (Travel)
(posted when I was 21 years old.)

went to eat lunch with bob, stephanie, and ryan at some tavern place. food was quite good, i had beef enchiladas, some of the best i've had in a while. it's good to be in the southwest again where they know how to make mexican food. i did rather well driving around albuquerque, i kinda remember the general layout of the town... but it has grown a lot, and zuna is now located in a new commercial area that didn't exist a year ago...

i found a fact sheet about the sandia peak tramway, and some of the facts are neat, and since i know i'll lose the sheet, i've decided to record some of them facts:

SANDIA PEAK TRAMWAY was originally manufactured by Bell Engineering of Lucerne, Switzerland. Construction was from 1964 thru 1966, at a cost of two million dollars. This is a double reversible jigback aerial tramway. It spans over 2.7 miles with two towers. It took over 5000 helicopter flights to build and Sandia Peak Tramway opened on May 7, 1966.
Total Horizontal Length: 2.7 miles
Total Vertical Rise: 3819 feet or 1163 meeters
Elevation of Lower Terminal: 6559 feet or 1999 meters
Elevation of Top Terminal: 10,378 feet or 3163 meters
Hourly capacity: 220 passengers at 4 trips per hour
Average number of passengers per year: 275, 000
Normal Speed: 12 m.p.h or 20 feet per second
Number of tram cars: 2
Track cables: four - each with a diameter of 40 mm , each weighing 47 tons
number of haul ropes: one haul rope and one counter rope
diameter of haul ropes: 32 mm, each weighing 17 tons
main power unit: 600 h.p. d.c. electric winch motor
auxiliary drive: 250 h.p. ford gasoline motor

yay engineers!

arun asked for suggestions for a theme for this summer. my suggestion was: "the pacific side of the contintental divide rules, and for arguments sake, eastern colorado and new mexico are on the pacific side even if they aren't."