We Don’t Just Create World Class Theme Park Rides
Garmendale Engineering Ltd is extremely humbled to be regarded as a World Class Theme Park Engineering Business. We love nothing more than to create incredible, crowd-pleasing amusement rides but that is the cherry on Garmendale’s Engineering Cake. Garmendale Engineering has been involved in an incredible selection of projects over the years from the straightforward to the downright challenging. We’ve relished the excitement and challenges of specialist engineering for over 40 years and in today’s blog post we thought we’d throwback to a few of our favourite Specialist Engineering projects and a look ahead to the future.
What better way to start than with a project that is visited by nearly 3.5 million people every year, Garmendale have been working with the London Eye for over a decade. The London Eye’s Capsules were refurbished in the early 2000s by the Garmendale team. Dismantling elements of the London Eye, removing the pods and transporting them one by one to our Derbyshire factory for a refurbishment like no other. Garmendale fully refurbished and updated Merlin Entertainment’s London Eye pods. This lead to the exciting challenge of restoring the pods back to there natural habitat, up to 443ft in the air. Unable to use a crane on the water the Garmendale team must figure out how to maneuverer around 10 tonnes worth of London Eye Pod without a crane and float them down the Thames to where the London Eye is situated. Garmendale utilised a barge to navigate the Thames and manoeuvre the pods into position at the foot of the London Eye before hoisting the pod safely into position, shown below.
The Iconic main chair lift of Needles Park situated in the idyllic Isle of Wight underwent a complete refurbishment of its main drive wheel (Bull Wheel) which included, removal, remanufacturing and replacement of spokes and hub. Work was carried out under GEL’s 9001:2008, with qualified welders to 288/287 to comply with BS EN ISO 13814 and HSG175. NDT inspection performed prior to reinstallation on site. Garmendale Engineering Ltd carried out the refurbishment of the top winding house including structural frame, roof, primary and secondary drives, bearings, lubrications system and the installation of the refurbished Bull Wheel.
The 2020 Olympics in Tokyo are less than 50 days away but did you know that Garmendale Engineering designed, manufactured and installed the Paralympic Agitos signage. Once again Garmendale love a challenge, after creating the sign, bracketry and structural elements had to be designed so the signage could clamp around the columns at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square without damaging the historic columns. The Agitos Signage for the Paralympics can be seen below.
Garmendale’s next exciting specialist engineering project is from our friends at the Blackpool Council. Situated on Blackpool’s stunning shore line is Europe’s largest Mirror Ball. Garmendale Engineering’s team previously refurbished the Mirror ball and late last year the mammoth task of refurbishing the Mirror ball began again. The project will conclude with the Mirror ball being restored to its rightful place on the Blackpool promenade once every single mirror is replaced and the rotational motor system fully refurbished.
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