Brugg Wire Rope executives showed off the plant for members of the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce Economic Development committee Friday. The facility is making elevator cable for the One World Trade Center property in New York. Raiden Sherman (from left), Mike Clark, Noah Simon, Martin Meyer, Mike Barnes, Brugg engineer and Tom Couch discuss the computerized steel cable core system. (Doug Walker / Rome News-Tribune)
Brugg Wire Rope’s Martin Rhiner (from left) shows Chamber of Commerce Economic Development committee members Leigh Barba and Carole Hunter some of the core winding operations at the Brugg plant in the Gateway Industrial Park off U.S. 411 south. (Doug Walker / Rome News-Tribune)
Members of the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee were briefed on the project Friday by Martin Rhiner and Doug Ingenthron at Brugg, then got a tour of the plant that will manufacture more than 826,000 linear foot of steel cables (more than 156 miles) used to lift 70 elevators in the building that is now being called the One World Trade Center tower, frequently referred to as the Freedom Tower.
“When I get a chance to go up in the Freedom Tower I’ll feel much safer now,” said Leigh Barba, executive director of the Rome Area History Museum and member of the chamber panel.
Rhiner detailed the statistics involved in the elevator operation. The largest cable is one-and-three-eighths of an inch in diameter. The hoist cable is 1,340 feet long, while the heaviest single hoist cable weighs more than a ton all by itself.
All of the cable used in the tower will use a steel core as opposed to the traditional sisal rope-based core.
Five of the 70 elevators in the new building will be express elevators, going from street level to an observation tower on the 102nd floor in less than a minute.
“They will be the fastest elevators in North America,” Rhiner told the Chamber delegation.
Brugg got the lucrative contract for a variety of reasons, including its exclusive Rope Life Prediction program.
“We can calculate this is what you can expect in terms of (longevity),” Rhiner said. “Rope life is calculated in terms of the number of bends it can withstand before it breaks. It can be anywhere from seven to 15 years depending on usage. It’s not an easy calculation because so much goes into it.”
Rhiner said he believes Brugg is the only manufacturer to offer a warranty on its rope cable.
Cable being used at One World Trade Center is being made at the Brugg plant in Rome along with facilities in Switzerland and the Czech Republic.
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