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The Shining - Powering the hotel in the winter question.

post #1 of 4
6/7/12 at 1:42pm
Thread Starter 

Hello friends -

 

I would appreciate any thought on the following--->

 

In The Shining, there are a few scenes regarding the power and phone lines running into the hotel during the winter. I am fuzzy on all this but I believe when the hotel manager is giving jack a tour of the overlook, a part comes where the manger says something to the effect of ---- " During the winter the hotel has power but no phone lines. To communicate you will need to use the radio." Later in the film we see Jack destroy the radio. 

 

Here is my question. Why would only power be up and not phones ? Can anyone get a technical reason on why this would pan out this way ? What happens in the winter that shuts the phone lines down and not the power ?

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

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post #2 of 4
6/7/12 at 3:34pm

The hotel likely has it's own generator and fuel storage. It has to be kept warm through winter to stop water damage etc from freezing up.

 

Bad weather is always hard on telephone lines, even in a metropolitan area. The Outlook is so distant and the movie is set back in the 70s that I'd have to think the only way a phoneline could make it's way up into the mountains was via pylons...which would expose it to the weather.

 

Halloran/Scatman Crothers phones through to the garage where he gets the snowcat from if I'm not mistaken. So that means that there's a town reasonably close, and likely that's where the phone connection would originate from. So probably just that last ten miles or whatever is murder on reception during the winter.

 

My memory isn't so hot on this, but I also think there needs to be some specific electrical charge run through a phoneline to keep it active? Maybe more-so back in those days. But if that's the case and the weather is too hostile for reliable electrical service along powerlines, then that would cut out the phones as well as the power.

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post #3 of 4
6/8/12 at 10:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nardo View Post

The hotel likely has it's own generator and fuel storage. It has to be kept warm through winter to stop water damage etc from freezing up.

 

Bad weather is always hard on telephone lines, even in a metropolitan area. The Outlook is so distant and the movie is set back in the 70s that I'd have to think the only way a phoneline could make it's way up into the mountains was via pylons...which would expose it to the weather.

 

 

 

Reasoning seems sound here - I'd feel confident assuming that the hotel DOES have phone lines (and power lines), but once they get knocked down during the winter, that's it until the snow starts to melt and someone can get up there to fix them. 

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post #4 of 4
6/8/12 at 11:10am

Memory's fuzzy but in the novel I think the place is steam-heated (the boiler is a plot point) with the turbine providing electricity also.

 

As others have said, the phone lines simply don't survive the conditions and need to be reconnected every spring.

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