I've got several 2:1 cable jobs coming up, and the hitch plates are over 20' above the car at the top floor. Positioning an extension ladder will be very sketchy and it won't actually stand properly in the places I will need it to be to do the work.

I wonder if anyone has good ideas for any kind of platform built on the car for safer/more efficient access to the work. I also considered aluminum walkboards mounted across the hoistway on L brackets about 6' below the hitch points. Just curious if anyone has some tried and true solutions for this?

Great question.

What type of facility is this in?

I've done 2 recently.

2:1 Over head and a 2:1 basement machine.

Basement machine was in a power plant. I had their onsite scaffold crew erect a scaffold. I also positioned the counterweight to where the cartop was level with top landing to provide room for working and the scaffold above the cartop.

The over head we had enough room in the secondary to sit on beams and use a rope to pull up the shackles to put into the hitch plates.

When I was a probationary helper years ago I helped build scaffolding on top of a cartop for a 2:1 rerope job.