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Hello
I was curious about why lifts share a tower, and more importantly how it works, and how it affects both lifts.
For instance, take these lifts:
Snubber & Sawduster at Sugarloaf. (The only cross manufacturer combination I have seen)

The Summit Triple & Flying Yankee at Attitash:



So my questions are:
1. How is the tower extended to make way for the other lift crossing over on the same tower? I would assume that you either replace the entire tower, or add another tower tube on top of the old one if that's possible
2. How does the cross-manufacturer tower work? Does anyone know if the tower is stadeli or borvig?
3. How does this affect the lifts?

By the way, to prevent any confusion, i'm not talking about double-doubles.
Thanks

1) The tower isn't typically extended, but replaced or added.
2) A modified assembly from one manufacturer can be bolted to another tower. Tower tubes are all fairly standard diameters.
3) Not sure what you mean, both lifts should operate as normal. One would have to tie the tower safety circuits together but that's easy.

Here's what the Canadian code says regarding crossing ropeways...

If there is a deropement on the upper tower, that action should best shut down both lifts.

There are at least four instances of lift crossing over another lift that currently exist on active Colorado chairlifts, that I know of:

1. Pioneer at Monarch crosses over the Garfield lift. Neither lift shares towers.

2. The Peak 8 SuperConnect at Breckenridge crosses over the Beaver Run SuperChair and Lift C. At both crossings, the lift uses the "put a tower on each side of the lift being crossed over" (crossing over the Beaver Run SuperChair between towers 2 and 3, and crossing over Lift C between towers 8 and 9)

3. Telluride has a cross-manufacturer lift crossing where the two lifts in question share a tower: the SLI-built Coonskin lift shares a tower with the Town of Telluride-Station St. Sophia stage of the Garaventa CTEC-built Town to Mountain Village Gondola (the tower is tower 10 on Coonskin and tower 12 on the Gondola).

4. Chairs 2 and 6 at Loveland share a tower
This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 08 March 2015 - 10:29 AM

I remember when the Payday Triple (LE) tower was part of the base terminal of the Ski team at Park City. I always thought that was pretty trick.

At Loveland Chair 2 and Chair 6 share a tower.
 Loveland.png (911.45K)
Number of downloads: 131

At Monarch two lift cross each other but do not use a common tower.
 Monarch.png (1.37MB)
Number of downloads: 126

I would bet that if there was a deropement at the Loveland upper lift that there would be contact with the lower lift.
This post has been edited by 2milehi: 08 March 2015 - 08:24 AM

Chairs 1 and 2 at Baker used to share a tower. Don't know if they still do. Chair 2's was an 8-rocker hold down; pretty sure it would have pulled skiers off Chair 1.

With Loveland Chair 2, I can imagine that being an issue since the uphill line uses that tower to start its descent down to ground level for the midstations.

At Attitash, CTEC put in that tower when the summit triple went in. At the time, it crossed the Old Reliable chair, a Mueller.

Loon plans to install two crossing fixed quads this summer.

snowmaster, on 11 March 2015 - 04:48 PM, said:

(Off-topic) Is that a go for this summer? The below article from February says "no set timeline for construction"

http://www.wmur.com/...ansion/31294254

Here are some reports from Remontees-Mecaniques that show lifts crossing over each other using the same tower:
http://www.remontees...rtage-3587.html
http://www.remontees...rtage-3216.html
http://www.remontees...rtage-2000.html
http://www.remontees...rtage-1067.html
http://www.remontees...rtage-2601.html

They keep track of all their "unusual" lifts here: http://www.remontees...showtopic=14190

That Sugarloaf installation kind of evolved over time. Originally Sawduster, an early-70s Stadeli double, went up the right side of that slope all by itself, from the Sugarloaf Inn to just below the base lodge. In the mid-80s they realigned and extended it up above the base lodge, passing between it and another building. At the same time they built a new Borvig double, Snubber, from a little further down that ended across from Sawduster's base. In the early 90s they replaced Snubber with a Borvig triple on the same alignment, reusing the existing towers but significantly extended in both directions; it now starts way far down at the bottom of the condos and ends above the base lodge on the other side, crossing over Sawduster on the way. The common tower is Borvig with a Stadeli crossarm attached to it; I think they did it that way so that there's only that one tower in the middle of the beginner slope.

snowmaster, on 11 March 2015 - 04:48 PM, said:

Not this summer

 217.JPG (871.88K)
Number of downloads: 30

The Whiteface Cloudsplitter gondola crosses over the Bear Double lift. They do not share a tower. The gondola has two very tall towers directly on either side of the double and is about twice as high up.

There's this one at Snowbasin. The Triple is the Porcupine lift. Not sure what the higher one is, though it looks like a Doppelmayr, likely to be one of the gondolas

Above is Needles Gondola

As I said, the Peak 8 SuperConnect crosses over both the Beaver Run SuperChair and Lift C, but in both cases, there are two tall towers on either side of the lift being crossed:

This is a stretch, but the Bonnie at Jay just barely crosses under the tram.

Thunder Bound Express at Mammoth shares a tower with the lower stage of the Panorama Gondola. However, to cross over Stump Alley Express, the gondola uses two tall towers.