32 replies to this topic

[jeffee]

I believe that C-6 at Crystal is from Yodelin.

A bit of Hall history. West Coast style. Pete Eyraud was the sales rep for Hall in the Western US. He was also the owner of Spout Springs Ski Area in Oregon. This area was a training area for the US Nordic Oympic teams in 56 and 60. There is still some film of the team training in this area, and of Pete at Squaw in 60 that exisits.

As far as the machines went, they woke up every morning and went to work. Were they the best for their time? thats debatable. Open ring and pinion gear options and start-stop one speed options were not exactly the best available but lots of folks had a great time riding up and sliding down.

[Peter]

C-6 must have been heavily modified when reinstalled, for instance the two special towers, one huge lattice tower and another dual leg portal tower must have been added. I can't imagine those came from the original lift at Yodelin. I am a little confuse though about one thing: The lattice tower is for sure a Hall, exactly like others I have seen. If it was added new when the lift was reinstalled, why did both Hall and Riblet supply parts for it? It has a Riblet drive. Did that come later or was it installed with a Riblet drive terminal?

[djspookman]

spark, on May 22 2007, 10:41 PM, said:

Sold... Dave either you know Hagen's yourself or you just have been in this business way to long... LOL .. It was a Borvig, the towers the same, and chairs the same but the drive terminal and the top terminal were totally different then any in your pic's... The top terminal was an almost exact copy of the hall's we had on the hill??? Its been some time since i worked there and i cant remember what the bullwheel looked like... Thanks for the clear up Dave... That is a lift built before my time.....

sounds like a frankenlit to me then! (with the differing top and bottom terminals)

Dave

[EagleAce]

jeffee, on May 22 2007, 07:55 PM, said:

I believe that C-6 at Crystal is from Yodelin.

A bit of Hall history. West Coast style. Pete Eyraud was the sales rep for Hall in the Western US. He was also the owner of Spout Springs Ski Area in Oregon. This area was a training area for the US Nordic Oympic teams in 56 and 60. There is still some film of the team training in this area, and of Pete at Squaw in 60 that exisits.

As far as the machines went, they woke up every morning and went to work. Were they the best for their time? thats debatable. Open ring and pinion gear options and start-stop one speed options were not exactly the best available but lots of folks had a great time riding up and sliding down.

One of our Halls has only one speed and the other has a fluid coupling, so the speed control is infinate. It's kind of a pain in the ass to run--that's why I love our Yans--especially with the new control systems they have--to quote Jan Kunzcynski, they're 'idiot-proof'.

[jeffee]

I'd have to speculate about the Halls at Badger having a fluid coupling with a one speed start-stop option. kind of a torque converter. There was an option available for variable speed on Hall's if I recall correctly that was not a variable Prime Mover speed but, a transmission that fell somewhat short of being classified as a hydrostatic system. I'm not 100% positive but I'm thinking the main lift at old Nordic Valley or new Wolf Mountain in Utah was one of these variable speed Halls. In the early days these were NOT operator friendly. Especially on a begginer lift. Trust me I was the loader on one, noisy and not guest friendly.

P.S. Noise was from the open ring and pinion

[EagleAce]

jeffee, on May 22 2007, 09:11 PM, said:

I'd have to speculate about the Halls at Badger having a fluid coupling with a one speed start-stop option. kind of a torque converter. There was an option available for variable speed on Hall's if I recall correctly that was not a variable Prime Mover speed but, a transmission that fell somewhat short of being classified as a hydrostatic system. I'm not 100% positive but I'm thinking the main lift at old Nordic Valley or new Wolf Mountain in Utah was one of these variable speed Halls. In the early days these were NOT operator friendly. Especially on a begginer lift. Trust me I was the loader on one, noisy and not guest friendly.

P.S. Noise was from the open ring and pinion

Just one of the Halls is a one-speed (Badger); the other one (Red Fox) is infinitely variable. The specs list it as having a "Nelson Liquid Drive". It works by draining the oil out of the coupling when the slow button is pushed; push the fast button and it refills with oil. That's how our mechanics explained it to me. If you hold the slow button too long the lift stops. Drove me NUTS when I operated it! Both our Halls could launch people. And they're both noisy--I've seen the open ring and pinions. I'll take my good ol' Yan any day! She and I got along well (as long as I talked nice to her !)

[jeffee]

Yep. I remeber my first ride on a Yan. It was like riding on a cloud. Never ran one though. The old school Riblets were nice. Vault drives kept the volume down so an operator could chat with the guests and the variable speed via AC drive with a drum controller worked well. The only problems occured when lack of maintenance or knowledge happened.

[EagleAce]

jeffee, on May 22 2007, 10:16 PM, said:

Yep. I remeber my first ride on a Yan. It was like riding on a cloud. Never ran one though. The old school Riblets were nice. Vault drives kept the volume down so an operator could chat with the guests and the variable speed via AC drive with a drum controller worked well. The only problems occured when lack of maintenance or knowledge happened.

I agree about vintage Riblets. Yans are very easy to run, with a simple motor room. With a well-programmed control system they'll practically run themselves.

[jeffee]

Yodelin (east side of Stevens Pass) (1961-1974)
Vertical Drop:
Top:
Base:
Lifts: 2 Double Chairs, Tows
Note: A huge avalanche in 1971 destroyed the surrounding area and helped lead to the area's downfall.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jan 25, 1971 - "Four die as snowslide crushes Yodelin cabins"
An avalanche 100 feet wide by 400 feet long crushed two cabins, killing two adults and two children. Stevens Pass was closed for four consecutive days due to continuing avalanche danger .
The developers of the Yodelin Ski Resort were warned two years earlier about avalanche danger in the area, based on observations by Edward R. LaChapelle of the University of Washington. The developers fought back and the state backed off because it was powerless to do anything, according to Governor Dan Evans.
Claims totaling $2 million were filed against the county, state and the developers by the survivors, the estate of the victims, and other parties.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1976 Stevens Pass ski resort purchased from the mortgage holders what was left of the defunct Yodelin Ski Area – including a chairlift, which after extensive upgrading was helicoptered one mile up the valley to become Stevens Pass No.7 “Tye-Mill” lift, opening up new skiing terrain.
The other lift was sold to Crystal Mountain and was installed as Chair 6-Upper Cambell chair.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[skiersage]

jeffee, on May 22 2007, 11:11 PM, said:

I'd have to speculate about the Halls at Badger having a fluid coupling with a one speed start-stop option. kind of a torque converter. There was an option available for variable speed on Hall's if I recall correctly that was not a variable Prime Mover speed but, a transmission that fell somewhat short of being classified as a hydrostatic system. I'm not 100% positive but I'm thinking the main lift at old Nordic Valley or new Wolf Mountain in Utah was one of these variable speed Halls. In the early days these were NOT operator friendly. Especially on a begginer lift. Trust me I was the loader on one, noisy and not guest friendly.

P.S. Noise was from the open ring and pinion

The fluid coupling you speak of was called a Hallmatic drive. It was essentially the same as the torque converter that eagleace described except it had lead BBs inside of it as well as oil. The advantage to these were that at full speed, they would get 100% lock up. Or in other words, the output shaft could reach the same RPM as the input shaft. A lot of these have since been removed because apparently the lead BBs would beat the crap out of these things on cold days.

EagleAce, on May 22 2007, 11:36 PM, said:

Just one of the Halls is a one-speed (Badger); the other one (Red Fox) is infinitely variable. The specs list it as having a "Nelson Liquid Drive". It works by draining the oil out of the coupling when the slow button is pushed; push the fast button and it refills with oil. That's how our mechanics explained it to me. If you hold the slow button too long the lift stops. Drove me NUTS when I operated it! Both our Halls could launch people. And they're both noisy--I've seen the open ring and pinions. I'll take my good ol' Yan any day! She and I got along well (as long as I talked nice to her !)

The type of drive on your Hall lifts is the AC squirrel cage type. These were the original type of electric prime mover used on chairlifts. As was stated earlier, they do not have variable speed. To fix this problem, the use of torque converters became necessary. As said above, speed is controlled by adding or subtracting the amount of oil inside the torque converter.

[liftmech]

Skier, on May 22 2007, 09:13 PM, said:

C-6 must have been heavily modified when reinstalled, for instance the two special towers, one huge lattice tower and another dual leg portal tower must have been added. I can't imagine those came from the original lift at Yodelin. I am a little confuse though about one thing: The lattice tower is for sure a Hall, exactly like others I have seen. If it was added new when the lift was reinstalled, why did both Hall and Riblet supply parts for it? It has a Riblet drive. Did that come later or was it installed with a Riblet drive terminal?

It wasn't as modified as you think. The dual-leg depression tower I've seen on other Halls, most recently Tumbelina at Monarch. The open-lattice tower further up the hill is just another way to add height to a tower, there are several of those on Aspen's Silver Queen. Both towers probably came with the lift, the dual-legger was probably the old tower 1. I've heard Crystal contracted with Riblet to build a new drive terminal mainly because of the aforementioned noisy ring-and-pinion reducer setup. Having worked on several Murray-Lattas with that setup, it sucks. Constant lubrication is required and there's no good way to do it except when the lift is turning. A recipe for diaster.

[Tramway Guy]

skiersage, on May 23 2007, 01:34 PM, said:

The fluid coupling you speak of was called a Hallmatic drive. It was essentially the same as the torque converter that eagleace described except it had lead BBs inside of it as well as oil. The advantage to these were that at full speed, they would get 100% lock up. Or in other words, the output shaft could reach the same RPM as the input shaft. A lot of these have since been removed because apparently the lead BBs would beat the crap out of these things on cold days.
The type of drive on your Hall lifts is the AC squirrel cage type. These were the original type of electric prime mover used on chairlifts. As was stated earlier, they do not have variable speed. To fix this problem, the use of torque converters became necessary. As said above, speed is controlled by adding or subtracting the amount of oil inside the torque converter.

The variable fill fluid coupling is NOT a torque converter...Torque converters have an additional element called a 'stator' that enables the converter to generate more torque at the output than input. Fluid couplings are, in simplest form, just two finned wheels with oil circulating between them. The slip between the impeller and turbine can be varied by the amount of oil in the unit, either manually for a preset acceleration level when the electric motor was started, OR in the case of the Hallmatic drive by means of a actuator arrangement. So the motor runs at a constant speed and the oil was added or removed to adjust the speed. Usually the minimum practical speed was about 40% of full speed.

The Hallmatic drive was usually built by Nelson Powermate of Michigan. They built thousands of these units, up to several thousand Horsepower for Pumping plants, belt conveyors, even turbosuperchargers for radial Piston aircraft.
The other two types used were built by American Standard (Gyrol). Most were totally enclosed, but a few shipped to Canada were semi-open units with exposed rotating parts.
These units were absolutely bulletproof, but had a couple of disadvantages compared to more modern drives, namely accuracy of speed control (no automatic regulation) and no regenerative capability. These Hallmatic drives were also capable of working with constant-speed internal combustion engines, for instance Eldora (Colorado) has a Natural Gas powered lift using a Hallmatic drive.
The powder coupling (using graphite lubed metal shot) alluded to in an earlier post was never a variable speed unit. It also did not work very well as a comfortable acceleration rate could not be achieved without a severe reduction in the life of the powder charge (and also the internal rotor)....don't ask how I know.

[Carl]

Tramway Guy, on Jun 1 2007, 09:53 PM, said:

The variable fill fluid coupling is NOT a torque converter...Torque converters have an additional element called a 'stator' that enables the converter to generate more torque at the output than input. Fluid couplings are, in simplest form, just two finned wheels with oil circulating between them. The slip between the impeller and turbine can be varied by the amount of oil in the unit, either manually for a preset acceleration level when the electric motor was started, OR in the case of the Hallmatic drive by means of a actuator arrangement. So the motor runs at a constant speed and the oil was added or removed to adjust the speed. Usually the minimum practical speed was about 40% of full speed.

The Hallmatic drive was usually built by Nelson Powermate of Michigan. They built thousands of these units, up to several thousand Horsepower for Pumping plants, belt conveyors, even turbosuperchargers for radial Piston aircraft.
The other two types used were built by American Standard (Gyrol). Most were totally enclosed, but a few shipped to Canada were semi-open units with exposed rotating parts.
These units were absolutely bulletproof, but had a couple of disadvantages compared to more modern drives, namely accuracy of speed control (no automatic regulation) and no regenerative capability. These Hallmatic drives were also capable of working with constant-speed internal combustion engines, for instance Eldora (Colorado) has a Natural Gas powered lift using a Hallmatic drive.
The powder coupling (using graphite lubed metal shot) alluded to in an earlier post was never a variable speed unit. It also did not work very well as a comfortable acceleration rate could not be achieved without a severe reduction in the life of the powder charge (and also the internal rotor)....don't ask how I know.

Good explaination! JH's old Teewinot Lift had the Gyrol. What a piece of work it was!! It had an I-H V-8 for an aux. Running the lift with the Gyrol during Line Work was a challenge. A funky "jib" was bolted in place of the main axle hold down clamp so one could lift the rope off the sheaves.

Ah, the memories.

Carl