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I believe we have the images, but they haven't been uploaded to the new server.

oh. ok Thanks :)

The old Carlevaro gondola at Wildcat had this arrangement in the bottom tensioning terminal.

Anoter unique memory of this lift was the deisel top drive. They had a fuel carrier with detachable grip that they filled up and ran on the the line, emptied into the main fuel tank for the deisel at the top and sent it down empty to be filled again. Not every day you're skiing down the lift line and watch the multi-colored gondola cars running uphill then see a grip and hanger arm with a 55 gallon drum on it.

The bottom terminal of the Wildcat gondola had a single horizontal bullwheel on a rail mounted tension carriage. The tension carriage had a gasoline powered auxiliary drive which was used to run the crew up & down the mountain at the beginning/end of daily operations.

snowmaster, on 17 February 2011 - 06:44 PM, said:

To add to this"Interesting Bullwheel" Topic, I came across a video on YouTube of aline ride on an old Doppelmayr someone filmed. It has two bullwheels at the topstation. I couldn't figure out what the second one did. One for drive, andanother for tensioning I guess.

Here is the link:http://www.youtube.c...h?v=QRD3nlK8IaQ

Jump to about 1:50 where the carrier is entering the terminal.

Any Ideas?
Thanks

Yeah there's actually 3 bullwheels, there's just two stacked together at the front of the terminal. The one at the back has the tension unit attached to it. Not sure the reason behind this system, but maybe it has something to do with keeping the return bullwheel in the same place no matter where the tension is.

The fixed Bull wheels may have a pto off of them to power the conveyor system , or maybe to provide more carriage travel.

Skierdude: Im not sure what you mean by keeping the return bullwheel in place if it is fixed into the terminal.

Vons: I don't think it has a conveyor system because I see the chain system, but I could be wrong there.

SkiliftsRock: Tire banks, cadence chains, etc. are all parts of a conveyor system. The tires or chain convey the chair though the terminal when not attached to the rope.

I carefully looked at the video again and Skierdude was right. Still not sure the reasoning but attached is a picture of what happens in the terminal.

1: Haul Rope enters terminal.
2: Proceeds to round lower Bullwheel #1
3: Proceeds to round Bullwheel #2 for tension
4: Once around Bullwheel #2, Rope heads toward front to round upper Bullwheel #3 (Pink)
5: Once around Bullwheel #3, heads out the light side of the terminal back to the return terminal.

See Attached Drawling:
 Top Drive Top Tension.jpg (1.72MB)
Number of downloads: 66

Is it possible to have bottom tension and top tension? Or is it ever necessary?

Thanks,

It is possible. Poma runs this on many of their 'Omega' terminals, where both ends have a carriage. The top is usually used to allow for haul rope stretch only.

Looking at the video, it appears that the bottom is a fixed drive- there is no bottom tension. At 30 seconds you see a blue/green fixed pedestal for the Drive Bullwheel and then at 34 seconds you see on the right a silver box that I assume(?!!?) encloses the drive equipment.
As for the double wrap on the top bullwheels, I can only speculate that to provide Bottom Drive / Top Tension for the lift Profile required two wraps on the top bullwheel to maintain the correct torque to tension (t/T) ratio.
Dino