Peter, on 21 May 2014 - 07:36 PM, said:
I don't have an answer, but Doppelmayr has built one or two gondolas/six packs with them each year for the past decade or so. The other places that have them are Tremblant, Mont Orford, Alpine Ski Club, Keystone, Sunday River, Beaver Creek, Mammoth, Durango, Northstar and Heavenly.
Not every Doppelmayr lift built since 1999 has them. I think they only appear on the high speed six packs and gondolas. For instance, they're on the River Run Gondola and the Buckaroo Express Gondola, but they're not on the Larkspur Express or the Rose Bowl Express, which are high speed quads. I think there might be some resort preference as to what type of towerheads (or lifting frames if that's the correct term) to have Doppelmayr use, but I note that the Mountaintop Express has the European-style towerheads that the Sea-to-Sky Gondola has on towers 9 and 14, but has towerheads similar in design to the lifting frames of the Avanti Express, Born Free Express and Orient Express lifts on the other 13 towers. I guess it's hard to tell why they didn't use a single lifting frame design for all of the towers:
Tower 14 (European style towerhead):
Tower 15 (the other style of towerhead):