38 replies to this topic

[SkiBachelor]

Dang, the chair spacing is crazy on that lift, I wonder why?

[edmontonguy]

With that sort of spacing it's obvious why the lift capacity is so low. it work out to be about one chair every 30 seconds. One thing is you'll never have to worry about skiiers unprepared to load the lift and hence less stops.

[Kicking Horse]

why did they not install a hsq?

[edmontonguy]

It was probably either a money issue or the need for capacity wasn't there. Most of the runs can be accesed by the Sunburst HSQ and triple chair so it was probably a decision to have a really long lift to serve more hardcore terrain than just install a shorter Quad.

[SkiBachelor]

Well this lift replaced a M-Latta double so I figured that would have a higher capacity than the current quad.

[poloxskier]

Was the double the same length?

[edmontonguy]

The original was built in 1961 but i'm unsure of wether it was as long as the new quad.

The sundance quad was originally an FG but converted 2 years after it's initial consturction to an HSQ when 800 feet were added to it's length.

[edmontonguy]

Sun Peaks was bought by Nippon Wire company in 1992. In 1993 2 or 3 (i have conflicting information) quads were installed one being the sunburst express and the second being either the sundance quad or half of the burnfeild quad. If so then the instalation in 1997 would have been an extension of the Burnfeild quad from likely where the midstation is now. If anyone would like to clarify this it would be greatly appreciated though it's definately interesting the history of the lifts at sunpeaks.

[Kicking Horse]

why don't cameron or bill send off a e-mail to them and ask?

[SkiBachelor]

No, I think the Burnfield was a brand new lift. However, the Sundance lift was installed in 1995, but I can't find it in the World Book.

Hey Bill, I'm just curious, but when you redid the World Book CDs from Doppelmayr CTEC, did you have to do that manually? I think there might have been a few lifts that got cut out, but maybe not. I was just curious because aerial trams come after HSQs when they are usually first.

[Bill]

When I cut the PDF apart, they were all there. I will look into that and see what I can find.

[edmontonguy]

The forum Lift survey has the Burnfield chair installed in 1993/1997. On SAM's lift survey the lift isn't even on the 1997 survey. The sunpeaks wabsite on;y has information about the other two quads not anything about the new burnfield. Maybe sunpeaks will give us some insight into the lift? i'll email them today.

[SkiBachelor]

Alright sounds good. Because I was looking at the Doppelmayr World Book CD and it was on there and it never said anything about the lift being extended, rather that it replaced a M-Latta and is the longest Quad in North America and probably in the world.

[liftmech]

I didn't know Tod had a Murray-Latta. That makes 19 of those that existed at one time or another.

[edmontonguy]

Here's the email from Sun Peaks it's very informative:


Thanks for the inquiry
The Burfield Chair was named after this resorts original operator Harry
Burfield. It was originally installed in 1961 and was the first
installation of a double chair designed by Robert Maclellan and
Murray-Latta machine compay. At the time it was revolutionary because it
featured rubber bushed greaseless balanciers and had no provision for
alignment. Mr Maclellan felt that the lift had to be installed dead
straight and plumb and would stay that way. It was installed entirely
from the ground using gin poles, cats and pack horses. The lift had
several serious problems in the early days including a major derailment
and tower displacement caused by starting with a carrier over the comm.
line and a fire that destroyed the original top diesel drive terminal.
Robert Maclellan, now in his early 80's and was also responsible for
numerous material trams and resort installations throughout North
America including the Jackson Hole tram, and the Blue, Orange and Olive
chairs on Whistler Mountain.
In 1997 the original Burfield Lift equipment was judged to be at the end
of its life and so was replaced by a relocated Doppelmayr 4C fixed grip,
bottom drive/tension station a mid station in the original location and
a fixed top terminal. The mid station is primarily for loading however
riders can disembark there if they wish.
Slope Length is slightly longer (about 100 meters) than the original at
2998.6 meters. Rope speed is 2.3 m/s and due to the length and drive
configuration capacity is quite low at 470 pph. Vertical rise is 881.5
meters versus the original at 867 and the average gradient is 32.24%
The resort is currently exploring options for increased capacity on this
alignment.
Regards

Jamie Tattersfield
Mountain Operations Manager
Sun Peaks Resort Corporation

[SkiBachelor]

Wow, that's cool. I guess I will have to remove that lift from the 1997 lift installation survey, I thought SAM forgot to list it like some other lifts I have come across. :)

[Kicking Horse]

Now that is the kind of e-mail i like to see from a ski area :) I still don't understand why they have cap so low. Can't they put a bigger diesel engine in it?

[edmontonguy]

Sun Peaks sure seems to know what they're doing. They have the largest list of people to contact i've ever seen a resort have. It's broken nicely into all the different departments.

As for the low capacity it has to do with the chair spacing. currently the spacing of the chairs is somewhere in the 30 second ballpark. the average quad is somewhere around 6-10 seconds. so in order to bring the capacity up they need to buy the equivalent of 2 sets of the current chairs. This is not a cheap thing to do considering the line is very long and Fg lift genrally have a much closer chair spacing in meters than hsq's also helping in the need for more chairs.

Sunpeaks has done this with other chairs too. The sunburst had chairs added to raise capacity when it was needed.

This post has been edited by edmontonguy: 21 January 2005 - 12:01 AM

[Kicking Horse]

i think this topic should be moved.... out of the trivia.....