9 replies to this topic

[SkiBachelor]

Here is an article from SAM Magazine about the Yan gondola at Keystone, Colorado. It's kind of sad that it only lasted for two years before it was replaced, but it was a great technology leap for Yan.

I'm sorry if the scans are kind of hard to read. Because the SAMs I bought are in book format, it makes it kind of hard to scan articles. However, it's better than having missing issues from the individual years.

The first picture is of Janek and Keystone's mountain manager riding up the gondola for a test run.

 yan.jpg (161.73K)
Number of downloads: 105  yan2.jpg (220.67K)
Number of downloads: 92  yan3.jpg (228.59K)
Number of downloads: 104nt]  yan4.jpg (195.85K)
Number of downloads: 92

[vons]

That grip operates similar to the old quicksilver grips from doppelmayr lift at breck. I would speculate that this lift would still be around if Teller lift had not dropped its BW

[coskibum]

from denver post articles i read from 1985, it would not be. the reason for its removal was due to the fact that many of the parts were completely worn out after the first year of service. there were also issues of gondola spacing problems with the system and the grips were wearing quickly.

the teller accident im sure had quite a bit to do with it also.

[skier2]

Yeah that's odd, because those look like regular springs,, not marshmellows, so you would think that at least they'd be okay... They look like nice grips. Not too crazy about the hanger arms though. And I heard that the main reason why that lift was removed was because of mechanical and spacing problems, not also because of the grips... and I am sure the teller accident had ALOT to do with it as well. Also the tire system... was yan credited with inventing that or something? And, tyhe cabins look pretty heavy, is does anyone know if they are normal weight or a bit heavier?

[SkiBachelor]

They were a lot lighter than any other cabin I think. The one I looked at when I was at Keystone looked like it was made out of high grade plastic, not metal.

[liftmech]

It wasn't the grip springs that were wearing out, it was the jaws. I think that the spacing issues wouldn't be around if Janeck had built the lift today; there seem to have been issue getting the tyre banks to syncronise with the actual rope speed and that was all controlled by PLCs. Today's PLCs are much more reliable.

[SkiBachelor]

Here's another picture I found of the gondola in SAM with Janek working on it.

 gondola.jpg (66.32K)
Number of downloads: 72

[Zage]

How does the grip work, it is hard to tell from the sketches in the magazine.

[SkiBachelor]

I think it worked like the POMA TB-41 grips.

[liftmech]

Nope, the TB grip was pretty much brand-new at the time and was patent-protected. The grip, if you look closely, is very similar to the Von Roll and later CTEC grips.