40 replies to this topic

[Kicking Horse]

I would ride the lift next time I'm there But I'm going to be working there :). (NSCD aka National Sports Center for the Disabled)

Not Winter park ski area itself. Just the NSCD is based there.

This post has been edited by Kicking Horse: 06 January 2006 - 04:35 PM

[aug]

SkiBachelor, on Dec 20 2005, 07:35 PM, said:

I was at Silver Star today and while riding the Powder Gulch Express, I noticed several weird things with the lift's towers. I'm not sure why the height of the towers were increased unless the lift's profile was changed after the lift was finished being manufactured by L-P, but there were several towers like this on the lift. Some towers had about 2 feet added while some were more than 8 feet. However, I'm pretty sure that the extra height adjustments wern't added because the towers couldn't fit on the trucks because some towers were short, like the one at the top terminal.

Does anyone have any ideas?

attachment

yes i have seen this at other ski areas and have seen this at some instalations , some times the fabricator and the engineers get their numbers crossed. or the elevations for that particular lift tower were misread. most likely cause is fixing a mistake.

[Lift Dinosaur]

aug, on Jan 8 2006, 07:22 PM, said:

most likely cause is fixing a mistake.

Not necessarily - read post #6.

[ski_Lift_modeler]

Skyeship Gondola @ K has them. specifically on the first stage.

Yaoma, if you see this thread, can you try to answer why those are there? thanks

Mike

[Lift Dinosaur]

ski_Lift_modeler, on Jan 12 2006, 06:58 PM, said:

Skyeship Gondola @ K has them. specifically on the first stage.

Yaoma, if you see this thread, can you try to answer why those are there? thanks

Mike

SLM-
I rode the Skyship today and asked that question of the area GM. In question were the towers arriving at the mid-station. It was in fact an "engineering oversight" on the part of the manufacturer.

[shoemanII]

tower loadings were never quite right on the flat section of stage I, corrected by poma. to view another "oversight", check out the 3ft long thimble extensions on the drive masts of stage II. both were enginering/construction errors.

here's a third reason for extensions/field mods: in some cases, the tower tubes must be entered into the construction/fabrication sequence (tubes cut-to-lenght, base/top flanges and assorted gusseting attached, delivered to galvanizing plant, delivered to field, final mechanical field assembly, switches/comm line wiring installed,etc) prior to having a final profile approved by all parties, if the acceptance test date is to be met. in that case, tubes are put in the sequence and adjustments (thimble extensions/shortening) are made on-site as needed. this scenario is not unusual if the purchaser signs late.

This post has been edited by shoemanII: 22 January 2006 - 06:37 PM

[Peter]

Chinook Express 6pack at Crystal Mountain, WA has them. They were probably reused towers from the poma quad.

[ski9600]

I was thinking more about this, and had an idea. If the lift was being redesigned like the Super Gauge at MJ, maybe the engineer would want to shorten some of the towers in order to use smaller mechanical components or change the profile for asthetic reasons. Say they wanted to shorten the tower by 4 feet. Maybe the easiest way to do that is to have the crew cut anywhere between 10 to 12 feet off the tower and weld a new flange on top. Then precise measurements could be taken and a short extension built in the shop to acheive the exact height that the design called for. This way they wouldn't have to cut the tower precisely in the field, they could just lop it off wherever and the engineer would be happy. What do you think?

[liftmech]

Skier, on Jan 23 2006, 06:40 PM, said:

Chinook Express 6pack at Crystal Mountain, WA has them. They were probably reused towers from the poma quad.

All towers were reused save old tower 6 (it was the 12-sheave depression just uphill of Bull Run); the top terminal is further off the ground than the old vault drive station so T-14 had to be lengthened. T-15 is a new Doppelmayr addition since the old T-15 sat about where the current front mast is.

[vons]

it is interesting how at Beaver creek they used to reuse the towers only adding new crossarmes but on chairs 9 and 11 B.C. ordered new profiles to be designed and completly new towers in new locations, infact the only bit of a tower reused on either of the two lifts was the foundaition of tower 1 on larkspire bowl and that was only because there are fiberoptic lines near it. In other note we added some spool sections ( what you have been calling tower extentions) to upper Beavercreek Mountain exp. That was my first expereance triing to get a rope back into a 4d-4t assembly . It seemed that the design engeneer overlooked the serveyer's note on about the resivor burm and its location

[skibum603]

At Mount Sunapee in NH back in the 1980's when the state owned it, Riblet had a contrcat to build a triple chair now know as the Spruce triple. Long story short, state engineers went back and forth with the Riblet engineers on specs. The towers and terminals were built and sat for at least two winters.. Then Dopplemyer came in and added extentions on a few towers...Just like in the pictures, then they re-did the drive and electric controls/ safeties... and Mt Sunapee's "Ribble-myer" was born. The company soon went out of business... Now that I think of it, It might of been the Robling lift company... But I'm pretty sure it was Riblet.

SkiBachelor, on Dec 20 2005, 10:35 PM, said:

I was at Silver Star today and while riding the Powder Gulch Express, I noticed several weird things with the lift's towers. I'm not sure why the height of the towers were increased unless the lift's profile was changed after the lift was finished being manufactured by L-P, but there were several towers like this on the lift. Some towers had about 2 feet added while some were more than 8 feet. However, I'm pretty sure that the extra height adjustments wern't added because the towers couldn't fit on the trucks because some towers were short, like the one at the top terminal.

Does anyone have any ideas?

attachment

[SkiBachelor]

It couldn't have been Riblet if it shortly went out of business after the lift was installed since Riblet shut down its manufacturing divison in 2003.

[Jonni]

No, I know it was Riblet because the controls at the top of the Spruce are Riblet controls, and I know that the top terminal design is riblet.

[Jonni]

Here's the same thing on the Sherburne Express at Burke Mountain, VT. The towers are reused Hall Double Double tubes.

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•  extra_towertube_burke.jpg (102.37K)
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[chasl]

Jonni, on Mar 22 2006, 10:58 AM, said:

Here's the same thing on the Sherburne Express at Burke Mountain, VT. The towers are reused Hall Double Double tubes.

Jonni,
You are 100% correct, it was a Riblet.

I am not sure of the year the modification was completed, but I can tell you the drive clean up and modification was not fun. It took almost 1 week to turn down the emergency brake flange alone. A cutting tool was adapted to the drive frame and the electric drive was used to turn the bullwheel. The speed regulation was difficult to maintain, this caused a few problems as the welded areas on the brake flange did not like being turned down.

[Jonni]

I know that this is off topic, but our Ribletmayr is definitely an interesting beast. We have more Code Greys (lift malfunctioning) on that thing than any other lift on the mountain. It also has three speeds. The start speed, isn't the slow speed but rather an even slower version of it around 100 fpm. So once the lift is started you can hit the slow button and it will actually speed up to the slow speed. The slow speed is around 200 fpm and then full speed is 350. That and Riblet's controls at the top (drive is at the bottom) make it so that you can speed the lift up from the top. It's not the most interesting configuration that I've seen, but it's right up there with some of the big ones.

When Mt. Sunapee put forth the plan to redesign and redo it's lift structure it put out bids to different lift companies, and they were trying to avoid Riblet because of the inserted grips. In order to get the job Riblet agreed to use another company's grips in order to have the job. The started in 1985 on one of three lifts to be completed, the Spruce triple, North Peak triple, and the Summit triple, this was the Spruce lift. As time when on, the ski area was unhappy with the job that Riblet was doing, so they fired Riblet midway through the project. Only terminals, tower tubes, basic controls, and control cabinent were in place. The lift sat for a year until Mt. Sunapee put bids out again and Doppelmayr got the job in 1987. They finished the Spruce lift and built the North Peak and Summit lift.

[andyh1962]

Previous postings to this discussion showed only pictures where the extra tower tube extension was added to the TOP of the tower. Here are two examples where the extra tower tube extension was added on the BOTTOM of the tower tube. These pictures show the Heavenly Quad at Devil's Glen Ski Club, Glen Huron Ontario. This a Leitner Poma Quad, installed summer 2004, 2270 feet long, 454 vertical.

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•  Picture_014.jpg (273.91K)
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•  Picture_004.jpg (278.67K)
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[mikest2]

That is a normal Poma thing, I've got one or two on my 1994 Poma. I think when they go over a certain height, they step the tower sections. Normally if you field lengthen a tower, you add a piece at the top to minimize the bending moment on it.

[liftmech]

I'd agree with you on that one. The stepped towers are designed that way from the start, you can see it on the profile. All of our Poma detaches have a few.

[Lift Kid]

Breck also has quite a few. Especialy on quicksilver super 6.