12 replies to this topic

[skierdude9450]

I was riding chair 2 at Vail, and noticed that it had a tower 7A. Also chair 10 has I think a 2A or 3A, and Iron Horse at Winter Park, I think has a tower 5A. What is this? Why is it not just the next number.

[Allan]

I think lettered towers are ones that are added after the lift is built..

[Jonni]

It could be that a tower was added to the line sometime after the lift was completed in order to deal with line issues that it may have been experiencing originally. Hence this would manifest adding using the 10A designation rather than renumbering all the towers and changing their designation on PLC at the drive of the lift.

[skierdude9450]

I guess that would make sense. So it's basically that they figure out that they need a tower to support the line or whatever after they've put them all up.

[SkiBachelor]

A good example is the six-pack express at Snowmass. Another tower was added in between two towers because the bounce from when the lift stopped violated some ground clearance rules.

[skierdude9450]

Yeah. That would make sense for chair 2 to have a 7A. It would be a long span that's not high off the ground, and without much line bend without it. Thanks for the info. Also there are A and sometimes B and C towers at midstations. That might be because the midstation was built later?

[Peter]

Shedhorn at Big Sky has a tower 7 and 7A right next to each other.

[Superchairliftfan]

The Wizard Express at Whistler/Blackcomb has a tower labeled 14A, which is directly below the Excalibur Gondola. it is apparently used to give adequate clearance for the two lifts.

[floridaskier]

The opposite can happen too. Carpenter at DV doesn't have a tower 4. I guess when they retrofitted it from the Yan HSQ they decided it wasn't needed?

[boardski]

That tower on Iron Horse at Mary Jane (which I think is actually 4A) is a Yan compression tower with the remainder of the lift being Heron. It was probably added when Arrow or Outrigger were built originally. There would be a lot of sag in the haul rope without the extra tower. This was back in the days before Summit Express when Iron Horse had 45 minute lines on the weekends and carried a full load almost always.

[Lift Kid]

I know that lift 5 at Breckenridge has a letter tower right where it turns 5%. I'm not sure if that was added after the lift was built or what. I know the summer mid-station has all letter towers because it isn't used in the winter.

[liftmech]

floridaskier, on Jan 30 2007, 07:58 PM, said:

The opposite can happen too. Carpenter at DV doesn't have a tower 4. I guess when they retrofitted it from the Yan HSQ they decided it wasn't needed?

More than likely. Baker's old chair 6 did not have a tower 1; the original drive terminal was built before Riblet used 8-rocker depress assemblies and the new (1996) one did include 8. Thus tower 1 was unnecessary and was removed.

[Aussierob]

Superchairliftfan, on Jan 30 2007, 05:47 PM, said:

The Wizard Express at Whistler/Blackcomb has a tower labeled 14A, which is directly below the Excalibur Gondola. it is apparently used to give adequate clearance for the two lifts.

14A is a hold down to give clearance under Excalibur Gondola when it was built. Crystal chair has 12A, and for something completely different, 7th Heaven has no 16 and 17. It was a mid station assembly that was never used so we took it out. It was going to be too much of a pain to change all the paper work and labelling so we left it the way it is.

This post has been edited by Aussierob: 07 February 2007 - 06:00 PM