31 replies to this topic

[ISMrider]

Is their and has their been a HS without tube towers?? I have been on aleast 40 HS lifts in USA and CAN and Europe but have never been on one that doesn't have tube towers.

[SkiBachelor]

Yea, there are a few in Switzerland. I remember marrier michael posting a few and telling about how cheap and strong they actually are and stuff and I think the HSQ shown was either a garaventa or von roll.

[ISMrider]

If anyone has a picture please share.

[liftmech]

Tube, or pipe steel, towers are definitely the less expensive and more practical method. However, when one has a lift that needs a very tall tower, the open-lattice construction is better in terms of rigidity and strength. It's not a chairlift, but Ajax's Silver Queen six-passenger gondola has almost exclusively lattice towers due to their height (in excess of 25 metres).

[edmontonguy]

Doppelmayr Towers seem to be often tubes made by rolling thick sheet metal at an angle while welding the seams and then triming the bottom.

[liftmech]

Yan did that as well, only he had the fabrication equipment mounted on a trailer and did it on site. He'd set up in the parking lot and, with profile in hand for numbers, begin pumping out towers. His welders then attached the tower caps right there.

[Allan]

That explains why they look like toilet paper rolls :---:

[liftmech]

Giant steel ones :---: I think ANSI or OSHA got on him about the field-fabrication process and forced him to move it back to the factory because of quality-control issues. Of course, he had those in the factory as well, so I don't know if that was any better.

[KZ]

Quite the simple method. I think some of the coolest towers are those of the funitel that are the tube/lattice combo. a few are pretty tall and have a really unique look to them; not the most attractive, but very unique.

[liftmech]

Silver Queen has those as well. I really wouldn't want to be the guy who has to climb them...

[edmontonguy]

The coolest towers in my opinion are the towers on the Gondola at sunshine. Old Latice towers toped with brand new Poma heads!

[CAski]

I like the sweeping steel buttresses on the Funitel at Squaw.

[Mike-Europe]

I just read your discussion about towers of high speed lifts so I decided to join and registered. In Switzerland there are some high speed lifts which don't have tube towers. At the attachment (the rights are by M. Meyer) you can see one with very strage towers (unique I guess) at Arosa. It is a HST built by Von Roll in the late 1980's. I have to search for some photos of other high speed lifts without tube towers, but I will find some soon. I hope I could help you.

Attached File(s)

•  arosa1.jpg (164.77K)
  Number of downloads: 66

[Bill]

Thank you for your input from Europe. I really like how they design some of their lifts. And welcome to the forum.

[Kelly]

Yan tower fabrication info –
90% of all the tower stock came from Japan. 40' lengths were a common size. True with most lift manufactures even today.
Spiral seam more common on longer lengths, also true with most manufactures.
Only cap/cross arm shoe and ladder rungs added in field on line towers.
Only side plates and bullwheel frames added to terminal towers.
40' tower with assemblies weighs around 5500 lbs.
Maximum weight that a Bell 214 can pick is about 5501 lbs.

Ryan B

[Mike-Europe]

Thank you for the nice welcome!
Here you can see another HST without tube towers. It's in Anzere, Switzerland. This lift has also an intermediate station.
The rights of the photo are by www.seilbahn.tk.
All of these lifts are allready about 10 years old. The new ones have almost always
tube towers.

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•  anzere4.jpg (63.46K)
  Number of downloads: 60

[liftmech]

What kind of lift is that last photo, Mike? The carriers are unfamiliar although the terminal looks like my 1986 Poma detachable quad.

[floridaskier]

It would be interesting if PCMR put lattice towers on the new Town lift, whenever that would be (at least from the part you can see from the town) because the old mining tram had lattice towers that still stand next to the boring 80's CTEC tube towers.

Edit: I saved it as a JPEG, which really screws up the quality, and it's a little smaller than I would have planned. I don't really remember if the tower head design is right, or if CTEC builds depression sheaves attached to the terminal

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•  town_jpeg.JPG (55.55K)
  Number of downloads: 33

This post has been edited by floridaskier: 13 May 2004 - 04:22 AM

[SkiBachelor]

liftmech, on May 13 2004, 04:06 AM, said:

What kind of lift is that last photo, Mike? The carriers are unfamiliar although the terminal looks like my 1986 Poma detachable quad.

John, it's a Roll, Von Roll. :D

[Mike-Europe]

@liftmech: SkiBachelor is right, it's a Von Roll. It was built in 1987 or 1988 and was the first high speed lift I ever rode. In the beginning there was only the lower section and some years later they added the upper section to replace an old double chair. Today it's one of the last HST's in Europe