16 replies to this topic

[DonaldMReif]

Or, in other words, lifts that have parts from different manufacturers. How often does this happen?

The easiest resort to find frankenlifts at is Killington, a resort where I think you can count the number of lifts that are not constructed with parts from a variety of manufacturers. These include former Lift Engineering high speed quads overhauled by Poma, and triples and fixed grip quads with Poma and Lift Engineering parts (think, Snowdon quad).

I think frankenlifts are a bit rarer out west, but even in Colorado, we have some examples:

A-51 at Keystone. Until 2006, it was a pure Lift Engineering double chairlift with all LE equipment. Then in 2006, both it and Checkerboard/Discovery had their Lift Engineering chairs replaced with Riblet bail chairs (ostensibly I'd like to say they were old chairs from Breckenridge's Lift 4 that had been in storage for a few years after Lift 4 was replaced with the Peak 8 SuperConnect). In 2011, the drive terminal, at least on A-51, was rebuilt as something that had a more alpine cabin look. If Checkerboard/Discovery received it, I don't know. But I do know that in 2013, both lifts were greatly overhauled by Doppelmayr, with new lifting frames, and new sheave trains, and new bullwheels.

Here's A-51: http://www.remontees...rtage-1615.html, and notice how much different it looks from skierdude's report on the same site: http://www.remontees...t=0

Basically, Argentine is the only unmodified double chairlift at Keystone, but that's okay because it's an auxiliary lift only used to allow you to get to the Montezuma Express lift from Mountain House if there's problems at the Peru Express lift. The contrast of the Peru Express, an unmodified 1990 Doppelmayr high speed quad (in every way minus the removal of a few chairs this year and the replacement of the upper terminal chair garage and both operator's shacks in 2011; unmodified being 'the chairs have not been altered with the exception of safety bar maps, and the terminals are the same even though they've gone through a few different paint schemes'), with a 1970s heavily modified double.

Elsewhere, I know of Discovery at Winter Park, which was made from the former Echo lifts at Copper Mountain, meaning it has a Lift Engineering bottom station and Lift Engineering towers and sheaves, but a Heron-Poma top drive and chairs.

The original Gopher Hill at Vail before it was upgraded to a triple chairlift was this: all Riblet, but with a Lift Engineering drive station.

Burlingame at Snowmass is a Riblet with a Poma drive station. But unlike the other examples I can think of, it has its because it was shortened when the Village Express was built.

[SkiDaBird]

Mid Gad is a 71 Dopp with a CTEC (I think) bottom terminal.

[snoloco]

The North Face Triple (aka. Outpost Triple) at Mount Snow, Vermont is a true frankenlift. It has no original parts. It was originally built in 1963 as a Carlevaro-Savio double called the North Face Double. In 1982, it received a Yan top drive station. In 1985, a Yan return/tension was installed. In 1987, the lift recieved CTEC towers and the double chairs were replaced with CTEC triple chairs.

The Wheelchair Double at Windham, NY is also a frankenlift. It was built in 1971 by Hall. Sometime in the 80's it received custom fabricated Doppelmayr chairs that re-used part of the original Hall hanger arm. Sometime in the late 90's/early 2000's it was shortened by moving the bottom terminal uphill. The drive was replaced with a CTEC hydraulically tensioned drive at this time. It still has the original Hall return, towers, and sheaves.

[CH3skier]

SkiDaBird, on 05 March 2014 - 03:32 PM, said:

Mid Gad is a 71 Dopp with a CTEC (I think) bottom terminal.

Mid-Gad lift was installed in 1980, the same year they extended Gad 1 and installed Little Cloud. The new Mid-Gad lift received the original green chairs off of Gad I. Eventually Mid-Gad received the carriers off of Gad I, the yellow ones along with the new base terminal. The movie Better off dead was filmed up at the Bird in 84 or 85. Toward the end of the movie, you can see the Mid-Gad chair with the green carriers. Now I feel old going back that far.:)
Here is the scene from Youtube showing the orignal base terminal and the green chairs.

This post has been edited by CH3skier: 05 March 2014 - 07:04 PM

[Backbowlsbilly]

The old Lower Tiehack Lift at Buttemilk was a very good example of a frankenlift. It was a Carlevaro-Savio double chair with Poma drive and return terminals and Riblet chairs. The old Timberline Lift at Winter Park was another frankenlift, I believe that it was a Heron Poma lift with some Thiokol parts.

[2milehi]

Donald - your pretty observant but then your assumptions lead you down the wrong path.

Discovery and A-51 got new chairs ~2007.

A-51 got a new drive bullwheel that was produced by Doppelmayr in ~2006.

In 2013 there were non-Doppelmayr lifting frames added to Discovery and A-51. Those lifts still retain Yan sheave assemblies on the towers.


If you are not sure, please don't guess. You will only put out bad information.


All three Yan's got Doppelmayr controls in ~1997. Discovery got a PLC controls upgrade in 2007.

This post has been edited by 2milehi: 06 March 2014 - 05:30 PM

[DonaldMReif]

A least I'm pretty sure that the bullwheel on A-51 looks very much like a Doppelmayr one.

I don't consider the Falcon SuperChair a frankenlift because the only thing about the lift differing from when it was built would be that it received Omega chairs in either 2002 or 2003 to replace the Falcon chairs, and the chain cadences became tire cadences in 1999 (which also happened at the Beaver Run SuperChair and Colorado SuperChair at that same time).

[2milehi]

DonaldMReif, on 06 March 2014 - 05:32 PM, said:

A least I'm pretty sure that the bullwheel on A-51 looks very much like a Doppelmayr one.

I don't consider the Falcon SuperChair a frankenlift because the only thing about the lift differing from when it was built would be that it received Omega chairs in either 2002 or 2003 to replace the Falcon chairs, and the chain cadences became tire cadences in 1999 (which also happened at the Beaver Run SuperChair and Colorado SuperChair at that same time).

Please reread my post above. If you ever had to work on Falcon you would call it a Frankenlift. Falcon started its life as a fixed grip.

[boardski]

The former Eskimo triple, now Sweetwater at Jackson Hole is also a frankenlift. It was originally constructed as a Yan triple and had the plastic seats which said "Yan" on the back of them. It was originally the Zephyr lift built in 1983. In 1990, the lift was relocated to replace the former double Eskimo lift and the current Zephyr was built using the uprights from the former triple chair. In 1993, when the current Gemini and Endeavour were installed, the lift received new Poma chairs. The sheaves were also replaced with Poma sheaves either when it was relocated. Word has it, more modifications were made when it was reinstalled in Jackson Hole but it looks to still have the Poma chairs and sheaves with Yan bullwheels and drive terminal. One thing's for sure, it is much shorter than it once was. It is always rather interesting riding a relocated lift when I have ridden the same lift in its former location. Or in this case, all of its former locations.

[DonaldMReif]

The Independence SuperChair does not qualify for "frankenlift" status simply because all of its original towers, terminals and infrastructure are still present, although they added a tower and six chairs when they extended the lift in 2008 downhill. But the chairs added are Omega chairs identical to the original 113 chairs in every way but for the fact that the newer chairs have the Leitner-Poma logo on the number sticker whereas the original chairs have the Poma logo, although both have the swoosh logo, and of course, the existence of a tower 2A, which aside from the fact that the number plate on the lifting frame is to the side of the frame rather than in the center looks identical to the rest of the towers. A bit of trivia I notice is that according to Google Earth imagery, tower 2's original foundation is still there, albeit it is unused, while tower 2A uses the foundation that used to be used for tower 1.

I guess one could, however, consider the Skyline Express and Teacup Express lifts as frankenlifts since anyone with knowledge of Poma designs can tell that chairs 118-157 on the former and chairs 106-126 on the latter were added at a later date.

[2milehi]

If you look close to the chair numbers on Quicksilver (at Breck) you will see that there is a different number under the decal.

[Lift Dinosaur]

I'm thinking it's about time to move this thread to "Off Topic Discussions" instead of "Technical Discussions".
Just sayin'

Dino

This post has been edited by Lift Dinosaur: 07 March 2014 - 10:00 AM

[Backbowlsbilly]

A new frankenlift is the Kicking Horse Quad at Granby Ranch (formerly Solvista), it is a Leitner lift but has Poma Omega quad carriers since it was built during the LPOA merger.

[liftmech]

I wouldn't count that one as it was built all at once. A better example would be out S-lift, a 1983 YAN on which we replaced the original sheave assemblies with Doppelmayr in the late 90s, the carriers with CTEC models in 2006, and gearbox/bullwheel from Doppelmayr in 2007.

[DonaldMReif]

liftmech, on 20 March 2014 - 05:44 AM, said:

I wouldn't count that one as it was built all at once. A better example would be out S-lift, a 1983 YAN on which we replaced the original sheave assemblies with Doppelmayr in the late 90s, the carriers with CTEC models in 2006, and gearbox/bullwheel from Doppelmayr in 2007.

Rendezvous also received CTEC chairs in 2006/2007, I believe.

[liftmech]

Yes, and old triple-E's YAN lifting gantries and Doppelmayr sheaves in 1999.

The recently deceased chair 6 at Crystal was technically germane to this thread, as it had a Riblet drive terminal on a Hall lift.

[DonaldMReif]

Oh yeah, I see it. I found this old photo of Rendezvous with Google Earth:



I guess I should also mention Bell Mountain at Aspen Mountain as that hasn't been mentioned here.