Attitash Summit Triple Problems 2018-2019

[MEtoVTSkier]

Latest update from Attitash. Sounds like an expensive repair. I wonder how much money has been spent on this lift that could have gone toward a replacement.

January 8, 2019 - Light at the end of the tunnel
As you may have noticed, The Summit Triple was not running today. We've gone ahead and decided to replace the entire drive of the lift in order to get to the root of the issue and solve things once-and-for-all. While we had originally considered waiting until after the coming weekend to begin this work, we decided that there is no time like the present to get this fix going, and so will be diving into it today.
Here is the timeline for the coming week:

• Several parts arrived today, with the main drive system scheduled to arrive from Salt Lake City tomorrow morning.
• Wednesday morning, a technician from SkyTrac Lifts, along with our lift mechanic team here at Attitash and several technicians from some of our sister resorts, will get to work installing this new drive system, which is scheduled to take two days and finish up on Thursday.
• Once the work has been completed, we will begin load testing the new lift under the supervision of the New Hampshire Tramway Board. This process is slated to take place on Friday and if everything goes right, we plan on having the lift spinning for the coming weekend.

Didn't they just replace the drive this summer? Hope they got the extended warranty!

 

[EPB]

I wonder if a big insurance claim is on the horizon for at least the repair and perhaps loss of business over the holidays.

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[Dickc]

So what about the WMNF. What do you think Wildcat HSQ, Lonn's HSQ's and Gondola or WV's HSQ run into? I think that arguement is out the window, Peaks has plenty to base an upgrade to the triple and multiple examples of where higher capacity lifts are allowed into the WMNF.

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Remember that they just removed the old Top Notch Double. This reduced the uphill capacity so a HSQ would only restore SOME of that.

 

[EPB]

Adding the capacity of the two lifts together. (950 people per hour for the double and 1500 for the triple), you get 2450 PPH, which is in the range for a high speed quad (2,400-2,800). These lifts spun every weekend from 1986/87 to 1998/99 in a time when there was no bear peak until 1994/1995) and no Flying Yankee. I was young at the time so but remember them running at full capacity on a routine basis. Given the lack of other options, it must have been that way. That said, the Yankee puts a lot of people on the mid mountain and another trail or two of the summit area would be prudent.

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[gregnye]

Sunday River Barker Quad is the most over-due lift replacement in the East. The most important lift at what most years is the second busiest place in New England next to Killington. Severe reliability issues with Barker Quad.



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Never been to Sunday River (it's on my list to get to), but from pictures it seems like the Barker lift is a similar model to Killington's Superstar chair, which also has very long operational hours (October--May). Anyone know what makes Barker so unreliable and Superstar ok? Maybe Sunday river needs to ask Killington about a good maintenance procedure for those retrofitted Yan lifts.

 

[GregoryIsaacs]

On a side note, anyone ever ski the line that was cut for the monorail on Attitash Mt. in the 60's? looks pretty gnarly and steep from google earth

 

[deadheadskier]

On a side note, anyone ever ski the line that was cut for the monorail on Attitash Mt. in the 60's? looks pretty gnarly and steep from google earth

I recall reading about that. Care to share a snapshot from Google Earth?

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[benski]

Adding the capacity of the two lifts together. (950 people per hour for the double and 1500 for the triple), you get 2450 PPH, which is in the range for a high speed quad (2,400-2,800). These lifts spun every weekend from 1986/87 to 1998/99 in a time when there was no bear peak until 1994/1995) and no Flying Yankee.
[\QUOTE]

I think 2,800 for a quad is really pushing it. That’s only 5 seconds between each chair. I think 6-9 is much more common. I have heard of a few 6 packs in that range. I have heard 2400 for the hunter 6 packs, bluebird and killington 6 pack.

 

[EPB]

There is plenty of leeway regarding capacity when you take chair spacing into account. I have the type of career that makes me anal about providing accurate numbers, so if I throw out a statistic that doesn't pass the sniff test, it's probably a typo. This site below hasn't been updated in years, but it provides the specs on lift installations from the 60s through 2009. Capacity is one of the specs it tracks. You can see that several HSQs are spec-ed for 2800 if you scroll though enough pages.

As a disclaimer, that doesn't mean they all actually run at spec capacity on the flying bear at Attitash, for example, has 82 chairs. If you do the math, its functional capacity is 1800 (on par with a fixed triple at my max capacity).

http://www.skilifts.org/old/install_na.htm

Several old Yan HSQs like the Sunday River Express were designed to carry 3000 PPH. If you ever rode it in the 90s or earlier, you'd probably understand how that was possible and why they aren't designed that way anymore.

Larger lifts seem to hit diminishing returns on capacity because chair spacing needs to be wider. I haven't done an exhaustive study, but 6 pack capacity seems to max out at 3600 PPH and Doppelmayr's brochure on high speed lifts advertises max capacity of high speed lifts (presumably 8 packs) at 4000 PPH. Remontees Mechaniques and liftblog have more good info, but the former is in French, so beware if French isn't your thing.

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[Smellytele]

This?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/B...493cf53da4ffce!8m2!3d44.0738899!4d-71.2342866

Or this?

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/

I can't tell where the line is on those.

 

[EPB]

Are you sure you're not referring to the section of the power line that was cut between Tim's and the Top Notch? I thought the monorail follows modern day straight shot up to Saco, but I could be wrong.

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[Katahdin]

The monorail line still exists as Straight Shot. It cuts diagonally across the slope and isn't very steep. The portion above Idiots Option is nearly flat. The mountain coaster is on the lower portion which was once the trail Hunky Dory.

 

[EPB]

Thanks for finding that.... There is a power line that starts above the old Top Notch. It crosses Saco and goes out of bounds. It comes back in bounds near Tim's and takes a steep path to Homeward Bound. It then crosses Cathedral and shoots down to the base area next to Grandstand. That's probably what you all are referencing.

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[GregoryIsaacs]

Thanks for finding that.... There is a power line that starts above the old Top Notch. It crosses Saco and goes out of bounds. It comes back in bounds near Tim's and takes a steep path to Homeward Bound. It then crosses Cathedral and shoots down to the base area next to Grandstand. That's probably what you all are referencing.

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It looks like it may have grown in as per the most recent google image shot.

 

[machski]

Never been to Sunday River (it's on my list to get to), but from pictures it seems like the Barker lift is a similar model to Killington's Superstar chair, which also has very long operational hours (October--May). Anyone know what makes Barker so unreliable and Superstar ok? Maybe Sunday river needs to ask Killington about a good maintenance procedure for those retrofitted Yan lifts.

The other thing between K (Superstar) and SR Barker is that while these two lifts were recovered with new terminal skins and got Poma chairs, the guts of the terminal and drive are still mostly Yan. Killington has three other of these Yan/Poma hybrid chairs (Snowshed and both Pico HSQ's) so their calculus may be a bit different in terms of pre-fabricating parts and keeping them on hand. They have to maintain 4 of these lifts after all, which means they will likely need the parts faster than SR does just maintaining one.

To note, the only other Yan-Poma hybrid in the east is the Grand Summit at Snow.

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[Katahdin]

Good find on the older aerial photos GregoryIsaacs. That’s the overhead utility lines to the cell tower near the summit that eastern powder was referring to.

 

[gregnye]

Not sure if this was mentioned earlier, but wow--they now have quite the blog devoted to this lift's failures:

https://www.attitash.com/blog/lifts/summit/

When you have to have a blog devoted to all the problems with your lift, chances are its time to stop half-fixing it and just remove it and start over.

By the way, I miss the top notch double. When running I always took that over the summit because it always seemed faster (not entirely true if it was faster though).

 

[EPB]

Same speed on the line, but it was a good deal shorter - roughly a 4800 foot ride vs a 6200 foot ride for the triple. With Wilfred's rarely open, there was little benefit to taking the triple once they fired up the old Hall.

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[thetrailboss]

Not sure if this was mentioned earlier, but wow--they now have quite the blog devoted to this lift's failures:

https://www.attitash.com/blog/lifts/summit/

When you have to have a blog devoted to all the problems with your lift, chances are its time to stop half-fixing it and just remove it and start over.

By the way, I miss the top notch double. When running I always took that over the summit because it always seemed faster (not entirely true if it was faster though).

And it is also quite odd that the "latest" trail map on their site shows the Top Notch Double. I am pretty sure that is gone. Peaks can't even update their trail map to remove the line for a lift that is gone?

https://www.attitash.com/uploaded/site images/attitashtrailmap1516.pdf

 

[Katahdin]

The lift has only been partially removed. The base station, rope, and chairs are gone. The towers with sheaves and top station are still in place. I guess that still counts as a lift.