Return terminal with gondola cabins on line for summer operations.This lift replaced an older Doppelmayr high speed quad.Bottom terminal in winter.Looking down from tower 8.View up the line.Lift line view.Top terminal with maintenance rails.The drive terminal is longer than most Uni-GS terminals that were built.Gondola cabins parked for the winter.View down line.Lower lift line.Lower station and depression tower 1.Breakover towers.Loading area.Doppelmayr CTEC tower.
They could have been used on the old Glacier Chaser Express as well, which is from 1989, and these cabins are from that era. Obviously they must have been refitted with new Agamatic-104 grips (replacing the old DS-104 grips), and possibly new hanger arms as well.
I wonder if it would be possible to modify the terminals so that the cabins could be used year round and it be a chondola. The issue would be terminal speed as it’s always faster on chairs than gondolas. In the summer they just run slower so it wouldn’t be an issue there.
In theory, in order to slow down one side of the terminal to permit gondola loading, you would really just have to change 2 belts in the entire contour, and the diameter of the end wheel they are spinning. However, the cabins are not level-walk-ins, and in order to make a gondola that one can actually load, they would have to pour concrete for an entire loading platform. It might cost more than its worth (in terms of the on-mountain experience) to convert to a Chondola, but it’s a cool and very possible idea nonetheless.
On a similar note, this may the only Uni-GS that runs with cabins at some point during the course of the year. I can’t think of any others off the top of my head.
Its technically a chondola in the summer but a normal high speed quad in the winter!
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Any idea where the cabins came from? They clearly weren’t new since the lift was built in 2007 and CWA discontinued that cabin design in 1997.
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They could have been used on the old Glacier Chaser Express as well, which is from 1989, and these cabins are from that era. Obviously they must have been refitted with new Agamatic-104 grips (replacing the old DS-104 grips), and possibly new hanger arms as well.
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I wonder if it would be possible to modify the terminals so that the cabins could be used year round and it be a chondola. The issue would be terminal speed as it’s always faster on chairs than gondolas. In the summer they just run slower so it wouldn’t be an issue there.
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In theory, in order to slow down one side of the terminal to permit gondola loading, you would really just have to change 2 belts in the entire contour, and the diameter of the end wheel they are spinning. However, the cabins are not level-walk-ins, and in order to make a gondola that one can actually load, they would have to pour concrete for an entire loading platform. It might cost more than its worth (in terms of the on-mountain experience) to convert to a Chondola, but it’s a cool and very possible idea nonetheless.
On a similar note, this may the only Uni-GS that runs with cabins at some point during the course of the year. I can’t think of any others off the top of my head.
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So there are no UNI-GS gondolas? Did Doppelmayr build no gondolas during the GS period? (Other than UNI-G lifts shipped across the pond)
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There is one in Texas.
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What cabins are those? Their geometry doesn’t resemble anything I’ve seen.
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They are the CWA Ethos. Also found on one of Tremblant’s gondolas.
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