Breakover towers 19-21.Top station from above.Side view of the bottom terminal.Loading area.View back to the bottom station.Riding up the line.View back down the line.Top terminal with custom skin and extra room on the outside for maintenance access.Lower station near sister lift Excalibur.Lift overview.Top terminal undercover.View down the line.Lower lift line.View up the line.The first few towers.Doppelmayr Worldbook entry.
I would just classify it as one of the many variations of the Uni that Doppelmayr made from 1989 to 1994. I have never seen one exactly like this, but if I were to guess I would say that the larger terminal enclosure is for ease of maintenance.
You are correct. This lift was designed to have bubbles. It will be interesting to see if Vail decides to relocate the ones from Wizard to this lift. However, seeing that Vail has removed bubbles from all of its other resorts, my guess the bubbles are gone for good unless only brought back for summer use off of Fitz.
Those little plastic things in the armrests on the side are always a key to tell if a Doppelmayr lift used to have bubbles. I’ve seen them on the defunct Vista Bahn Express, and the still active Storm Peak Express and Sundown Express lifts.
Quite a few of the lifts on Blackcomb got new numbered stickers on the chairs, this one being one of them. They all got little logos on them representing that specific lift too, it’s kinda cool.
I wonder why nobody else did this design. It seems like the reason it looks like a UNI-M is because it has outer walkways on the accelerator and decelerator rails. It probably makes working on an older UNI significantly easier since the standard ones are apparently super cramped inside
Only when you want to set up the terminal and do your conveyor/opening/closing inspection. There’s no outside walkway, so we have a cart that rides in the grip rails and allows us to stand on the outside of the main beam. This terminal looks much easier to do those tasks in.
Otherwise, the inside of the terminal is quite spacious.
Part of me has always wondered why this lift wasn’t named the Stoker Express (not that Excelerator Express is a bad name), since when it and Excalibur were built to replace the chain of triple chairlifts that linked Whistler Village with Blackcomb’s terrain, Stoker was the lift that this directly replaced, on a much longer alignment.
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This lift’s station looks like a combination of the UNI stations and the UNI-M stations. Do you know what specific station model this is?
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I would just classify it as one of the many variations of the Uni that Doppelmayr made from 1989 to 1994. I have never seen one exactly like this, but if I were to guess I would say that the larger terminal enclosure is for ease of maintenance.
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I believe this lift was originally designed with bubbles but they were never installed.
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You are correct. This lift was designed to have bubbles. It will be interesting to see if Vail decides to relocate the ones from Wizard to this lift. However, seeing that Vail has removed bubbles from all of its other resorts, my guess the bubbles are gone for good unless only brought back for summer use off of Fitz.
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The wizard bubble chairs are at Sun peaks on the sunburst express.
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Those little plastic things in the armrests on the side are always a key to tell if a Doppelmayr lift used to have bubbles. I’ve seen them on the defunct Vista Bahn Express, and the still active Storm Peak Express and Sundown Express lifts.
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Some lifts have those, but actually never had bubbles, like Duncan at Tremblant.
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Quite a few of the lifts on Blackcomb got new numbered stickers on the chairs, this one being one of them. They all got little logos on them representing that specific lift too, it’s kinda cool.
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That’s a Vail Resorts thing. The Doppelmayrs at Keystone have this too.
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I’d describe these terminals as early versions of the Spacejet, but with UNI turnarounds.
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I wonder why nobody else did this design. It seems like the reason it looks like a UNI-M is because it has outer walkways on the accelerator and decelerator rails. It probably makes working on an older UNI significantly easier since the standard ones are apparently super cramped inside
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Only when you want to set up the terminal and do your conveyor/opening/closing inspection. There’s no outside walkway, so we have a cart that rides in the grip rails and allows us to stand on the outside of the main beam. This terminal looks much easier to do those tasks in.
Otherwise, the inside of the terminal is quite spacious.
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Part of me has always wondered why this lift wasn’t named the Stoker Express (not that Excelerator Express is a bad name), since when it and Excalibur were built to replace the chain of triple chairlifts that linked Whistler Village with Blackcomb’s terrain, Stoker was the lift that this directly replaced, on a much longer alignment.
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Was this lift designed for bubbles? I see the little white pads on the sides of most of the chairs
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Yes, it was. Never received them, for whatever reason.
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I can see what they were going for with the custom skin to match Excalibur but… really? It’s fugly.
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I think they just did it for ease of maintenance
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