The trouble with skiing is that it takes a lot of my time. But, I'm back and I did get some pictures. I chose a couple of the older lifts at Sunday River in Maine. They are still newer than the Transition Era, but much more typical of older lifts than today's high-speed 6-pack chairs.
This is the top of a simple chair. It's a triple, like all of these. Back in the 50's double chairs would have been more common. The frames of the chairs are metal, but the back rests consist of wooden slats. Sunday River has put black cushions on the seats themselves. Cushions are a relatively recent luxury though, and in the old days the seats would have been bare metal or wood.
In no particular order, this is the detail of a fixed-grip connection to the cable. This chair rotates clockwise, so the wheel would be to the right of the cable.\
Looking up the mountain, here's a few chairs and a lift tower. I can't recall ever seeing a tower that was not a T configuration for a chairlift. The arch shown in one of the earlier model pictures would be more commonly used for a T-bar lift where the skiers stay on the surface. There are some wires running up the center, too. I assume they're used for safety interlocks, with indicators if a cable slips off a wheel. I'm not sure when those were introduced.
This is an oddball. It's a mid-station, where the lift continues but people can get off. In this case, the station is not active and skiers must ride to the top. As you can see, the structure is wood.
This is the base of a different chair, but still an old triple. To the left, there's a tarp over a pit which holds the large concrete counterweight that maintains tension on the lift.
And yes, it was an absolutely awesome day of skiing, with bright blue skies, lots of snow, no wind and temperatures in the 40s.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Frank
Enjoyed the video. I keep getting new ideas.
Thanks
Harold
Hello I have been thinking about this lift. First what are you going to use for a cable? Should be thin to big and it wont look right. What are you making the chair's out of ? The bottom should be heavy so they hang down and look right. How big will the lift shacks be.
With that in mind. I think you can use a one pulley on top and one at the bottom. Two in each shack one going up hill and one down hill The chairs should twist the cable as it goes over the pulley and down though the floor. Need room to swing the chair's. Make the bull wheels fake.
I found a video see how they go in the shack under the guide. You can make a guide like that to swing them down instead of around. And the other side would swing up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAwcIDeUMAI
Hope this helps Frank
HHPATH56So what if the skiers go up and down? This is done in the prototype. Bob Hahn
With all due respect, I've been skiing for 35 years, and I can count the number of skiers I've seen riding down on a chairlift on one finger.
Look for plastic Easter eggs about an inch long. Since the lift is set back a bit, you could get away with just painting them to represent the windows and doors. These would be small 4-person gondolas. Another option would be a tramway, with only two cars, but much larger, that move up and down the mountain in tandem to counterweight each other on the cable. Trams generally do not circle and return, but rather stop to unload and load, and then return on the same side, with the cable moving in the opposite direction. That would require some sort of timing and stop-reverse-start mechanism.
I'm going to Sunday River this weekend. I'll try to get some cell-phone pics of chairs and mechanisms. I'll try to get a shot of the "Chondola," too. It's a hybrid system that combines chairs and gondolas on the same lift. For now, google "Chondola" and you can see it.
When I did the "pit-bash" of an Atlas deck turntable to a pit turntable, I looked at what others had done. All of them, including one that appeared in MR at about the same time, compromised by allowing the base of the pit to rotate with the turntable. I found that unacceptable, and rose to the challenge of building mine with a fixed pit floor. It made the project much harder, but in the end, much more satisfying. You are to be applauded for doing this one right.
No problem. I model the 50's
I am not sure what era you are modeling but gondolas have been around for a while.
I do not know a comercial source. Although if your working in HO, seems that a Z scale caboose would be a good place to start. Google pictures of the old Jackson Hole gondola. A gondola that is my personal favorate is the one that is currently at Steamboat resort. The gondola is about as wide as a four pack lift. Also you could make it practically dissapear into 2 buildings. A gondola comes off the cable and loads passengers in a building.
Sounds interesting. I will put this on my Plan B list. I do not know if I can fashion the gondolas or do you know of a comercial sorce>
I think i have the solution. Go with a gondola. I have seen many people ride down in the gondola. Also a gondola goes into a building at both ends. Just got back from skiing at Scweitzer in Idaho. Good luck.
Check out the photo. My latout is set in Autumn. The mountain is being designed like Mt Hood in Oregon which has sking above tree line all year. Ignore the red across the middle, that was the old mountain. As you can see the mountain will reach the ceiling. You will see a line above 1/3 the way up. That is tree line. A tunnel will cover the two tracks and be covered with trees. The lift and the run are all visible with no trees. That is why I was going to try the rollover to go under the mountain.
Lets try to keep working on the rollover for now. I hate to quit on an idea.
Hello Harold here is a poor drawing of a pulley system.
This would work on getting the cable and chairs under the hill/table and back up. Not sure how big it needs to be or how small it can be to work. You will have to make some kind of rail/slid to swing the chair up and over the pulley.
How much room is under this space you maybe able to mount some stuff under there? Hope this helps Frank
I see a lot of merit in Dave's suggestion of two separate horizontal wheel sytems. Let's consider a ski lift that appears to run counter-clockwise, so the ascending chairs are on the right side looking up the mountain, and the descending chairs are on the left. To model this, the ascending chairs will actually be on a loop that rotates clockwise, and returns to the right outside the visible path, while the descending chairs also really rotate clockwise, with the uphill return hidden to the left.
When an ascending chair reaches the top, it turns around a wheel rotating to the right, while the descending chairs have their top wheel to the left. This must all be hidden, because the illusion is the ascending chairs will round a non-existent wheel and return as the descending chairs.
Slightly later edit: The real rotating wheels could be mounted at a 45-degree angle, so that the visible chairs would be higher up and the hidden chairs would be lower, making it easier to hide them beneath the terrain.
I would hide the actual return paths inside a removeable liftoff topped with pine trees. Real ski lifts often are placed between rows of trees, to reduce the wind. To add more visible interest, make the surface below the visible lift a ski run, complete with moguls, skiers and padded towers. The top of the lift needs to be a structure, to hide the actual wheels. You could improve the illusion by providing a half-visible rotating wheel inside the house that the the chairs appear to be circling. The base could again be a building, or it could be masked with trees or large resort signs.
And, you've got to name your ski trails after fallen flag railroads. May I suggest an expert slope, denoted by a black diamond, be called "Erie?"
I have that as my last resort. The chair block will be difficult as the mountain is steep and there will be a lodge behind it that would then become a problem. My other last resort is the lift broke down with fire dept getting people off. I stil wnt to go for the big one.
Take a look at the solution above from Mister Besley. This could work.
hwolf I am attempting to to built a working ski lift from sratch. NO commercial kits. Ok .Here is the problem. As skiers never come down the lift I am building it with 2 sides. Up with Chairs an people. Down with empty chairs. Now check the enclosed drawing.. The cable will go through a hole in the layout and return under the mountain only to appear again at the foot of the hill. If I use a wheel on its side the hanging chair will run into the wheel. Please give it some real thought as to how I can make this work. The lift will run for approx 30". So we don't get to complicated I will get into the way I will have to motorize this project at a later date. Thanks in advance. Harold
I am attempting to to built a working ski lift from sratch. NO commercial kits. Ok .Here is the problem. As skiers never come down the lift I am building it with 2 sides. Up with Chairs an people. Down with empty chairs. Now check the enclosed drawing.. The cable will go through a hole in the layout and return under the mountain only to appear again at the foot of the hill. If I use a wheel on its side the hanging chair will run into the wheel. Please give it some real thought as to how I can make this work.
The lift will run for approx 30". So we don't get to complicated I will get into the way I will have to motorize this project at a later date.
Thanks in advance.
That's your problem for sure, a headsheave rotating in the vertical plane will foul all the chairs.
I think you have to stick to a headsheave and bullwheel rotating in the horizontal plane like on the real chairlifts. You could locate these wheels under the scenery and have the liftcable duck down thru a concealed hole in the scenery. You'd need two wheels, one for up and one for down, at both the top and bottom. Keeping the two cables from tangling in each other is left as an exercise to the student.
Real chairlifts mount the bullwheel and drive motor on wheels running on short rails, and have a massive concrete weight pulling on them to keep the lift cable tensioned.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
It was 1 AM when I wrote that, and I realized a drawing would help. I'm at work now, but I'll try to put together a drawing tonight.
I think you will need a small wheel rather than a large one so that the chairs will clear as they go around it. There are a couple of trade-offs. A smaller wheel will need to rotate faster, which should not be a problem. It will have less surface in contact with the "cable," so there might be slippage if the cable isn't tight enough. What bothers me most, though, is the ability of the "grips" to traverse the wheel. If they are small, the problem is reduced, but they then become a problem to model. If they are too large, the cable won't be able to bend around the wheel.
Consider this: The cable is thick thread. The grip is nothing more than a small brass ring, perhaps 3/16 inch across, cut from a piece of brass tubing. It gets glued to the top of the cable on the ascending section. The chair has a brass rod which goes through the ring so that it rotates, and the chair hangs below it. The weight of the chair keeps the ring from rotating, so it stays on top of the cable. When it gets to the wheel, the chair weight keeps the ring on the outside of the curve, and the ring ends up on the bottom side of the cable for the descent, with the chair still suspended below the cable.
Hello I found this it might help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBQ2wxRQcE
the people stay on the lift but it's a start. Hope this helps Frank
A very challenging project indeed that would certainly be a great addition to a layout.If I was to do such a project,I'd have a very close look at the prototype and try to copy it closely...it probably is the only way it can work.
And for the passengers on and off problem...I'd operate it empty and simulate a maintenance crew working on it...just my two cents...
How good are you in making a drawing? Do you think I would have a problem if I went to a smaller Bull wheel so the hanging chair would clear the bull. I understand the offset but I am not sure of the pivot.
Thanks in advance
The chairs on a real chairlift don't hang directly down from the cable. There is a component (a "grab" or "grip") that attaches to the cable, and then a horizontal bar that comes out, bends 90 degrees down and supports the chairs. This offset attachment allows the chair to circle the horizontal bull wheel at the bottom and the corresponding idler wheel at the top.
For your installation, the grips will need some sort of pivot on top so that the chair can rotate and stay in a hanging position below the cable when it goes over the wheel at the top. The weight of the chair will then keep the pivot on the outside of the cable, on top going up and below going down, so that the other side of the grip will be able to go through the wheel channel smoothly.
My idea would be to run the lift like the real ones, as they don't run in a "vertical" fashion like your doing, with the lift disappearing "under" the hill, but "flat", like a real chair lift, following the hill, where you can see the occupied chairs going up on one side, and the empty chairs going down. I'm thinking that would be easier, and more realistic. Now, to get the people off the lift..........ummmmm.... I ran ski lifts as a part time job while in school, and more times than one would think, people would panic at the top, and end up going down, which caused all kinds of problems when they got to the bottom, and near the drive wheel ( bull wheel). The bottom operator would have to shut the lift off, and help them off the chair, so they didn't ride around the bull wheel. Maybe a little wire that caught they feet, and flipped them off the chair, which also really happened when people didn't pick up their ski tips as they approached the platform. I could go on and on....lol....also...what happened in the lift shack ...stayed in the lift shack....I better shut up....
Very interesting project.
Mike.
My You Tube
That is the plan. That will not addesss the problem of the wheel.
Would it be possible to have 2 separate lifts? Meaning 1 going up with ppl on it, and another going down that is empty? This would mean 2 motors and some creative thinking to make the transitions look real.
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm.