Alterra has stimulated much discussion on Liftblog.com. In the midst of a Tremblant chat, they discussed terminal length for high speed lifts. It’s way above my knowledge. I assumed shorter terminals were improvements. But there is a downside.

atc1701 March 4, 2019 / 10:32 pm I wouldn’t say so. When there’s a massive crowd on weekends, though, it gets very hectic at the bottom terminal. A nightmare to work there. Although 6 m/s doesn’t get to be too fast in terminal, it can cause chaos among both the skiers/boarders desperately trying to get into a cabin, and us trying to fit them in 8-at-a-time. For that reason, the lift may run at 5 m/s even on incredibly busy days. Modern gondola systems (see W-B, Winter Park) have the cabins moving much slower in dedicated loading areas; 6 (or even 7) m/s is much more feasible in that case. Our gondola doesn’t have that, unfortunately. Here’s hoping for a D-Line 10 person gondola!

Collin Parsons March 4, 2019 / 10:46 pm I think a common problem with UNI-Spacejet lifts is they made the terminals too short, either resulting in excessive tire and grip wear when carriers speed up and slow down, or there not being enough time for loading. Older lifts like the Skyeship Gondola at Killington have very long terminals and thus have more space for loading. The acceleration is more gradual, resulting in less wear on the tires and grips. On newer lifts like The Gondola at Winter Park or One at Vail, manufacturers realized that making the terminals shorter was not necessarily a good thing, and those lifts are able to run their design speeds and be loaded to capacity. Note that I used gondolas as examples, but it carries over to chairs too. The UNI-G and Omega/LPA terminals are longer than the UNI-Spacejet and Challenger terminals they replaced.

Larry March 5, 2019 / 4:26 am Vail One gondola is not a good example of terminal length and a favorable decel rate. That thing slows down in a hurry! For such a high claim in capacity, I’m surprised that terminal isn’t longer. I haven’t seen W-P gondola yet, maybe LP learned on that installation.

Collin Parsons March 5, 2019 / 6:28 am One has the longest LPA terminal length along with The Gondola at Winter Park and American Eagle at Copper. I think it’s of similar length to the Challenger gondola terminals found on Skyeship and Bridger, but offers more space for loading while accelerating in less space. The longest LPA terminals and the UNI-G terminals at WB are much longer than the UNI-Spacejet terminals found at Tremblant and Whiteface, even though both designs technically allow the same top speed of 1200 feet per minute.

Donald M. Reif March 5, 2019 / 12:40 pm With American Eagle, there’s not as long of a loading/unloading area at top or bottom for gondola cabins, given that the cabin load/unload areas have to be on the downhill side of the terminals by design while the chair load/unload areas are on the uphill side.