Sunday River’s former Jordan Bowl Express Quad was the same make, model and year as Polar Express, and it got a major overhaul and a new life at Pleasant Mountain a couple years ago. But Boyne has showed that they are willing to invest in refurbishing and removing 90’s detachables that are getting replaced by their newer D-lines (Kanc 8 at Loon, Swift Current and Ramcharger at Big Sky). Boyne is a company with deeper pockets than most smaller/independent mountains and they were relocating lifts already in their network of resorts, which most multi-resort operators tend to do.
As nepatsfan1 and newpylong point out, Polar Express did have high hours on it and would probably need an extensive overhaul if it was to be relocated. I just don’t think that any potential buyers for the lift have the money for that, since they’d mostly be smaller mountains (I don’t think the Boyne, Alterra or Vail mountains would buy used lifts from outside their networks). We can still hope the lift is being stored in good condition in case someone is able to purchase it in the next year against the odds - it would be a great addition to Tenney, Big Moose, or Butternut to name a few.
TomWhite If I recall Quebec resorts hold “the record” for reinstalling very old HSQs. Are resorts pleased with installing used high-speed lifts?
I did some research into this and while there are quite a few old detachables still operating in Quebec, many are in their original locations. The three relocations I could find were Du Lac and Panorama at Owl’s Head (the former was replaced with a fixed-grip in 2019) and Le Soleil at Tremblant (which was originally built at Tremblant and was simply moved to a new part of the mountain). There are also three relocated detachables each in New Hampshire, Colorado and Alberta, making it a four-way tie for which state/province has the most detachable relocations in North America.
