Rail Color???

exit32

Member
I've skied at a bunch of resorts this year and the rails were different colors and that got me thinking which is the most popular across all ski mountains? This is a bit of a shower thought but, I'm actually kind of curious.
 
My favorite are purple and pink. I hate brown rails, black are not my favorite either. I want to see some color
 
afton alps, MN has had orange rails for awhile now but we’re gonna repaint to black with orange accents for this season
 
I think it’s sick when hills incorporate local sports teams or “city colors”. Obviously not applicable to all hills but mine for example, 7 springs. All the rails are black and yellow, including some gray ones that are more street style (electrical boxes, jersey barriers, etc.). But mainly black and yellow for the Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins, as well as the city’s flagship bridge / architectural color of choice. When they had the Streets (street style park) some of the features were designed to mimic some of the skyscrapers in downtown PGH which was pretty sick.

I know park budgets are increasingly limited year after year but would be sick to see parks draw more inspiration from local cities’ architecture, landmarks, or even famous street spots. I know Woodward PC tried to design some of their rails based on the ones at rail gardens in SLC, incredibly sick stuff.
 
In my region red is pretty big. There are at least 3 out of 9 mountains using red. I've noticed recently though, it's gone toward just the skirting being a colour and the rails/jibs themselves are black.
 
my local only really has black rails with some brown/wood accents but i go to 7springs on occasion and i love the yellow rails they have, very sick instead of just black
 
also wanted to shoutout a few favorites. the light blue of zermatt is iconic and i also like the slightly different aquamarine ish blue that perisher has. gelio with the striped green and blue is also really cool and absolut does something similar with black and yellow
 
Unrelated but I think it’s so sick when a hill has a rail from a different hill, I don’t know if they trade or just buy them but it’s the dopest shit. Like the Mammoth rail at Hyland or the old High Cascade rail at Troll that was repainted
 
14618990:Agate420 said:
Unrelated but I think it’s so sick when a hill has a rail from a different hill, I don’t know if they trade or just buy them but it’s the dopest shit. Like the Mammoth rail at Hyland or the old High Cascade rail at Troll that was repainted

My home hill in Ohio used to get hand-me-downs from mt snow and big boulder when we were still owned by peak resorts, it was awesome
 
Miss good old Killington Parks green.

Now Woodward most rails are black which is the case for all Woodward’s. Some have lots of yellow but I’d say they’re primarily black. Feel like black is the most common overall by default too.
 
I'd say probably black but not sure. Lot of blue, green red out there too.

It's a sort of branding though. You paint all your rails a color and build cool shit and people know it's you without even seeing a logo.

I remember I got this sick purple( I paid for) and painted all the rails at west one season the same. Also did all the rail maintenance that they'd needed for years. Place was kind of a dumpster fire and only did the one season there. But the next year some of the jabronis they had working there painted everything black because they thought it was cool.

Brand recognition is everything. Purple might not be your favorite color, or what you buy a car in but nobody had it in the region. Mt snow and BB ran black as well as some other mountains. Killington was green at the time before switching to woodward brand colors.

Idk, I guess I think too much about it but brand recognition is everything. Wild some places can't figure that out. Depending on the time of year and the color, and style of the setup you can be pretty sure where somebody is skiing without seeing a logo. Like seeing blue rails right now you think perisher. Seeing big pink rails in the northern winter you think mammoth. Some colors I like more than others, but having something unique to your region and running with it is everything.

I don't like the 2 tone rails as much as one solid or a black + 1 color rail though. Just a personal opinion.

I've spent way too much time looking at mountains rails lolol.
 
14619000:ski_salmon69 said:
I like how Mt Hood, Sugarbush, and Sugarloaf all have the same color scheme with the blue and orange

I have proof we did it first!!11!!

1094912.jpeg

jk reality is the black and blue we used to do from like 2010-2021 just looked like garbage on iPhone clips which is what 90% of people in our parks were filming on (not to mention it's an even more common colorway), and orange and blue is our actual resort colors so when I saw it under like 8 coats of paint on one of our older rails it made a lot of sense to switch back to it. Timberline is more of a yellow or marigold and baby blue I'd say.

My favorite was probably the old Green/Purple at Okemo

maxresdefault.jpg


**This post was edited on Jul 15th 2024 at 7:46:36pm
 
14619000:ski_salmon69 said:
I like how Mt Hood, Sugarbush, and Sugarloaf all have the same color scheme with the blue and orange

yeah and there is a sugarbush double kink at hood in the summers which is pretty cool
 
14619008:a_burger said:
I have proof we did it first!!11!!

View attachment 1094912

jk reality is the black and blue we used to do from like 2010-2021 just looked like garbage on iPhone clips which is what 90% of people in our parks were filming on (not to mention it's an even more common colorway), and orange and blue is our actual resort colors so when I saw it under like 8 coats of paint on one of our older rails it made a lot of sense to switch back to it. Timberline is more of a yellow or marigold and baby blue I'd say.

My favorite was probably the old Green/Purple at Okemo

maxresdefault.jpg


**This post was edited on Jul 15th 2024 at 7:46:36pm

Incredible hulk ahh rail
 
14619008:a_burger said:
I have proof we did it first!!11!!

View attachment 1094912

jk reality is the black and blue we used to do from like 2010-2021 just looked like garbage on iPhone clips which is what 90% of people in our parks were filming on (not to mention it's an even more common colorway), and orange and blue is our actual resort colors so when I saw it under like 8 coats of paint on one of our older rails it made a lot of sense to switch back to it. Timberline is more of a yellow or marigold and baby blue I'd say.

My favorite was probably the old Green/Purple at Okemo

maxresdefault.jpg


**This post was edited on Jul 15th 2024 at 7:46:36pm

Does okemo have rails like this still? Last I was there was like 5 years ago but I feel like they had gone to blue and white by then. That old hulk scheme is so fire though
 
idk about which is most popular but its certainly a brand thing to have the colors. woodward has the yellow at all their resorts. some resorts have rails matching the resort branding and others have the terrain parks having their own branding.

-breck is same color rails andbranding as the rest of their branding

-keystone has area51 that is a dying brand but its own none the less and the color ways are red and black as opposed to keystones red and white marketing (and apparently green on their website right now. looks like shit)

-winter park has railyard which is similar to a51 with its own branding but went with a sky blue and is distinctly different from any other branding (and different from trestle bike park which as well)

-mammoth has unbound but really leans on the same logo as the resort but you sure as shit know when a shot is filmed on that pink

i think there are advantages to all of these but as far as promoting your park goes, having the separate brand is preferred. it makes for more targeted marketing for both the regular brand and the park brand.

as i write this i think the shift i would like to see evolve the park branding into other aspects of the mountain that the core user would like and separate that from the new/family user group. so a ‘challenge’ branding if you will with park, big mountain, competitions, fat powder lines, etc. and the resort branding for families and ski school, etc. there would be a lot of cross over in both
 
14619025:dwt802 said:
Does okemo have rails like this still? Last I was there was like 5 years ago but I feel like they had gone to blue and white by then. That old hulk scheme is so fire though

Nah, they switched to some kind of forest green and black color scheme. Kinda lame but the parks still kinda bang so at least there's that
 
I like Carinthias all black rails tbh, surprisingly rare to see. Personally fave is mammy tho because of how recognizable they are and also pink is a sick color
 
Constructicons

14619008:a_burger said:
I have proof we did it first!!11!!

View attachment 1094912

jk reality is the black and blue we used to do from like 2010-2021 just looked like garbage on iPhone clips which is what 90% of people in our parks were filming on (not to mention it's an even more common colorway), and orange and blue is our actual resort colors so when I saw it under like 8 coats of paint on one of our older rails it made a lot of sense to switch back to it. Timberline is more of a yellow or marigold and baby blue I'd say.

My favorite was probably the old Green/Purple at Okemo

maxresdefault.jpg


**This post was edited on Jul 15th 2024 at 7:46:36pm
 
14619025:dwt802 said:
Does okemo have rails like this still? Last I was there was like 5 years ago but I feel like they had gone to blue and white by then. That old hulk scheme is so fire though

I’m not even sure what they do now, just trying to find that image they had like 6 different color ways in the last decade. Might be dark green and black metal now?
 
When I grew up riding Mount Jore, the rails were always that weird forest green and black, sometimes yellow, but it wasn’t on every feature until recent. Same with Whiteface when they were slowly transitioning everything from black and yellow to black and navy blue. I just think ORDA made their mountains finally stick to a color scheme for the parks bc some rails stuck out like sore thumbs.

I ride Killington now, which ofc has the corporate-ass Woodward branding now, but god I miss the Killington green rails. Really made everything stand out compared to other mountains in the northeast.
 
Parks scene was dead af there this year..some fire builds early on but they had so many features just chilling. Blackout had like a max of like 8 rails all season. It also makes no sense to have both parks side by side imo

14619031:Farmville420 said:
Nah, they switched to some kind of forest green and black color scheme. Kinda lame but the parks still kinda bang so at least there's that
 
14619049:isaacwrong said:
Parks scene was dead af there this year..some fire builds early on but they had so many features just chilling. Blackout had like a max of like 8 rails all season. It also makes no sense to have both parks side by side imo

I'm ngl I don't even know what Blackout is but last time I was there (2ish years ago) they had a decent setup on Noreaster and a pretty fun rail yard setup next to the superpipe. T bar USASA course was also good and there were a couple features on Sel's, only thing I didn't check was Blind Faith (do they still build that?)

It was dead tho I was like one of 10 people in the park on a saturday

**This post was edited on Jul 16th 2024 at 1:03:26pm
 
I be Picasso the way I be painting my pants with the colors of rails. So much falling, not a lot of success

topic:exit32 said:
I've skied at a bunch of resorts this year and the rails were different colors and that got me thinking which is the most popular across all ski mountains? This is a bit of a shower thought but, I'm actually kind of curious.
 
14619032:Farmville420 said:
I like Carinthias all black rails tbh, surprisingly rare to see. Personally fave is mammy tho because of how recognizable they are and also pink is a sick color

For sure. People don't realize it's all about sticking out. I love mammy pink more than the blue. That's why I thought it was dumb when people painted over my purple skirting black trim at West because "Purple is lame" or something.

Also Sierra at tahoe is one of the few with purp and that scheme is sick.

I liked the old Squaw/ Alpine look but now they painted there's orange like King Vail which I think is a bullshit move. In a big park zone in a set of small towns, you should never copy an established place. Big L on Squaw/ Pallisades on that. Color scheme also used at loon primarily would be the most recognizable, but when you're in the same town it's kind of fucked. They're a few miles away from each other.
 
The most typical colour of rail and box side panels for small parks in Europe is yellow or brown. This is because lots of parks looking to get a park without spending a lot on it use the standard sideboard colours from Scandinavian Shapers, probably the biggest supplier of rails and boxes in Europe.
 
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