The Lift Maintenance Department...................

GreenStezz

GreenStezz

Active member
While the world is full of handymen, there is probably no handier group of people anywhere than your local lift maintenance crew........

In fact those who know (or soon figure out) from all walks of resort life realize that these guys can be often called upon to do all sorts of crazy things....... How many people keep a massive 35 year old jalopies’ running day in and day out, through all sorts of weather and ...often on a shoe string budget?

Within this group can be found electricians skilled in both high and low voltage systems and PLC controls, mechanics skilled in rigging, hydraulic systems, metal fabrication and too many other things to write...........

This crew has to be creative, innovative and must be able to fix things quickly and under a lot of pressure...... They also must be able to take apart and fix some very large pieces of machinery in the most remote locations........

Consider this: in order to change an internal gearbox bearing, lift maintenance personnel may have to de-tension a lift of hundreds of thousands of pounds, remove a five-ton bullwheel and take apart a six-ton gearbox, all on site with no crane....... Nobody is fearless, but in some endeavors one is challenged with putting their fears aside, and this is often the case with the “men in black”

Here’s another scenario worth considering… When removing an old remote Yan lift tower (no anchor bolts)....... In order to accomplish this, first most of the tower itself is cut away at the base with a torch...... Rigging must then be attached by climbing the now structurally compromised tower, then a helicopter is brought in and a man must climb back up the tower and attach the rigging and climb down quickly, while another man then cuts the remaining tower tab while the helicopter (hopefully) has a secure grip on the tower........ The cutter doesn’t know really witch way the tower may spin or kick out once it’s free......

While some repairs might call for a high tech solution utilizing computer diagnostics’, you better believe some problems have actually been addressed with duct tape and bailing wire.........

Lift Maintenance usually has the best snowmobiles so they can be called upon for quick uphill transportation, and emergency response.... Lift Maintenance is hard work with a finite deadline and the work is subject to rigorous inspections...... So it’s no surprise that the people involved in lift maintenance take major pride in what they do, they love a challenge and any problems that can be fixed with a good dose of ingenuity…

So it’s no small mistake that people learn to count on and take advantage of the people from lift maintenance.......

I am one and would like to thank all the others out there...... So here’s to my brothers… the first beers on you!...........

 
You undermine the point you're trying to get across by adding so many fucking periods after every sentence.......... It makes your point annoying to read..... No matter how awesome what you're saying may be...........I don't know why some people do this............it's worse than.........Capitalizing The First Letter Of Every Word...........In A Sentence.....

Stop.................................................................................................................................................................................................
 
after reading more than the first paragraph. Lift maintenance is definitely a lot different out west.
 
I have never worked in the East but I have worked with people that were LM there before coming out west to work........ From what they say it is "way more hard core but the same job" is what I'm told........
 
Do lift crews at major resorts have a dude that mainly works on all the PLCs and field switches/instrumentation? Or is it more of a "shits broke, call doppelmayr" type of deal? I am curious because, I program Alan Bradley PLCs and do controls work in the water industry. I have always been interested in finding a job with Squaw or something along those lines and working on chairlifts. I doubt the pay would be as good but it would be a sick job.
 
At least in the summit county area, there's a bunch of lift mechanics for each area. But, all the Vail resorts share the lift electrician guys. Im not sure how many there are total but my guess from 3-4 years ago is less than 10. One or two are probably at each resort each day.

And yeah its pretty good pay. You could probably make more being an actual electrician, but lift maintenance guys make the most of the mtn ops guys as in before you get into management/office positions. The highest paid lift mechanic in NA is the head of vail or beaver creek i forget, but he makes 120k+. But there's also a ton of guys his same age, who have worked just as long that are making WAY less at the same resort.
 
I actually wonder the exact same thing, and do the same shit. Except I work in wind. Most times when shit's broke I get the call due to a lot of proprietary controls and logic. I imagine lift manufacturers have their own proprietary info that they just don't hand the keys over.

 
Here is what lift maintenance does the majority of the time in the winter when the lift goes down.

Hold your override anti collision(if a detach)

hit your reset

Did it clear? if so spin

if not take your 12 volt battery and shove the wires connected to it into the circuit that won't clear and run it like that for the rest of the season.

yeah its pretty ghetto.
 
At least through POMA, and I'm sure Doppelmayr does it too where if there is a programming issue that the electrical maintenance guys can't fix, they call up POMA and they can directly control/troubleshoot the lift from POMA's facility.
 
lol, so accurate. i worked a detach that decided - on closing day - it hated snow and didn't want to run. on the same day our head mechanic was retiring ..so he didn't give a shit. we bypassed every single fault and anti-collision and spun it anyways.
 
All the time. I worked Peru a lot at keystone this season and we would get anti collisions alllll the time, there was a point I would just overrode it myself, cus lift dispatch wouldn't do shit lol goood times.
 
Lift Mechanics crush it. Don't get much glory, but they make the ski resort business go. At a lot of resorts, lift mechanics have their hands in and get involved in all sorts of bullshit that no one else either wants to, or is capable of, addressing.
 
Yeah dude, lift maintenance staff are the shit. I have a few friends that are working on getting their millwright ticket for maintenance.

I found from moving to BC and skiing a smaller resort with older lifts, that the lift maintenance crew is much more noticeable opposed to ski hills in ontario.
 
Thats not as bad as leaving a tower on the uphill side overrided for a month. Yan detach lifts suck bags of dicks.
 
If Yan never made a detach they would still be making lifts! Where do you work that still has a detach??.............
 
Sunday river. Its retrofitted by poma with some doppelmayer parts. Some parts are still YAN but its mostly poma. Some of the towers are poma and some of them are YAN. Its a fucking franken lift. When you switch it to aux its the same style as a YAN detach with the belt held back with springs. This is also the same lift with the uphill side on override for a month.
 
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