Interesting...UP invented the ski lift

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Union Pacific invention still takes skiers to the top

The 2006 ski season marks the 70th anniversary of the world’s first chair lift operation at Sun Valley, Idaho.

Where was the chair lift invented? Omaha, Nebraska. And the company that invented the chair lift? Union Pacific Railroad.

Why would a railroad invent a chair lift? To provide a service, a “transportation” service, for its customers. Union Pacific passenger trains brought skiers from across the country to Sun Valley and a new, convenient way for them to get to the top of the slopes was the next logical step in the design of a premier ski resort.

During the 1930s, Union Pacific Railroad Chairman W. A. Harriman saw Americans beginning to embrace winter sports. Harriman’s railroad operated through some of the most scenic and mountainous territory in the western United States. His vision – develop a world-class winter sports facility served by Union Pacific.

Harriman enlisted Austrian sportsman Count Felix Schaffgotsch to find such a location. In the winter of 1935, Count Schaffgotsch found the area that would become Sun Valley in south central Idaho, about 100 miles northeast of Boise.

"Among the many attractive spots I have visited, this [location] combines more delightful features than any place I have seen in the United States, Switzerland or Austria, for a winter sports resort, " Schaffgotsch wrote to Harriman.

The original 4,300 acres, adjacent to the Sawtooth Mountain National Forest, was the perfect spot. The Sawtooth Mountains, running east and west, protected the future resort area from northern winds. The mountains surrounded a small basin, with the hills and slopes largely free of timber. Snowfall and sunshine were abundant. And natural hot springs would provide outdoor swimming year round.

Construction began on the Lodge, and other facilities, in April 1936.

Meanwhile, nearly 1,200 miles away in Omaha, at Union Pacific Railroad

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And people on this forum are always complaining about the UP.

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Averell wasn’t quite in the same league as his father when it came to the UP itself, but I daresay that Harriman the Younger was effective in his own right. I wonder what ol’ E.H. would have thought about the M-10000 and similar trains. There’s a more detailed assessment of the Sun Valley project in Spanning the Century: The Life of W. Averell Harriman, 1891-1986 by Rudy Abramson. The UP doesn’t interest me, but Mr. Abramson, through Averell, makes it so.

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While E.H. Harriman is remembered in popular culture as the man who drove “Butch Cassidy” and “the Sundance Kid” out of the United States from the movie with Robert Redford, my recollection of Averell Harriman was as one of the negotiators who obtained the peace treaty with North Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. While the Vietnam War is no doubt still a sore point with many, there is no doubt that the USA was better off not fighting a war, and Harriman was an important part in ending that war.

M636C

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E. H. Harriman was our ambassordor to the Soviet Union as World War II closed and we moved into the Cold War. He played a critical role as the US stopped viewing Stalin as an ally but as an enemy. At this time the Red Army moved into Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe installing puppet governments without the benifit of honest elections.

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Maybe UP perfected the Chair lift but the Ski lift was already invented by a Boston company for a ski place in New Hampshire. see :

T-bar implemened at Davos in 1935, outgrowth of J-bar invented same year by Dartmouth Outing Club of Hanover, New Hampshire (first overhead-cable ski lift).

First heel-grip cable binding implemented in 1935 by Kandahar.

World’s first overhead chair lift built at Sun Valley, Idaho in 1936.

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The Milwaukee wasn’t that far behind UP with their development of the Snoqualmie Pass ski area in 1937. For transporting skiers to the tops of the runs they used what they called a “Talley-Ho Skiboggan” which apparently was a large toboggan attached to a tow cable!

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(OFF TOPIC)DID you also know a little piece of Railroad history but the UPRR also was a big part in president licoln’s funernal train back when he had died. I learned that back when I was in high school doing a report

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thats neat i love hearing train facts.

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I gotta’ ask - how was the UP a big part of President Lincoln’s funeral train?

  1. Lincoln shot and killed in April, 1865
  2. Union Pacific completed in May, 1869
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As well as being a western railroad, and all of Lincolns Locomotives were eastern. In 1865, railroads were either east of the mississippi or west of it.

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Good thing it was invented 70 years ago instead of 50 or so–can you imagine a lift powered by a gas turbine engine, or two diesels on the same winch to help get the heavy loads up the hill?

(I was trying to work articulation and Big Boy into this, but can’t quite figure it out.)

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Come on Big Boy, I’ll articulate the words for you. [:D] [swg][}:)][}:)][}:)]

AMG

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Sarrrr-RAH!

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At one time the UP had control of the Chicago and Alton Railroad, the final leg of Lincoln’s funeral train to Springfield, Illiinois, but that was long after Lincoln died.

The first tracks in Springfield went east/west and ended up in the Wabash camp. The C&A reached Springfield (northward from Alton) September 9th, 1852, and reached the Chicago area using the Rock Island RR from Joliet northward and entering Chicago in July, 1854. A few years later they used the leased tracks of the Joliet and Chicago RR now owned by Canadian National but controlled by BNSF from Corwith tower (site of the former ATSF yard) to Joliet.

Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act in July of 1862 and Harriman was nowhere in sight at that time (being a tender 14 years of age) and the Promontory ceremony took place in 1869, also after Lincoln’s death.

E.H.Harriman did get interested in the C&A in the late 1890’s long after Lincoln died.

So I, too, would be interested in just how the UP figured in Lincoln’s funeral train as at no time was it anywhere near the Union Pacific rails.

And incidentally, E H Harriman was not our ambassador, it was Averill.

Art