Corporate records in the Mt. Hood Aerial Transportation Co. collection (OHS Research Library Coll 146) shed some light on how the company tried to salvage the failing venture. From 1956 through 1958, shareholders met numerous times to discuss its future. At a meeting held on August 9, 1957, they discussed a redesign using a moveable cable system with 30 to 40 cars, rather than two buses. At this same meeting, however, shareholders expressed their trepidation for new expenditures. The skiing between Timberline Lodge and the lower terminal was deemed too poor to warrant a standard ski-lift system, and most of their ridership had occurred during the summer months.

According to long-time board member George Rauch, there was also another problem, which was “a fine highway that competes bitterly with us.” At that same August 9 meeting, he noted some of the other issues he saw with the Skiway:

I’ve ridden the tramway. I’ve listened to the shrieks and I’ve taken the jolts over those, what you call them — the saddles, and I’ve heard what people say. Now, perhaps some of those things could be eliminated. In my opinion, having fifty years’ experience with business organizations, this first was improperly conceived because it was put on us — an effort to make an experiment to prove to the world that Roebling Company could haul people as well as they do logs. Therefore, it’s improperly constructed mechanically.