FlyerTalk Forums - Interesting elevators

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For the best elevated, spinning view I have to name the ride up to Table Mountain in Cape Town South Africa. The elevator/tram car not only rises and descends but spins. Obviously it is not operating on excessively windy days.

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Better than Space Mountain at Disneyland!

A mere rollercoaster has me indisposed http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/frown.gif

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Originally posted by WHBM:
Now no one would believe you could have an elevator that you could sail a sizeable boat into, be taken up 50 feet, and then sail out into a canal at a higher level. That's just ridiculous!

Anderton Boat Lift

Only in England http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

I love the beautiful little cage elevator at the Hotel Bristol in Paris.

I like those elevators that you step in, have maybe room for one more person, and when the door closes, you pray that:

A. It opens
B. It goes to the floor you requested

(in that order). http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

Well, for something different, you can always ride the "elevator" at Epcot's Living Seas. It actually travels about an inch or so, while the floor rattles and shakes and you see the "rock walls" going by in the window. Here's the funny part: a few years ago, some guy tried to sue Epcot because he claimed the depressurization caused by the "rapid descent" caused his ear drums to burst.

The elevator itself wasn't at all impressive, but riding in one on the old Queen Elizabeth during extremely rough seas was always an adventure. Going down as the ship plunged almost lifted you off the floor and going up as the ship rose almost PUT you on the floor.

The Hotel Metropole in Brussels has a great old cage elevator- but what made it special to me was a photo in the lobby of a conference once held there. The picture include Marie Curie, Max Planck, de Broglie, Einstein and just about anyone who had had a constant or an element named after them. I'd ride that elevator and picture Albert Einstein in it!

Anybody else notice that this thread was bumped after more than three years in hibernation?

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Originally posted by redbeard911:
Anybody else notice that this thread was bumped after more than three years in hibernation?

Why not? http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...um/biggrin.gif

How about the elevator in the St. Louis Arch?

Claustrophobic little thing, creeping up an arched trackway...

Not exactly an elevator at all but still going up and down...

Has anyone who has climbed the stairs up the Arc de Triomphe in Paris looked up the centre of the spiral? The stairs are so tight with an almost endless twirl heading into the abyss above. You've just got to make sure some punk doesn't spit their gum down the shaft while you are looking as the shaft is so small you are bound to be hit

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Originally posted by monahos:
Only in England http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

Not at all. There's the Peterborough (65') and Kirkfield (49') Lift Locks on the Trent-Severn waterway (which links Lakes Ontario and Huron), 100 years old this year.

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The first hydraulic balance lock built by Edwin Clark in 1874 at Anderton, on the River Weaver, in Cheshire, England, was followed by similar locks built in Belgium and France. Engineer Frank Turner recommended such locks for the ill-fated Huron and Ontario ship canal in 1879 and raised the notion again as a member of the Trent Valley Canal Commission. The challenge at Peterborough was to create a device for lifting a vessel from one level to another without wasting water and with one efficient mechanical lock replacing a bottleneck series of standard locks that resembled giant steps.
Richard B. Rogers, as superintendent of the Trent Canal, latched on to the hydraulic lock concept and greatly expanded its possibilities, suggesting that a hydraulic lock could raise or lower a vessel 70 feet in the same time as a typical lock could raise or lower one a mere 7 feet. He figured such a lock would reduce construction costs, alleviate concerns over water supply on the canal, and be more efficient. Rogers actually designed the lock before he travelled to Belgium and France to see how existing models worked.

On another note, I always liked the big old lifts in the deeper stations of the London Tube, such as Russell Square.

[This message has been edited by Mehdron (edited Mar 16, 2004).]

My first summer time job, in 1966, was being an elevator operator. Thanks to good education I don't do that sort of thing anymore...

The infamous elevators of Chungking Mansions, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon side, Hong Kong. As people deboard, the boarding stampede begins until there is absolutely no more room. A sensory overload, as many passengers are afficianados of the Pakistani messes in the building. There are always too many for the doors to shut, and the one blocking the doors is shoved out. The doors close, and the weight overload buzzer sounds, the door opens and a passenger is shoved out. The process is repeated with passengers being shoved out until the elevator is able to begin its groaning ascent.

There are some pictures of the elevators here - http://www.cromwell-intl.com/travel/...gkong-pix.html

Thanks for resurrecting this thread!

Most interesting elevator I've seen since 2000: The high rise ones in the Westin Times Square, where the cars never seem to reach a steady cruising speed. Instead, they seem to continually accelerate, then start decelerating. The higher up you are in the building, the longer the acceleration phase lasts. Really neat.

I'm still searching for still-in-use manual control "car switch" cars, preferably ones with pneumatically operated doors. Examples include Seattle's Smith Tower, San Francisco's Coit Tower, Detroit's Fox Theatre, and, until a few years ago, London's Harrods. Does anyone know of more of these 1920s-era lifts still in operation?

[This message has been edited by AlexB (edited Mar 16, 2004).]

If you come to Greenwich in London there is a pedestrian tunnel under the River Thames which has huge octagonal lifts at either end, you could probably get 100 people in. Originally hydraulic, the docks hydraulic supply was shut down and the lifts were substantially refurbished a few years ago with new cars (being out of action for about a year). They're still manually operated and they still have all the original wooden interiors, which at refurbishment were painstakingly transferred across from the old to the new cars - having ridden in the old ones there's no difference in sensation at all.

Can't find a photo of the car but here's the head house over the top of it.

Greenwich Foot Tunnel

Some of us used it to get to Greenwich at the recent FT London Do.