Lift Tracker
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updated 1 year ago
These are the oldest Express Lifts with automatic doors that I have ever seen.
The motors on these lifts are a belt driven geared machines which resemble an Express ‘A Machine’.
‘A Machines’ were the smallest standard model of machine made by Express, ranging from sizes A-F.
However, the machines on these lifts are significantly larger than a standard A machine! It seems to me that as these are such an early model from the early 1950s, they may have shrunk down the size of them later on in the decade. Very interesting!
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It's important to mention the many dangers which are present in lift motor rooms.
They are not environments for the inexperienced, and one mistake could be the last thing you do.
There are exposed terminals with voltages of up to 415 volts. If you touch them, they WILL kill you.
Please do not put yourself into this dangerous environment without proper authorisation.
⛔️⚠️
0:00 Lift Car
4:20 Motor Room
Thanks for watching!
It’s a very heavy duty model with a very large capacity, using 2:2 cabling with a low travel speed.
The door operator featured in this Express lift is very unusual. Completely different to the usual type which is found on Express lifts.
⛔️⚠️
It's important to mention the many dangers which are present in lift motor rooms.
They are not environments for the inexperienced, and one mistake could be the last thing you do.
There are exposed terminals with voltages of up to 415 volts. If you touch them, they WILL kill you.
Please do not put yourself into this dangerous environment without proper authorisation.
⛔️⚠️
Here is a link to the full video showing the lift featured in this video:
youtu.be/T_7Y_wHa6vc?si=GjakJecS0abTiC8J
Considering that the mechanical aspects of this lift are a mixture of 120 and 70 year old parts, I think this lift is doing very well!
The only recent modification to this lift is the controller being replaced.
This would usually be quite a big deal, but in this case it isn’t!
The replacement controller is also relay based, and therefore runs the lift just the same as it would have previously.
It’s very interesting how the old cabinet is still there. In fact, the new cabinet has actually been bolted to the front of the old one! Quite a strange thing to do if you ask me. But it definitely beats scrapping it!
You can tell that the Express modernisation is either from the 1950s or early 60s, (and not any later) due to the fact that the relays are mounted in the vertical position.
In the mid 60s, Express updated their cabinet design to have the relays mounted horizontally instead to help with maintenance.
The era of installation is also indicated by the colour of the cabinet being ‘Battleship Grey’, which was common for Express in the 50s.
(Later colours used were others such as dark green in the 70s, turquoise in the 80s and dark blue in the 90s.).
If anyone knows the actual reason behind these different colour changes, I’d be very interested to hear!
⛔️⚠️
It's important to mention the many dangers which are present in lift motor rooms.
They are not environments for the inexperienced, and one mistake could be the last thing you do.
There are exposed terminals with voltages of up to 415 volts. If you touch them, they WILL kill you.
Please do not put yourself into this dangerous environment without proper authorisation.
⛔️⚠️
Before this lift was modernised by Express, I believe that it originally would have resembled this lift shown here:
youtu.be/i3U_jL1SuO0?si=ma6Ve6Q_ky6SG_Az
The motor appears to be pretty much identical!
Thanks for watching!
Bennie Lifts, apart from the controllers, are very similar in design to Express Lifts. In fact, Bennie even used quite a few Express parts on their lifts. Notice the governor at 12:33.
Admittedly, there isn’t a whole lot of ‘explanation’ in this video, but if you’re interested to find out more details of the workings of one of these 70s/80s Bennie Lifts, I’d recommend seeing these two videos from the @mrmattandmrchay channel:
youtu.be/e7EtHqRkgiU
youtu.be/XHU0dwnSpdY
⛔️⚠️
It’s important to mention the many dangers which are present in lift motor rooms.
They are not environments for the inexperienced, and one mistake could be the last thing you do.
There are exposed terminals with voltages of up to 415 volts. If you touch them, they WILL kill you.
Please do not put yourself into this dangerous environment without proper authorisation.
⛔️⚠️
This is quite a long video, so please feel free to skip though the video using the timestamps.
It’s better to have too much footage rather than not enough!
0:00 Bennie Lift Car
5:15 Cartop
6:35 Motor Room
14:20 Controller Closeup
20:33 Second Bennie Lift Car
Thank you for watching!
It’s the only one which has ever been filmed.
This is an unknown lift from 1903 which was later modernised by Express, likely sometime in the 1940s.
The lift is manually controlled using the ‘crank’ on the car operating panel. The lift automatically levels by its self though, which is really nice!
When you let go of the crank, the lift will instantly stop, then go at levelling speed to the nearest floor.
The lift is designed to always have a lift conductor inside the car who manages the lift.
The multiple mini Express indicators on the car operating panel are to indicate to the lift conductor that someone has called the lift on that floor, and to go and get them.
The ‘Up’ and ‘Down’ buttons outside on the call panels make the car operating panel inside the lift illuminate the corresponding lamp to inform the lift conductor that you have called the lift.
The row of orange indicators mean down calls’, and the row of green indicators mean ‘up calls’.
The motor for this lift is very unusual. It uses what’s known as the ‘Express TruLeveller’ (See 13:49).
It’s two completely separate motors connected to one sheave which drives the lift. A gear switches between which motor is connected to the sheave at each time, and this is how the levelling speed is achieved.
The lift uses the main large motor to run at full speed, then when you let go of the crank, the gear switches and connects the small motor to the sheave which slows the lift down.
The levelling speed had to be done this way because in the 1940s, AC motors with separate windings for different speeds hadn’t been invented yet. The only way was to have two separate motors with two different speeds which the lift switches between using. It’s fascinating stuff!
Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to film the motor room for this lift.
I know someone who did though! Take a look at this video from High Rise who shows the amazing motor room for this one of a kind lift!
youtu.be/7Pj_GuJ1NlA
Thanks for watching!
When I got there, I was both surprised and disappointed by what I saw! The old Schindler motor has been preserved and left outside as an ornament!
They have put it in a plank of wood with skateboard wheels.
Technically, this isn’t actually the ‘motor’, it’s the gearbox, brake and sheave. The motor would’ve been on the left hand side of it, and as you can see it has been removed.
I’m pleased to see the motor preserved outside. It’s a very unusual thing to see and I wish it was done more often. Obviously, not every old lift lift is particularly special, but too often lots of really prestigious stuff is just dumped into a skip as if it’s completely worthless. I’m not just talking about motors, but things such as button control panels ect.
Link to mrmattandmrchay’s video:
youtu.be/prydsBuKRfA
This building used to have DMR Express Lifts, before they were modern 2005. Despite the mod, I’m surprised to see just how many original features have been kept. The doors are original too! Despite being blocked off, those windows still look really cool.
The layout of the building is quite strange and so is the operation of the lift.
Technically this is a service lift, however it is publicly accessible from the Ground Floor to be used as access to the underground car park. The main lifts don’t go down there.
All the floors in the lift are locked accept Ground and Basement (the carpark).
Only the first 5 floors of the building is a hotel, the top 10 are flats. To get a full ride in the lift, the only way was to walk all the way up the stairs to the top.
The flats at the top 10 floors are very posh and have their own set of lifts which are behind a locked door. They are very secure. However you can easily defeat the security door just by going up the stairs…
I went in the motor room for this lift back in 2019 (with permission) and I’ve included some of that footage at the end of this video.
(Photo at the end is from LiftyGamez)
After the doors closed, the lift started going down. I pressed the call button a couple of seconds after the doors closed, and the lift just stopped between floors.
The lift just sat there, refusing to run again and the “Lift Coming” indicator remained lit.