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Boss: Don't do anything I wouldn't do!

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[Jazzy music: 'The Russians Are Coming' - Val Bennett]

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Tim: Today travelling by lift is completely taken for granted.

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The experience though, of travelling at high speed in a completely sealed box,

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propelled up and down by invisible machinery and often uncomfortably

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close to complete strangers, can still be quite unsettling.

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In this programme Rex and I are going to look at the history and workings of this slightly unnerving machine.

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The basic idea of the lift is extremely simple.

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You just need, er, a rope and a pulley.

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Rex: Right Tim! Oy. Nooooow!

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Tim: Simple gadgets like this have been used for lifting people for centuries.

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But the problem is safety.

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If the lady let go, her lover would plummet to the ground.

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Particularly on building sites, riding up and down on unsuitable devices

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was widespread until recently, despite the risks.

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[construction noise]

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The history of the lift, is really the history of making this sort of travel less dangerous.

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Although at the time, no one seem too worried by this.

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[construction noise]

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All this changed in the mid-19th century, largely due to

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an American engineer called Elisha Otis.

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He added these teeth to the guide rails, and this ingenious mechanism to the lift itself,.

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which locked into the teeth, if ever the rope went slack.

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[ratchet noise]

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Otis's idea was that if the person pulling the rope let go.

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Or if the rope broke.

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That the lift would automatically lock, and wouldn't fall.

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To prove its safety he took it to the Great Exhibition in New York in 1853.

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And performed daily demonstrations.

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[sawing noise]

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[clunk]

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Despite the success of his invention, Otis himself had rather a tragic life.

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He was a hard working, strict Presbyterian mechanic; who's enterprises kept failing.

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[dragging wood, panting]

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Tim: He started life running a saw mill.

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[Otis drops wood]

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Otis: Hmm, things look bad. I'll have to diversify.

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Why don't I make something with all this wood I'm sawing up?
[sawing wood]

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Ah! That looks good!

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Yeah! Who could resist this beautiful thing?

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Oh, looks like everyone can.

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Nevermind carriages, everyone needs to sleep don't they?

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And I'll build one of those little contraptions to lower the bedsteads down to ground level.

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Otis: Hey Mister, do you wanna buy a bed?

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Man: Forget the bed buddy, can you make me one of those elevating contraptions? It looks very safe.

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Tim: Otis's first commission resulted from an accident at a nearby factory.

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Where a primitive lift had killed two men.

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He never lived to see the success of his lift, dying of diphtheria while his company was still deeply in debt.

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Otis: Diversification will be the death of me, Ohhh.

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Tim: Otis's first lifts were all built to carry freight.

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But in 1856 a department store called E. V. Horvalt commissioned a passenger lift. Advertised as a vertical railway.

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It was gradually realised that lifts could enable developers to increase the height of their buildings.

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Previously 5 storeys had been about the most anyone was prepared to climb.

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Skyscrapers, like the Woolworths building in New York, finished in 1913,

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had become totally dependent on their lifts.

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One aspect of these lifts that caused alarm was the way that the car was supported.

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In Otis's original lift, the rope was firmly fixed to a drum at the top.

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But as buildings got higher there was more rope to wrap round.

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and it started to get tangled.

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By 1900 the end of the rope was normally being fixed to a large counterweight.

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And merely passed over the drum at the top, gripping it by friction.

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At first this seemed very daring, surely the rope might slip?

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[clinking]

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But in fact the friction of a rope passing over a pulley like this is considerable.

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Capstan winches use this effect to lift enormous loads...

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[motor noise]
just wrapping the rope round once

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although the capstan's completely smooth, I can lift Rex off the ground quite easily.

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And as Capstans are normally used by wrapping a few times round

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I can lift him off the ground with no effort at all.

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Even wrapped around once, the friction is enough to stop a lift rope ever slipping.

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Lifts still use this arrangement with the motor at the top and the

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counterweight on one side and the lift itself on the other.

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Once this idea of balancing the weight of the lift with a counterweight had been accepted,

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it had the advantage that it greatly reduced the power needed to make the lift work.

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I've added an extra 4 stone to balance my weight with Rex's exactly.

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And er, we should now be able to go up and down quite effortlessly.

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Tim: Okay ready?
Rex: There we go!

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Rex: Now my go!

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Tim: Whoops.
[Both giggle]

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Rex: There you go...
Tim: You going to hang on this time?

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[rumbling noise]

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Tim: Another major improvement, introduced in the 1890s, was wire rope.

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Compared to the hemp rope used previously, it has incredible strength.

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This is a testing rig for ropes. The rope is fixed in the steel frame and then pulled by an enormous hydraulic ram.

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[whirring]

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[bang] [bang] [bang]

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This rope broke at a load of 124 tonnes. That's equivalent to supporting nearly 2000 people.

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That means that each one of these wires could support 5 or 6 people before it breaks.

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[jolly music]

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As people started to accept the safety of lift travel.

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Lifts became status symbols, particularly for hotels.

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[music continues]

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The basic design of lifts has changed little in the last 80 years.

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And it's been realised they're an extraordinarily safe form of transport.

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It's actually statistically safer travelling by lift than climbing the stairs.

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This lift is supported by 7 ropes sharing the weight.

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And each one of them is capable of carrying the whole lift by itself.

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Even if they did all break, there's yet another safety device called the governor.
[motor]

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If this rotates just 10% too fast this disc starts to come out.

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Catching this switch, turning off all the electrics.

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If it goes slightly faster still, this whole disc locks up completely.

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This pulls in wedges under the car, jamming it against the guide rails.

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The modern equivalent of Otis's safety.

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[whirring noise] [clunk]

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This is the lift motor, it's connected via a brake and a gearbox
[motor]

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to the pulley drum and the cables.
[motor switches off]

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If all the electric fails, it's still just about possible to move the lift by hand.

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So it's always possible to haul any passengers trapped inside to safety.

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This is the Express Lift Company in Northampton, and this tower is where they test their lifts.

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As buildings got higher, there was a demand for lifts to travel faster.

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This motor powers a high speed lift that travels the whole height of the tower.

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Speeding up a lift is quite simple, the motor is just connected directly to the pulleys without any gears in between to slow it down.

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High speed lifts were first used in the Woolworth building in 1913 and they've changed very little ever since.

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The only limitation on speed is comfort, which depends mainly on the car's acceleration.

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If I stand on some weighing scales as I go down. My normal weight's about 10 stone.

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My apparent weight should drop. Yeah there it goes,

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...sort of instant dieting.  If the acceleration was any greater I'd feel I'd left my stomach behind.

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And then when it stops accelerating, my weight goes back to normal.

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And finally when we get to the bottom and it decelerates,

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my apparent weight should increase, sort of literally weighing me down.

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There it goes.

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Different countries tolerate different accelerations.
[motor whirrs]

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Japan the least, and Australia the most.

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About 10 storeys is considered the maximum practical distance for a lift to accelerate.

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And this effectively determines the maximum practical speed.

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About 20 foot per second in this case.

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Although the mechanical design of lifts has changed little in the last 80 years,

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they did used to look rather different.

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Like most lifts of the '20s this had no separate shaft.

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It was built into an existing stairwell, all protected by this decorative steel mesh.

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This lift would have originally have been worked by a full time operator.

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The biggest change in lifts since the '20s has been to automate the control gear - removing the need for an operator.

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This has been partly modernised now, but err originally both doors would have had to have been shut by hand.

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Without an operator, it was easy to forget to close the doors when you left the lift,

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and then the caretaker would have to climb up there and shut them before the lift would work again.

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Then there was just a single control for up and down,

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and needed some skill to stop the lift in exactly the right place.

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New York was reduced to chaos in 1937 when the operators went on strike.

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Voiceover: 2000 office buildings are affected, a million and a half New Yorkers are grounded.

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The strikers object to a raised hourly pay rate, but a reduced work week. Result: less take-home pay.

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A few inventive geniuses find ways to have business almost as usual.

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But for the most perpendicular city in the world, an elevator strike is no laughing matter.

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How would you like to walk up from Way Down There?

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Tim: The key to automation was really the sensors. Some are simple switches,

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this is a giant model of a microswitch.
[clunk clunk]

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[clunk clunk]
It just switches these contacts on and off.

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This is their actual size.  This one's being used to stop the lift car from hitting the top.

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[quiet clink]

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Some sensors work without touching anything.

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These were originally magic eye beams that switched whenever the beam was broken.
[high-pitched beeping]

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[beep and silence in time with light bulb on and off]

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But today you don't usually see these, because they work with infrared.

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this is a modern sensor, the light comes out of one side and is picked up on the other side.

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So when it is pointed at a mirror it switches just as before when the beam is interrupted.
[beeping noise]

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[beep] [silence] 

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Well sensors like this are amazingly versatile,

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I used one last year to detect the difference between the head of the coin and the tail.

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I simply polished the head so it reflected the beam, but i didn't polish the tail.

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[coin rattle]

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[whirring] [coin clunk] 

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There are three separate sensors on the doors.

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There's a beam across them.

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There's a touch sensitive strip all down the edges.

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And then there's an extra sensor that checks to see nothing gets squashed too hard in the middle.

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The er, doors are actually worked by a motor that sits on top of the car.

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In there. If I open this up...

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Take off the lock... You can see the doors, the motor move.

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And then there are extra sensors to confirm whether it's open or closed.

169
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Finally there are sensors to detect the position of the lift, fixed to the top of the car.

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The infra red beams are interrupted by these metal plates,

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one set for each floor, to stop the car in the right place.

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All these switches and sensors are connected to the motor room by wires dangling under the car.

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The control gear has become extremely sophisticated.

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There are several microprocessors in here, using the information from the sensors to the lift motor.

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The control gear not only has to respond to all the switches and sensors in the car,

176
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but it also has to manage where the lifts go.

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This is a control simulator at Express Lifts, and it's currently being used to test the program

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to work out the best way for a group of 4 lifts to answer a number of different calls.

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So if for instance I set a call from the 12th floor.

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I think this lift's going to answer it, the 3rd lift.

181
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It's come down to the 12th floor, then I think the doors should open.

182
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So then say the person that's got into that lift wants to go to the 7th floor.

183
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And this, the doors should close again, and the lift should start going down.

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Well if these lifts receive a whole lot of calls together.

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00:16:56,462 --> 00:17:02,048
Then the number of different possible combinations for the lifts to answer all these calls

186
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quickly grows to hundreds and thousands. It's the microprocessor that decides the most efficient way to answer them all.

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It has been found that people start to get impatient
[footsteps] 

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 if they have to wait more than 30 seconds for a lift to arrive.

189
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[footsteps]
Boss: Bother!  Leave it Polly, it's stuck on 6.

190
00:17:21,829 --> 00:17:26,765
Man: Here she comes now...
Polly: It's gone straight past!

191
00:17:26,766 --> 00:17:30,685
[footsteps]
Boss: Don't fiddle with the button Joan, it won't make any difference.

192
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Joan: Sorry.

193
00:17:33,056 --> 00:17:37,134
Boss: If I'm late for my meeting, I'll...
[watch ticking]

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00:17:37,135 --> 00:17:41,212
Tim: The more floors the lift has to serve, the longer the average waiting time.

195
00:17:41,213 --> 00:17:44,053
[footsteps]
[Ding!]

196
00:17:44,054 --> 00:17:47,988
Man2: Ahem. Let me squeeze in here, eh Brenda?
Brenda: Oooh! *giggles*

197
00:17:47,989 --> 00:17:50,936
Tim: The only way to shorten it is to have more lifts.

198
00:17:50,937 --> 00:17:56,545
This actually sets the maximum practical number of floors for a skyscraper, about 100.
[footsteps] [lift dings]

199
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Whereas a 10 storey building may only need one lift,

200
00:18:00,304 --> 00:18:02,969
a 20 storey one needs two.

201
00:18:02,970 --> 00:18:09,012
Continuing on up, the lifts would eventually leave no room for anything else.

202
00:18:09,712 --> 00:18:13,685
[hydraulic pump noise] 

203
00:18:13,686 --> 00:18:16,749
Rex: Although modern lift controls have become more and more sophisticated

204
00:18:16,750 --> 00:18:22,016
mechanically they've become much simpler and cheaper by using hydraulic power.

205
00:18:22,517 --> 00:18:25,291
They've become much safer.

206
00:18:25,292 --> 00:18:31,780
Like the device I'm standing on, which is merely a piston, tight fitting in a tube

207
00:18:31,781 --> 00:18:35,090
and the hydraulic pressure pushes them apart, lifting me up.

208
00:18:40,690 --> 00:18:44,309
Now if Tim pulls the pipe off...
[water spraying]

209
00:18:44,310 --> 00:18:49,674
I still descend: safely, and under control.

210
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Cos the water can't come out any faster.

211
00:19:02,549 --> 00:19:06,004
To make it even safer, Tim has now fitted a pressure release valve.

212
00:19:06,005 --> 00:19:10,381
This still lifts me okay, but if Tim hangs on me...

213
00:19:10,382 --> 00:19:14,552
It limits it, so there's no way you can overload the device.

214
00:19:14,553 --> 00:19:19,651
[noises] [Tim sighs] [noise]

215
00:19:19,652 --> 00:19:25,488
Tim: Hydraulic power has proved so effective, that it's now used on all kinds of machines.

216
00:19:25,489 --> 00:19:33,326
[Diesel engine noise]

217
00:19:34,596 --> 00:19:39,982
Hydraulic powered lifts are nothing new. They were first introduced in the 1870s,

218
00:19:39,983 --> 00:19:43,594
and by the '20s had become a familiar prop in slapstick comedies.

219
00:19:43,595 --> 00:20:02,063
[oriental music] 

220
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The lever opens a valve to let the water in and push the piston up.

221
00:20:09,775 --> 00:20:14,937
Hydraulic lifts needed no electricity , working directly from the mains water supply.

222
00:20:18,016 --> 00:20:23,706
Modern hydraulic lifts use oil instead of water, which keeps everything lubricated.

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There's a reservoir in the basement, and the oil comes through this pipe

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And it's fed into this enormous ram, that goes 80 feet down into the ground.

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6 storeys is about the maximum for a single ram.
[machinery humming]

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And this sort of lift uses more power than a conventional lift,

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because there's no counterweight to balance the load.

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But they're cheaper to build, easier to maintain, and they're considered 

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so safe they don't even have to be fitted with safeties on the car.

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[Slow music] 
The risk of the lift car plummeting to the ground may be negligible

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but there have always been other dangers.

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[lift doors click open]
One of the main reasons for people falling into lift shafts

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was while trying to escape from cars stuck between floors.

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Modern lifts have extra precautions to prevent this.

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They have this extension underneath, or toe-guard to fill the gap.

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[lift doors clank closed]

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People also used to fall into the shaft after escaping through the hatch in the roof.

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Erm.  Modern lifts no longer have a hatch anywhere because it's been

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realised that people are actually much safer trapped inside.

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But these safety regulations do make lifts much more claustrophobic.

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In fact they're sort of sensory deprivation chambers, 

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the only clue you've got where you are is the indicators.

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[crackly film noise]

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[lifts open and close]

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[lift whirrs]

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00:22:10,368 --> 00:22:12,497
[high pitched wheee noise]

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[lift whirrs]

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00:22:14,043 --> 00:22:17,827
[whee noise decreases in pitch]

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Tim: It's not surprising that many people have phobias and fantasies about travelling in lifts...
[ding]

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[squashing noise]
Joan: Oh! I can't breathe in here! Oh!

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[ding]
Man2: Polly, just you and me...

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...In the garden of Eden *sleazy cackle*

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[ding] 
Boss: Why's it stopped?!

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00:22:41,459 --> 00:22:44,142
[electrical crackle]
This inefficiency drives me round the bend!

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00:22:44,143 --> 00:22:49,577
I refuse to be stuck in here! Let me out! Let me OUT!
banging against lift walls]

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[ding]
Polly: Oooh.

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00:22:55,051 --> 00:23:00,480
[slurping and eating noises] 

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[Ding] 
Man: These women bosses, they're only after one thing!

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00:23:05,634 --> 00:23:10,536
My Body! Oh No! Miss Methias! Heeeelp!

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00:23:12,475 --> 00:23:15,439
[Ding]
Brenda: *coughs*

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00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:16,726
[noise of smashing plasterboard]

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Brenda: Oooh! My hero!

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00:23:18,891 --> 00:23:22,516
Brenda: So what's wrong with dreaming?
[ding ding]

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[ratchet noise]
Tim: Perhaps Mr Otis's original lift did have its advantages.

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You could always see exactly where you were, and look up at the safety for extra reassurance.

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It travelled very slowly, and being completely open it it at least 

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left you with the feeling that you could escape if ever you needed to.

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Anyway, I hope this programme's convinced you that however unnerving and disorientating

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modern lift travel may feel, in fact the lifts themselves are actually incredibly safe machines.

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Mission control voice: Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Zero!
[hissing]

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[boom] [roaring]

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[Jazzy music: 'Take 5' - Dave Brubeck]