Malcolm Nixon wrote ... > On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 06:38:59 +0100, "Bru Peckett" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >The ex-Lift Apprentice gets out of bed, brews a coffee, > rolls a fag and > >scores 98% ... and is *very* annoyed with himself 'cos a > really really > >REALLY stoopid lapse of concentration on the gear ratios multiple > >choice > > so that is why some of the lifts are so slllooowww ;-))
Nah, the reason some of the lifts are so slow is 'cos part of the deal Express had with Otis was that we wouldn't put a lift up a shaft faster than they could and they couldn't build a fast lift to save their lives! > what are they doing with the lift tower these days ? Ah yes, the test tower. Planning permission for 25 years. Design life 30 years. Totally, completely and utterly useless for any purpose other than testing lifts and there's no lift manufacturers left in Europe. The borough council, who only reluctantly granted PP in the first place. Had a fit of pique over Otis* closing down the site and ceasing lift manufacturer in the UK so they listed the damn thing! *Once Lord Wienstock died and the bl**dy city money men got their hands on GEC, the parent company of Express Lifts, it was about, oh let's see, 30 seconds tops before they'd sold Express to Otis who'd been after closing down Express to open up the European market for decades. The bean counters and quick buck merchants wrecked most of the rest of GEC too for that matter. The developers who bought the site to build houses on it managed to palm off the test tower to English Heritage who now have a white elephant on their hands. It can't be opened to the public, the concrete is starting to disintegrate (30 year design life remember ... and it was built when I was an apprentice so it's only a coupla years short of that) and it's got no useful purpose. The best of the joke is that they've now built houses all around it and pretty close up to it so when, and I do mean when, they have to bite the bullet and bring it down it's going to have to be taken down from the top bit by bit 'cos there's nowhere for the big bang brigade to drop it. What I'd really like to know is what happened to the drawing archives that a bunch of us apprentices moved from the attic of the main office block to the upstairs space above the canteen. Whilst we threw out thousands of drawings that were of no further use, we kept all the really old stuff that were works of art. Beautiful engineering drawings all colour washed and what have you. We even found the original patent application drawings for the spring door closer which was the beginnings of the company back in the 19th century I really really hope that they ended up in the Science Museum or similar but rather suspect they ended up on a bonfire. Bru
