The Little Book of the London Underground by Long David;

Author:Long, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: History Press Limited, The

GOING DOWN: THE LIFT

Amazingly, the first reference to an elevator-type device is in the pages of the Roman architect Vitruvius, who claimed Archimedes built his first screw-powered elevator in about 236BC. Other early examples would presumably have been hand- or animal-powered cabinets hauled up by hemp rope.

In 1793 the Russian mechanic and inventor Ivan Kulibin created the first elevator of the modern era, with a screw-lifting mechanism for Catherine the Great’s Winter Palace at St Petersburg.

London’s first ‘ascending room’ was installed in 1823 at the Colosseum in Regent’s Park. The oldest still extant is in the the Savoy Hotel, the red-lacquered device being characteristic of an hotel renowned for its innovative approach and which was the first in the world to generate its own electricity.

By 1850 elevators were relatively commonplace, but most carried freight rather than passengers. These were hydraulically powered, using water under pressure, but requiring a pit as deep as the building was tall such an arrangement was clearly unsuited to the tallest buildings.

Fortunately in 1854, the American Elisha Otis demonstrated the first safety elevator in which a fall could be prevented in the event of a cable breaking. In London a four-rope system provided a similar measure of safety with escape hatches concealed behind advertising posters so that passengers in a broken lift could move across to its pair in order to escape.

The first ‘cut and cover’ lines were not deep enough to require escalators or lifts. However, when the latter were gradually introduced to the new deep-level stations, they tended to travel at just 120ft per minute, initially using steam power until these were banned after a number of disasters. As the technology improved, electricity replacing steam and hydraulics, speeds increased to around 500ft per minute with 800ft per minute being possible on some of the more advanced models.

Of the 122 lifts on the network, the deepest lift shaft is at Hampstead station, descending 181ft. In December 2008 around a dozen commuters plummeted almost the entire depth, the faulty lift fortunately coming to a halt immediately before it hit the sump. The shortest lift shafts are at Westminster, with a drop of only 8ft, and at Chalk Farm (30ft 6in).

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