Originally Posted by
Sandhouse
"You got to choose the floor destination by operating that large, brass, lever. [[or a "ZW" transformer..... hmm, I think I'm starting to see a pattern . . .)"
Yup, it's the combined J.L. Hudson / Lionel trains nostalgia syndrome, and I've got it bad.
I can still smell the oil used to lubricate the inner doors of the elevators, and see the red and green lights next to each floor's number, and the mahagony lining of the cars. the operators had a folding seat they rarely got to sit on. I had forgotten about the "ding-ding" announcing the arriving cars, until the post above brought the memory back.
While working as a stockboy for a summer job at Hudson's in the early 1970's, I got to try running one of those passenger elevators just once. It was insanely difficult, and the skill of those operators [[virtually all black women) was considerable. You had to anticipate the deceleration of the car far in advance of stopping for a floor; it wasn't automatic, and I couldn't get the car to stop more than about a foot from the proper place after bobbing up and down like a yo-yo. But the real operators usually managed to stop the elevator floor within half an inch of the floor, and seldom had to say, "Watch your step." I think the rotary controllers were analogous to a DC streetcar controller, with three or more speed ranges that you would use depending on how many floors you were going before stopping. You could go slow, or really crank it up, but you had to start slowing down several floors in advance. I wonder if there is any surviving installation like this anywhere in the world?
Not like the simple rheostat on the Lionel transformers my dad brought home from the 12th floor. I got the LW model for Christmas in 1958, with the cool glowing fifties-looking dial. The number 665 Hudson that came with it is starting to get a bit of chatter in its armature bearing after 55 years, though, and takes heavier lubrication than it used to. The 3-in1 Oil Ray had on his table won't cut it any more.