Steam-Powered Elevator Engines

Focus on Machines, Motors & Pumps
Steam-Powered Elevator Engines
by Dr. Lee Gray
John Jallings, Elevators: A Practical Treatise on the Development and Design of Hand, Belt, Steam, Hydraulic and
Electric Elevators, the “first” steam elevator engine
Lee Gray is associate dean for the College of
Architecture at the University of North CarolinaCharlotte with a specialty in architectural history.
He earned his PhD in Architectural History from
Cornell University. He is a
member of the Southeast
Chapter of the Society of
Architectural Historians
and has published several
articles and one book on
vertical transportation and
skyscrapers. Gray is curator of theelevatormuseum.
org, created by ELEVATOR
WORLD. His most recent book, From Ascending
Rooms to Express Elevators: A History of the
Passenger Elevator in the 19th Century, is available in the museum bookstore at www.elevator
books.com.
There is, perhaps, nothing as antithetical to our conception of the
modern electric elevator engine as
the 19th-century steam engine. Our
mind’s eye (and ear) imagines steam
hissing, pistons clanking and oil
dripping as a steam engine, located
in a dirty, crowded mechanical room,
drives a massive winding drum. The
imagined noise and mechanical
complexity of the engine seems to
speak of the distant origins of the
modern elevator. However, throughout the 19th century, steam-powered
elevators were continually manufactured, as they were consistently perceived as effective and competitive
alternatives to hydraulic and electric
elevator engines. In fact, steam elevator engines did not begin to lose
their popularity until the second decade of the 20th century. While this
engine type may have lacked the design elegance of the modern elevator
engine, this brief history will reveal
that these machines had their own
special beauty and charm.
John Jallings, in his well-known
book Elevators: A Practical Treatise on
the Development and Design of Hand,
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Belt, Steam, Hydraulic and Electric Elevators (first edition 1915, revised
edition 1918 and republished by Elevator World, Inc. in 1995), gave a
brief history of the steam-powered
elevator that included a drawing and
description of the “first” steam elevator engine. According to Jallings, the
engine and winding drum were
mounted on separate platforms. The
steam engine was a vertical, reversible two-cylinder engine, and the
winding drum was driven by a worm
gear. The engine and drum were
linked via a leather belt that connected a 3-ft.-diameter pulley on the
engine crankshaft to a 16-in.-diameter pulley attached to the windingdrum gearing.
Jallings noted these early engines
“occupied considerable floor space”
and, “It was not long before efforts
were made to design a more compact machine.” One of the earliest
known images of a “compact machine” was Otis Brothers’ 1865 steam
hoisting engine. This engine employed a direct-geared connection to
the winding drum and featured a
new automatic safety stop linked to
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Focus on Machines, Motors & Pumps Continued
Otis Brothers’ Direct-Geared Steam Hoisting Engine (1865)
the winding drum: after a set number of revolutions, a
lever would automatically close the throttle and apply the
brake, thus preventing the car from going too far up or
down a shaft. The winding drum was also “enclosed in a
circular case to protect the wire rope and the gearing
from dirt, and from the interference of any hard substances that might cause derangement of the proper motions.” It is of interest to note the engine was depicted as
resting on a raised brick base and that the base design
included a floor-level reservoir located below the pistons,
which was, perhaps, intended to catch excess water or
oil. In addition to compact direct-geared machines, Otis
also manufactured compact belt-driven steam engines.
The latter design effectively combined the components of
Jallings’ early elevator onto a single platform.
Crane Brothers Manufacturing Co. in Chicago began
building steam elevator engines in the late 1860s and, by
Otis Brothers’ Belt-Driven Steam Hoisting Engine (1878)
the early 1880s, manufactured both direct-geared and
belt-driven engines. Crane’s belt-driven machine was designed for freight-elevator use, and its direct worm-geared
machine was intended for passenger elevators. The latter
was advertised in 1880 as follows:
“Hitherto, for passenger service, no steam elevator has
been able to compete with the hydraulic elevator in speed
and smoothness of motion. When we designed this new
steam passenger elevator, we succeeded in producing a
machine which, while having all of the advantages peculiar to steam, fully meets the demands of the times, in
terms of both speed and smoothness of operation.”
In the mid 1890s, Crane modernized and redesigned
both engine types. The complexity of the company’s direct-geared steam engine was revealed in its 1897 catalog, which included a drawing of the engine with all 63
parts carefully labeled.
Crane Brothers Direct-Geared Steam Hoisting Engine (1880)
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Crane Brothers Belt-Driven Steam Hoisting
Engine (1880)
History
Crane Brothers Direct-Geared Steam Hoisting Engine (1897)
Other 19th-century steam-engine manufacturers included Moore and Wyman Elevator and Machine Works
and Whittier Machine Co., both in Boston. Unlike Crane’s
careful distinction between direct-geared engines for
passenger use and belt-driven engines for freight use,
Moore and Wyman built belt-driven machines it claimed
were suitable for either passenger or freight elevators.
Moore and Wyman’s passenger system featured a steam
engine and winding drum or “hoisting machine” placed
on separate cast-iron bedplates and connected via a
leather belt. This arrangement recalled Jallings’ early
steam-engine design; however, Moore and Wyman
claimed its system was “so arranged” because this allowed the winding drum “to be located at any distance
from the engine.” Although this feature implied flexibility
in engine placement, the manufacturer acknowledged
the engine was “generally set near the hoistway.”
By the early 1880s, Whittier Machine Co. was manufacturing a variety of belt-driven machines. A prime example
was its “No. 6 double screw steam hoisting machine,”
which featured the company’s patented double wormgear system and was available in a variety of configurations. The configurations were first predicated on engine
size, with the options including 7 X 8 in., 8 X 10 in. and 10
X 10 in. vertical steam engines, all of which operated at
80 lb. of steam and at 250 rpm. Each engine size could be
applied to three different worm gears with thread pitches
of 1.5, 2 or 3 in.; each worm gear was applicable to four
Moore and Wyman Belt-Driven Steam Hoisting Engine (1885)
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Focus on Machines, Motors & Pumps Continued
Whittier Machine Co. No. 6 Double Screw Steam Hoisting Machine (1884)
different winding-drum sizes with diameters of 30, 36, 48
or 56 in. Thus, Whittier’s No. 6 engine was available in 36
different configurations, which permitted a broad range of
lifting capacities (2000-14,100 lb.) and operating speeds
(78-280 fpm).
A final steam-engine type that must be mentioned illustrates the attempt to apply this technology to the traction-elevator engine that was emerging as the dominant
type in the early 1900s. In its 1910 catalog, H.J. Reedy Co.
of Cincinnati illustrated its vertical and horizontal steam
traction engines. It claimed the latter could operate at a
speed ranging “from 5 fpm to as high as 800 fpm.” Unfor-
H.J. Reedy Vertical Steam Traction Engine
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tunately, other than two catalog drawings, no other information was provided about these machines.
Reedy’s optimism about the continued use of steam
power to drive elevator engines was, of course, misplaced. Eight years later, John Jallings observed – not
without a gentle criticism of the emerging technology:
“The introduction of the electric elevator and its economical operation and maintenance gradually eliminated
the steam elevator, and today there is hardly one to be
found. But the fact remains that it was in its day a very
efficient machine and more durable than the electric, the
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electric parts of which deteriorate rapidly.”
H.J. Reedy Horizontal Steam Traction Engine