WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Years ago, I made two videos on strange elevators
that go both horizontally and vertically.

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The first was in Genoa, Italy. 

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It's a little cabin that
travels along a tunnel 

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which then gets loaded
 into a regular vertical elevator.

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The second is in a test tower
in Rottweil in Germany.

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It uses fancy, complicated locking mechanisms
and linear induction motors.

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But the key thing about both those designs is:
they come to a complete stop when changing direction. 

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Because of how elevators work,
safely and smoothly transitioning

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from horizontal to vertical
just isn't possible.

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Or at least I thought so. 

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But it turns out
that the Schmid Peoplemover

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has been doing exactly that
for about 20 years.

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Only three of these have ever
actually been installed. 

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Only two of them still exist. 

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This is the larger one, at a train station
in Altbach, Germany.

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It took me a long time to understand
how this works, and how it works safely.

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I had to hire an engineering consultant to
look at the original patents

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and break it down for me.

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And also, with the help of
a producer in Germany...

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I tracked down the inventor.

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[IN GERMAN:]
 

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This cabin isn't being pulled by cables,
the motor is in the cabin itself,

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it pulls itself along by
turning a pair of cogs up top

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that sit on rack rails,
one on each side of the cabin.

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So this is basically a cog railway.

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A very fancy one with anti-shake devices,
but a suspended cog railway.

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And that explains the smooth transition
to vertical at the top: the cogs just

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follow the rails as they curve. 

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But how does it do this safely, 

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and then travel vertically without,
you know, falling to the ground?

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Well, like the elevator in Genoa, it does
get a bit of help on the vertical part.

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It locks onto a carrier device
and a counterweight, with safety systems

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that are roughly equivalent
to a regular elevator. 

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The carrier is what you can see
start moving through the window

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as you transition to vertical movement. 

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And meanwhile, down on the bottom,
the counterweight

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sits on calibrated springs, so that as this
cabin started to transfer to vertical,

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the counterweight gently lifted
away from the springs...

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and everything balanced. 

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There is an elegant but also
quite complicated

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docking and undocking mechanism up there
in the roof of the cabin and the carrier.

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The closest analogy I can come up with
is that it's a bit like closing

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an up-and-over garage door.
Everything just sort of slides into place.

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It's a wonderful design,
but it's also complicated.

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And the alternative is to
put in an underpass, or

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two mass-produced elevators
and a footbridge between them.

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Because if one of those elevators
breaks down, well, it can be fixed

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by any qualified technician using
off-the-shelf parts instead of someone

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who has to be specially trained
for this one rare bit of equipment.

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And if you have a footbridge,
you probably also have stairs.

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So if one of those elevators breaks down,
there's a backup.

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It doesn't work for everyone,
but it's better than nothing.

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And that also means that if you are late
for your train and physically able,

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you can just run up, across, and down the footbridge
instead of waiting for the Peoplemover to arrive. 

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Now, that said, there are
advantages to this system.

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It requires much less land than
a regular footbridge does.

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It doesn't need tunneling
like an underpass. 

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And if you have heavy or bulky bags,
well, you don't have to

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haul them in and out of multiple elevators
and across the footbridge,

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it just takes them across for you.

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I think there is a possible world
in which this design became popular,

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and the parts became off-the-shelf,
and this became the standard.

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I don't think it's a bad invention. 

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It's very clever.
 It solves a specific problem.

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But when there are more common
and more reliable alternatives

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that are just a bit more
hassle to install...

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well, not many places
wanted to take the risk.