During the month of August, my wife Monika and I had the good fortune of being extended an invitation to join our good friends, Local 50 retiree John & Jean Keane, at their summer cottage for a few days and were very pleasantly surprised when told that not only fellow-retiree Mike Crilly and his wife Donna were also going to be in attendance, but my old pal Bobby "Boom-Boom" Smith as well. The cottage is located on Ontario's beautiful Georgian Bay and is situated on solid bedrock approximately 60 feet up from the water's edge, giving them a panoramic view of the surrounding area. Prior to 1999 when John retired from Local 50, he was able to accumulate enough old parts to allow him to begin installing an "elevator" up to the cottage from the docking area. Actually, I guess it should be called an inclinator, it's an enclosed "open cage" that has a travel distance of approximately 50 feet and is powered from the "machine room" via the installation of an old retired Otis dumbwaiter. John, always the improviser, did a great job of assembling this "elevator". It runs on two 30 degree makeshift rails (4X4 steel angles) mounted approximately 48" apart using roller guides on the upper surface and slippers on the exterior to prevent it from wandering side to side. The "hatchway" is a fully fenced-off area with a "wire trough" on the exterior of it for the traveling cable to lay in, the car is fully equipped with 110VAC lighting, a set of "top of car" controls, a safety circuit, along with electrical car-gate and hall-gate lock circuitry, a set of instant safety dawgs that are actuated when any slack cable occurs, along with a micro-switch that immediately opens the safety circuit, a pair of "normally-closed" direction limit switches, and is fantastic for not only transporting people up from the docking area, but also for the transportation of groceries of all sorts and equipment in general.
Upon this spring's arrival, John & Jean found that the elevator wasn't operating due to the harshness of the winter. This wasn't abnormal and usually all John had to do was to open the various switches to perform any required maintenance, however, this year was a bit different and upon performing the usual procedure, he found he was still unable to get it moving. When we arrived, and after exchanging pleasantries with him and Bobby Smith, I enquired why the elevator wasn't working, and he replied that the problems were more involved this year and he had to get into it a little bit further. Shortly thereafter, Mike and Donna Crilly also arrived, and following the subsequent tour (unfortunately Bobby had to leave early because of a prior commitment), Mike and I agreed that the first thing in the morning we should get the tools out and give John a hand to get it mobile again.
The following morning, I volunteered to crawl under the cottage where John had installed the controller, and using his meter, was able to determine that there was sufficient power coming in and the safety circuit and gate lock circuits were intact. We were also able to rule out any mechanical glitches when we found the brake would pick up, allowing the elevator to move when either of the two directional relays was manually energized. Unfortunately, John couldn't find his original prints at first which meant that the removal of all electrical covers in the "hatch" was in order so we could trace the wires in the various circuits and, lo and behold, problems were found in both directional limit switches. The "up" had a broken wire (no problem because there was a ton of spares in the car junction box) and the "down" switch was mechanically inoperable and so had to be removed and made to work again.
Our mission was accomplished, John was happy, his wife Jean was very happy, and when their two son-in-laws find out that they won't have to carry the beer and grandkids up all those stairs anymore, they'll be really happy. Now that the "work" was completed, the fun part could begin and, true to a Local 50 bygone tradition, we celebrated the "victory" with some mighty fine ales from the local brewery. I'm talking good, old Canadian beer here, and lots of it. Like I said earlier: "Old habits never really die".
Who would have thought that after being retired for over ten years, I'd get a chance to work with some old Westinghouse buddies on an elevator again - just like old times. Oh, by the way, did I mention that Mike Crilly was a retired Schindler/Westinghouse adjuster, so take a wild guess who did the bulk of the trouble-shooting. John pulled in new spare wires for the "up" direction switch, and I removed the seized "down" switch to free it up until it was 100% functional again. What a team!!
Ron Buxton