Has anyone been over the top, or under the bottom, of a Paternoster?
More than a few Aston University students in the 1970's, I suspect.
I never dared ....
Doing so is usually forbidden as it may cause the whole thing to imbalance, but check
This cool video out though. A brief explanation about Paternoster lifts including a ‘ride’ over the top.
I'd understood that the main risk is that, if the lift breaks down with someone trapped in a car going over the top, it would be very difficult indeed to extract them. I can't see how it'd cause any sort of significant imbalance, given that it's quite possible for it to be legitimately loaded in a very unbalanced fashion.
(We went to Sheffield specially to see the Paternoster there a few years ago, and did indeed go over the top and under the bottom - of course!)
I was a student at the University of Sheffield from 2001-04 and 2006-08, both times studying in a department in the Arts Tower, the rather elegant sixties tower block that looks out over the city. It was extensively renovated after I left and the paternoster had to be retained because of its inclusion in the listed status of the building. However maintaining it continues to be a problem, since no-one manufactures them any more. Luckily Sheffield is a city full of ingenious engineers with workshops, so whenever an oily bit snaps it is usually possible to get it replaced in a couple of weeks.
I've been over the top once, nothing much to report, except it's very dark and noisy.
I've been under the bottom once or twice, and it broke.
Whenever there was a fire alarm, the lifts paused and you had to evacuate via the two staircases. About two or three times a term I'd have to trudge from my studios on the 13th - 18th floors to the concourse. At that point there were various strategies. It would take at least 20 minutes to empty the building and do all the checks, so if it was cold it made more sense to walk over to the Union for a coffee/beer/lunch and come back later. But if you absolutely had to get back in as soon as possible (and we were architecture students, so we believed all the cr@p about working to excesss) there were a couple of tactics.
1) Walk up. Huge effort but usually quicker than waiting.
2) Wait for the two lifts or the paternoster. Long queues. Could take up to thirty minutes.
3) Walk up two or three floors, then jump onto the downward paternoster and slide smoothly underneath in order to already be in the cabs as they passed the long queue of people waiting to go up.
That last tactic is risky, because after a evacuation the system is completely imbalanced: everyone is going up and no-one is going down. In normal operation, a paternoster is really clever because it passively equalises the load of people going up with people going down. It's not actually so good in a university building, because students tend to move in large groups whenever classes end or start.
So that's what I did with my friend once... (now a wonderful architect working in London). We saw the queues, decided to run upstairs to the second or third floor and then hop on the downward paternoster. But we got trapped below ground. The paternoster broke down for about 15 minutes, meaning we were universally hated by not only the caretakers but also everyone waiting to get back in the building. I did not risk it again. If you ever visit, you
should be ok to go either underneath or over the top... but never try to go under after an evacuation.
The Arts Tower has eighteen regular floors (visible from the outside) + a basement and a mezzanine at the bottom and two more floors at the top. The 19th floor is behind the louvres at the very top, and used to be home to two, back-to-back lecture theatres which each probably sat about 100 people. The paternoster machinery occupied the 19th and 20th floors, and only one elevator went to the 20th floor, so it was a complete non-sense to have up to 200 students up there during peak periods... especially if both lectures ended and another 200 students were waiting in the tiny lobbies to enter.
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