When you walk into a Miconic V machine room, you can see those telegrams running around the machine room.... .

And don't you love the way that when, you know who, loses it, changes the password on the old puter... .

Memories of long conversations with a guy named Joe Kuel (Cool).
Very slick speed control but I think I could have opened up an eprom store by the time we got done with that job.

Great find, Christy!

I get so used to hearing buzzing relays, I've probably walked past a bunch of them without thinking twice. Good work!

Just as the skip mysteriously disappeared three hours ago, it suddenly reappeared in the dark hoistway like something right out a Stephen King movie. On board were the same four behemoths as before. Bud said "Get on, time for lunch". The trip down was not the same as the trip up. To begin with, there was no room at the center this time and believe me, you didn’t want to grab on to one of the other guys. The first day on the job was not the time for lasting impressions. One of the guys had wrapped a length of rope around the rope falls four times and was holding each end. This was our descent velocity control. The less he pulled the ends, the faster we went. The harder he pulled, the slower we went. Pulling even harder caused us to stop. “Ok?” He said…and down we went… and fast. My first thought was "I'm going to die" but the other guys were looking at me and grinning….. It must be OKAY, I guess.

The Elevator Business is a hazardous business. I have and will continue to tell our humorous, everyday stories but due to the nature of the business, I must include the personal tragedies.

The ropes were smoking as we traveled down the hoistway at Mach 10. A new guy, Roy, panicked and grabbed the whizzing ropes with both hands. With five ropes traveling faster than we were and moving in opposite directions to boot, it was the fast thinking of the guy with the rope controlling our speed to stop the skip before any serious damage was done to Roy's hands.

Haughton had recently hired five new 50 per centers. These new guys, like me, were all about 20 years of age with the exception of Rob. He had at least 10 to 15 years on the rest of us and was no ball of fire but the guy tried as hard as he could. Bud treated this poor guy like a Galley Slave and was on his ass for anything and everything. Roy was also accident prone and had already emptied out two of our first aid kits and was always covered with band aids. Earlier in the job Roy had incorrectly grabbed a rail on the end while it was being hoisted into the hoistway. He had his hands underneath the end when the center of the rail wedged in the top of the entrance. Roy's hands were now wedged between the sharp end of the rail and the unfinished raked concrete floor. The rail kept moving, peeling his knuckles off. Roy's safety record on the job wasn't the greatest, but we do know he must have had a stellar safety record on the freeway. More than once he was spotted driving to and from the job in his green and white Nash Metropolitan wearing his hard hat at a rakish tilt. We all felt he should be in another line of work. As it turns out he had a close relative that was an elevator inspector.

Later in the job, the shop asked for a crew to do a small job in Bakersfield so Bud, gleefully, sent Rob and a mechanic, Carl, to do the job. Carl weighed in at around 300 hundred pounds and could only sit and wire controllers. We would all get a kick when he grabbed his leather belt with both hands and loop it up over his belly just like a lineman climbing a telephone pole.

Rob somehow made mechanic as a service man years later at an independent elevator company in LA. In the ‘80s he was answering an overtime call and while working on the broken elevator he made a serious mistake that cost him his life.

As the story goes, he answered a call on a duplex. He entered the pit of the running car without turning it off, then reached in between the counter weight rails of the running elevator to work on the adjacent car. The weights came down and severed his arm. He lay in the pit and bled to death long before a family member called the company and reported him missing. The company finally dispatched another mechanic to check on Rob, it was way too late.

when I worked at Millar we had a helper wiping machines down on an older Armor job with a TMS 900 overlay. The kid had put the car on what he thought was inspection. It was the old inspection knife switch on the Armor controller. Well that switch didn't work anymore and the dumb ass company that did the overlay didn't have the sense to either remove it or at least mark it as non functional. The kid got his hand sucked into the sheave and lost three fingers and severely crushed his hand. After many surgeries later the kid finally left the trade. It was a textbook example of the need to provide lock out tag out procedures. It is complacency that hurts and kills people. I love this forum because as I get older, I realize the stupid chances I use to take myself.

Wow....

great stories...

There was a short story in my career that could have had two endings. If it weren't for a very colorful mechanic, Kelly, it would have ended in the worst of the two possible scenarios. Kelly and I were realigning the targets for the counterweight rails at the end of travel on the 30th floor. We had a bridge plank across the hoistway. I stepped off the steel onto the plank to move the counterweight target, missed my mark and fell through the space alongside the plank. We had the skip tied off two floors below and that was it. There was nothing but air on all sides. I hit the beam in the back of the hoistway one floor below. I managed to grab that beam on the way down and landed on my right side. I was hanging on for life and drifting in and out of unconsciousness from the pain. Kelly slid down a main guide rail to where I was hanging on, grabbed me in a bear hug and held me up against the beam and told me a couple of jokes until I regained consciousness laughing. Kelly saved my life. There was nothing between “me and my maker” except Kelly.

I had a chance to work with several different mechanics while in and out of FOB. One in particular was Larry. He was a bull mechanic who was the terror of all helpers. He was a big guy with a barrel chest, deep loud voice and close-cropped hair. He was also a hell raiser who could hold his own with just about anybody. It was a very bad idea to cross Larry. When pissed, he could be like a rattlesnake with a case of hives. His dress for work was a little different than the rest of us; it consisted of a short sleeve sport shirt, grey levies and cowboy boots. Not exactly a poster child for OHSA.

This guy was a helper’s nightmare. He could pick up two counter weight rails, one in each hand and carry them a long distance over all types of terrain in order to get them to the hoistway, and that’s pushing over 200 pounds. The major rub here is that somebody had to be on the other end. That somebody was his helper big or small. He went through helpers like Imelda Marcos went through shoes. Today he might be known as, “The Helper Cookie Monster”.

He usually started traction jobs by installing the rails and pit equipment, hoisting the generators, machines and controllers and then pulling off. Thus he was called a “Bull Mechanic". That reference really pissed him off. He worked hard, drank hard and expected his helper to do likewise.

When we worked together at FOB we spent our time re-rigging skips and untangling the kinks in the manila rope in the pit so the skips could travel up and down without stopping. The kinks and tangles in the rope were known as "Assholes" in elevator talk. The jargon we used were terms such as "Down the Road" (fired, laid off or sent to the shop), "Grunt" (helper), “Pusher” (Foreman), "Can You Do it Boy?" (get with it) and "My Mothers Slow, But she's 80 Years Old" (hurry up). All these terms and some others I can’t recall were adopted by Elevator Constructors from High Lineman. By the way, the comeback to "Can You Do it Boy?" was, "With A Slop Jar Full Of N*!s And A Nine Inch C*!k. . .“And You Call Me Boy?"

I worked with Larry for a few months and we got along just fine. Sorry to say, some years later I heard he had moved to Denver, taken a job as a route mechanic, cleaned up his act and remarried. While on a service call, he picked the door lock and while stepping on the car top tripped and fell into the hoistway on the front of the elevator. The hoistway doors closed behind him, the car started up and crushed him to death.

The Katy Building was a modernization job in Downtown LA run by a very colorful old timer we called "Huck". Huck had been around for years and years and was a great wrench. There was a big difference working construction with guys like Bud and John to working an inside job with Huck. We had long coffee and lunch breaks and the job just seemed to drag on. We just seemed to work around the edges of the work, rather than in the center. It was a little here, a little there. The jobs he ran always seemed like they would never end and run way over. When the job was finished, the adjusters were in and out and the service guy got a job with few if any headaches.

Due to his age, the company tried to give Huck inside jobs. There was a minor rub; he couldn’t keep his mouth shut in front of the customer. More than a few times he was on the carpet in front of the service manager. A note here… in those days the service department ran the modernization jobs. Construction got them if the rails were replaced.

The Katy building had four gearless elevators installed by Llewellyn in the 20’s. Otis later came along and modernized it again in the 50’s. Our job was to install new controllers, replace the air doors with new door equipment. That meant the female elevator operators would soon be out of a job. It was touch and go for a while but we all became friends. So friendly in fact, that when passenger traffic was slow this good looking operator with great legs, would take her break and stand in the elevator opening while straddling the gap between the car and hall.

For some reasons we could always find something to do directly beneath her in the walk-in pit.

I was there to help distribute the new door equipment and hoist the new controllers into the machine room. Huck and his helper also needed a hand with some other work. We needed to replace the existing hitch plates on top of the cars with a Haughton hitch plate that contained load-weighing contacts. Before we started, the car top and hoistway had to be cleaned up.

The hoistway and car was covered with years and years of oily fuzz. Huck decided to use a Cadillac blower in lieu of a vacuum. These old Cadillac blowers put out such a blast of air, NASA could have used them to test the aerodynamics of the space shuttle. We started at the top of the hoistway working our way down blowing off the fuzz and hoping we would sweep it up in the pit when finished.

This plan had one very serious flaw. The older cabs had very large exhaust fans mounted on top of the elevator. Boy, those things really put out a bunch of air or did they? Elevator fans are supposed to blow, but these guys sucked and I mean really sucked. It was just before lunch and a hot summer day. The elevators were packed with executives heading out for their two-martini lunch. We were unaware that the car-top fans changed the scene in the lobby to that of a change of shift at a West Virginia coal mine. Believe it or not, this day wasn’t over yet. We just kept working as usual, after cleaning the hoistway, it was time to clean the pit but there wasn't the amount of fuzz we expected. Why…? The “fuzz” left the building with the white-shirted office workers right onto 5th street. That’s right…they were covered with soot. It would take awhile for the office to get wind of this fiasco.

We hung the car, secured the hoist ropes and started removing the old hitch plate. Problem was, we couldn't break a bolt loose so a trip to the shack to retrieve the cutting torch was necessary. It was right after lunch and the part-time coal miners were returning to work. The cars in the adjacent hoistways were zipping by us non-stop. While cutting off the bolt, a piece of red hot slag ignited the oily fuzzy stuff on the side of a running car in the next hoistway. Damn, we had this blazing box of people rushing by us up and down at 500 feet per minute. Not a problem! Huck was always very safety conscious, so conscious he kept the fire extinguisher locked up in the shack so no one would steal it. I headed for the shack, Huck and his helper swatted, blew, threw coffee, spit and would have probably pissed on the traveling fireball if they could. We got the fire out and later that day Huck assumed his usual position on the carpet in the Service Manager’s office.

Jim
The funny thing of your story for me was the part about the suits getting dirty! It seems Huck could bring some excitement to the table too.

😃

Wish we had video cameras then

More Huck,

Huck’s helper on the Katy Building was a Guy named Kelly. This Kelly was not the “The Famous Kelly” mentioned later in this book, so we called him “Little Kelly”. Kelly was kind of a flighty guy but a good helper nonetheless. One day while working in the hoistway he inadvertently let his leg hang over into the adjacent hoistway. The car that lived in that hoistway whizzed by at 500 feet per minute and broke Kelly’s leg in a zillion pieces. It must have hurt like hell but he managed to crawl out onto the lobby. Writhing in pain with tears running down his face he called for Huck who finally saundered up, called Kelly a Pussy and told him to get up and shake it off. Huck tried to get him to go for coffee in the shack, all the while telling Kelly he’ll get over it in a few minutes. Eventually after about 45 minutes Huck relented to calling an ambulance. Huck was right-on all right... Kelly did shake it off… after a week in the hospital and three months on crutches.

One story from uk. Hydraulic lift broke down maintenance guy (not elevator) went to motor room he knew how lo lower lift down pressed lowering button but nothing happened ie took all pressure off.
Elevator man arrived assessed problem to be safety gear come in and decided (why?) to get under car and release it???? Obviously when he did lift fell on top of hime taking his head off
Dont try this at home folks!!

Ray h I work in the uk and have not come across this story before, did you research it? I would be interested in the details.

Gib

I was at Otis in Seattle when this happened, I was a Canuck that came down to work for about 8 yrs. Knew the Super and his Son well. The old Scotchman father defended his son well, it happened at one of my accounts. I was sent in after the event to cool things down. It had happened on the freight elevator.

We used to have beers at a joint up on Sunset Boulevard which was a block away from the shop. You could bank on most of the Haughton crew being in there on payday. One payday it was business as usual. We were drinking beer, telling lies, pounding our chests and playing the bowling machine. Bob and another mechanic were bowling on the machine when a Haughton truck driver picked up a ball, tossed it down the lane and spoiled the score for Bob and the other guy. The guy thought it was pretty funny. Bob politely asked him to knock it off. The driver didn't know whom he was dealing with. Well he did it again. "Bad Idea"… Bob just picked him up and tossed him down the alley with such force that he wedged in the back of the machine. It took three of us to get him out of the inside of the machine. It was a strike!

It was hard to imagine that during the Korean War at the Chosen Reservoir on a freezing December night in 1950 this quiet man, burned out three barrels of his Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). This action along with other feats of valor won "Bob" a Silver Star, Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Bob always said he would go out "With Fire Coming out Of My Asshole".

He did "Just That" when later in his career his luck ran out. On a high rise job in Los Angeles Bob and his helper were working on a newer skip that Haughton was using. These skips had no safeties and were powered by small winding drum machines mounted at the bottom landing. The skips used a 3/8 inch steel cable fed threw a block in the overhead and back down to the skip. The guys on the skip controlled it with a pendant station on a cable connected to the drum machine. No one was watching it while Bob and his helper were working ten floors up the hoistway. The cable wound off the drum and broke. Bob and his helper were in a ten floor freefall. While falling down the hoistway Bob made sure his helper was laying flat on the skip to minimize his injuries. The skip hit the two to one sheave on the car frame sitting in the pit. Because the skip hit the sheave first, it broke in half and cushioned the fall. The helper stayed on the skip and was not seriously hurt, Bob on the other hand, didn't fare so well, he was still on his feet during the impact.

The impact threw him off the skip into the hoistway where he was wedged between the hoistway wall and the platform in the pit. Bob’s recovery was a long ordeal. He couldn't walk for months. I and "Dirty John" paid him a visit and watched him get up unassisted and go to the bathroom for the first time since the accident. A year later Bob returned to work. Luck just wasn't on his side when a Skill saw got away from him and ran across his arm. It took extensive surgery and rehabilitation before he could get back to work. Bob passed away a few years later. We lost a great comrade and hero. There are not enough and never will be enough men like Bob.

Another great read Jim-thanks for posting

Happy Ending?

Working for DJ as Grunt was like working for a favorite Uncle. You were pretty much on your own if you saw it needed to be done and did it, everything was cool. There was a good side and a down side to this work ethic. A few mistakes were made; on one job we painted all the governors. Why? They didn't match the rest of the machine equipment that had already been painted. Hey! They really looked great, but there was one major rub. The adjusters had already calibrated them in preparation for the safety tests that were to be held the next day. Our paint job was very through and pretty but unfortunately the safety tests had to be canceled. A note here, elevator guys don’t really use strokes to apply the paint, it’s more like a dip and stab action. I really believe there is equipment that I painted in the 60’s that hasn’t dried yet.

DJ was not only a great guy to work for, but also a lot of fun. He watched out for his people. One of the best examples I can remember was when a helper charged into the shack with tears in his eyes. This helper had been around for some time, a big tough guy and definitely not subject to turning on the water works. As the story goes, the helper was installing gutter cover in one of the machine rooms when he dropped a screw into a running gearless machine. This machine belonged to an elevator that had just been turned over and was in service. The screw hit the machine, bounced into the space between the field pieces and the armature, sparks flew, the DC overload tripped and the elevator ground to a halt. Fortunately the elevator was un-occupied. DJ handed him a rag from the rag box so he could wipe his eyes and proceeded to settle him down. “Don’t sweat it, we’ll figure something out.” Together they headed for the machine room to assess the damage. The helper had a reason to be crying. The machine was trashed and would have to be disassembled, the damaged field pieces and armature replaced. No easy task for this was a Big Ass Haughton #40 Machine that weighed in at around 12000 pounds. Being the clever guy that DJ was, he looked at the damage and within seconds came up with a solution to this dilemma. There was an air conditioning duct that ran right over the top of the machine. He removed one of the screws from the duct, looked at it and said. “That’s the son-of-bitch right here that screwed up our machine.” The screw was a pretty good match and became a perfect match after a couple of blows with a single jack. Right or wrong the sheet metal contractor’s insurance company footed the bill for the repair job.

LOL!!! And I wonder why the other trades hate us

The tragic fatal accident in the Philly area last weekend has had a powerful impact on all of us here. Please keep your mind on what you are doing at all times. AND PLEASE WORK SAFE!