Has anyone here ever seen or worked on one of these? I have no idea if any are left (working or defunct) or if they have been extinct for a long time.
The cable & sheave setup is similar to horizontal roped hydraulic elevators (an earlier type of water hydraulic elevator).
This was one of the first types of electric elevators installed in high rise buildings (predating the Otis gearless traction machine), competing with earlier types of water hydraulic systems.
I am not sure if these were only installed in tall buildings (where winding drum systems were considered impractical as far as I know) or if they were also installed in low rises.
Notice in the second photo the ball bearings that circulate through the nut.
The pictures come from a Sprague book:
https://archive.org/details/ElectricElevatorsWithDetailedDescriptionOfSpecialTypesByFrankJ
