I have two freight cars on my route (separate buildings and contracts) that both have the same peellee door controller. Both cars have phase I and II fire service. And neither car will return to the main fire service landing when phase I is activated, if they are at another floor with the doors open. You have to go to the car and close the doors by hitting the door close button either at the hall station or in the car, once closed the car will lower and open the doors on phase I. Also, the same thing happens when taking them off phase II, if you’re at a landing with the door open and turn phase II off, it will not close the door without being told to do so by the door close button.

Neither car has any sort of door timer, and will not close the doors on its own on automatic without being told by the door close buttons. They will just stay at whatever floor they’re on with the doors open until someone finds it and closes them with the buttons. An alarm rings when someone places a floor call and it’s sitting somewhere with the doors open. There are no door closing alarms, which leads me to believe they’re designed to operate this way. (I’ve seen many setup like this, but none had fire service)

One of them has recently been written up by the inspector for the phase II instructions not matching how it operates, specifically when you remove it from phase II to return to the recall floor. Does anyone know what this type of operation is called? Or where I might be able to find operating instruction placards for this type of fire service? Thanks.

I do know that when you turn the phase 2 key to off with doors open on a freight, it is NOT required to shut them automatically to recall it automatically, you still have to manually hold the door close button until its closed, THEN it will recall to the main floor. 99% chance it's the same thing for the initial phase 1 recall.

Alot of inspectors are not familiar with fire service on freight cars. I'd recommend calling Pelle too, they'll know all the relevant codes as they design their equipment to meet them

I have a 2004 A17.1 code book. It says in 2.27.3.1.6, that an elevator with vertical closing doors with a manual pressure close button that the elevator must be provided with a visual and audible signal so the operator can close the doors, and the unit will proceed to the fire floor and open the doors.