In 1981, R. Waygood & Company installed the Cliff Lift at West Hill Hastings. The track was 450 long, a portion of which passed through a tunnel driven for 363 feet through West Hill. Two 16-passenger cabins counterbalanced each other, one descending as the other arose on side-by-side tracks (no turn-out). The drive was by worm and gearing, powered by a 16 hp Otto Gas Engine. Waygood installed a somewhat similar lift at Folkstone four years later to carry passengers between Lees and the beach but it was worked by waterpower, the angle of the lift being steeper.

(Graphic Source: R. Waygood & Co.)

Two views of an early Stigler funicular in Germany are shown. The cars counterbalance each other, passing at a turnout halfway down the track as shown in the left photo. Note the rollers that keep the hoist cable from dragging. It is likely that the wheels on one car had the flange on the outside while the other had them on the inside.

Graphic Source: Funicolari Elettriche

Stigler's inclined car taking tourists to the Castello di Hohenaschau in Bavaria ran on a single track and was powered by electricity.

Graphic Source: Funicolari Elettriche

Photos show an electrically operated Stigler funicular in Nice, France. The deep pit extending under the rails for the length of the run indicates the car might be counterbalanced by a weight sliding beneath.

Graphic Source: Funicolari Elettriche

A steam engine moved 32 passengers over a rack track at the Schnurto Bel Viaduct of the Vitznau-Rigi Railroad. These two photos of the Swiss railroad's early days depict the locomotive and passenger car of the funicular as well as a view of the viaduct span.

(Graphic Source: Ein Jahrhundert)

Was it a somewhat tilted elevator or a funicular? That will always be argued as the incline of the elevators installed by Otis Elevator Company in the Eiffel Tower were so steep (Figure 1). The double-decker car carried 40 persons at a speed of 400 feet per minute, driven by the typical indirect, roped-hydraulic of the period (Figure 2). The cylinder of a 30-inch bore, roped 3:1, traveled about 125 feet to the cabin's 377 feet. As the car approached midpoint, it rounded a corner and climbed more steeply. The car level being manually maintained by the operator (Figure 3). He also controlled, via a cable, the hydraulic valve at the pumping equipment on the lower level. Passengers entered and disembarked each car level on mechanically extended gangplanks (Figure 4).

(Graphic Source: Elevator World Annual Study - Towers - 1967)

The French firm of Roux Combalusier and Lepape were given a contract to accomplish the movement of the same number of passengers in the other two legs of the Eiffel Tower. Instead of utilizing the direct-hydraulic piston approach of which the French were the masters, the firm decided to invent an entirely new technique of traversing the inclined legs (Figure 1). The system utilized a string of short, rigid, articulated links that ran in tubes alongside of the double-decker cars (Figure 2). Two horizontal plungers rotated sprocket wheels at the bottom, constituting a mechanism much like the 3:1 roping of the Otis system, but utilizing chains (Figure 3). It was ultra safe but the friction of the articulated roller chain links was about five times that of the American system. The push-pull mechanism was inherently noisy and for the Paris Exposition of 1900, five year later, the Roux system was replaced with one similar to that of Otis, built by the French firm of Five-Lilles. It was a bit too early to take advantage of electric modernization!

(Graphic Source: Elevator World Annual Study - Towers - 1967)

(Graphic Source: Angel's Flight by Walt Wheelock)