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TIL a 1910s grain elevator in St. Louis still uses its original hydraulic lift
I was touring the old Union Station complex and got to see the freight elevator in the basement. The building manager showed me the piston and the original water tank setup, which they still maintain. It's a simple plunger lift, about 15 feet of travel, and they have to manually fill the tank from a well to run it. Seeing a system that old still doing its job made me think about how much has changed. Has anyone else worked on a hydraulic system from that era?
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wilson.emma21d ago
Watched a video of a guy in Ohio who restores old steam engines and he treats every seized bolt like it's some kind of sacred artifact. Don't get me wrong, it's neat that they kept the original lift working, but it's really just a water powered jack at the end of the day. The grocery store two blocks from my house has a 1950s freight elevator that still runs on a manual rope pull and nobody's writing a thinkpiece about it. People act like anything pre-1950 is automatically more impressive just because it survived, ignoring that half this stuff only still works because nobody wants to pay to replace it. Let's see how charming that 1910s lift is when the well dries up mid move and you're stuck hauling boxes up the stairs.
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