This is the Bailong Elevator, a glass elevator that is built into the side of an enormous cliff in Zhangjiajie, China.
The Bailong Elevator claims to be highest and heaviest outdoor elevator in the world.
It measures 1,070 feet high and the set three world Records – The world’s tallest full-exposure outdoor elevator, the world’s tallest double-deck sightseeing elevator and world’s fastest passenger traffic elevator with biggest carrying capacity.
Here is a picture of the world’s largest cylindrical aquarium located at the AquaDom in Berlin, Germany. This amazing 45 foot structure is a record breaker for another reason as the tank also contains a glass elevator for spectators to get a fish eye view from inside the tank.
Opened in December 2003 at the cost of 12.8 million Euros and was constructed by US Company Reynolds Polymer Technology.
The AuqaDom is the largest acrylic glass cylinder in the world and has a diameter of over 36 feet.
The tank is filled with around 900,000 liters of seawater and houses something like 2600 fish of 56 species. The feeding of the fish and the cleaning of the fish tank is performed daily by divers.
Moored in a port in Harlingen, Netherlands is this amazing crane hotel. Guests are able to get to their cabin with the help of two elevators, the first elevator stops at the platform located in between the legs of the crane and the second takes them a beautiful fully furnished bedroom which used to be the machine room of the crane.
There is also a small staircase within the room that leads to the old steering cabin above. The guests can use the steering room at anytime and swing the cabin around for a 360 degree view of the surrounding area.
Breakfast is included and is delivered through an internal lift directly to the bedroom. To stay at the hotel for a night will cost for around 319 Euros but do note that the hotel is booked around 8-10 months in advance so plan ahead for your thinking of booking for a special date.
How about this for a nasty accident, a crane is dragged over the edge of a bridge while attempting to drag a bus from a river. Even though the bus is almost out of the water, the crane cannot handle the massive weight of the flooded vehicle and is slowly dragged over the end of the bridge into the river below.
The crane operator escaped with his life which can only be described as a minor miracle.
Lifting accidents are a lot more common that you may think especially in the poorer countries of the world who cannot always afford the correct equipment for dangerous rescue attempts like this.
This has got to be the worse stair lift commercial ever made and there have been some pretty bad ones over the years.
This gem from Acorn stair lifts pictures an elderly man who has no trouble jumping out of his new stair lift, in fact he looks like he has as much need for a stair lifts as the little boy.
I never saw this particular advert when they showed it on T.V but I can’t imagine it ran for very long, you can feel yourself cringing while you’re watching it.
Thankfully most stair lift adverts are found online these days, I doubt you will ever find one this bad.
Justice was served when a Plymouth man who has made thousands of pounds conning innocent pensioners was jailed for 14 months. The conman had been posing as a stair lift salesman and convinced his vulnerable clients to order unnecessary and expensive equipment which he then never delivered. He won the confidence of his victims by creating an air on non-existent professionalism, including the logos of major manufacturers in his adverts for instance, even though no contracts or agreements had been reached between Mr. Roach and the said companies.
The road to him being convicted began when Trading Standards became aware that something was going on. Tragically, an elderly couple had lost their life savings and, as a further proverbial kick whilst they were down, had been left without access to all the floors of their home. This then led on to an investigation into the practises of Mister Roach by Devon County Council who said that he had: “”cynically set out to deceive the elderly and disabled”. The council went on to say that: “He took large sums of money from people for stair lifts and then didn’t supply them. In some cases he also took away their existing stair lift leaving them with no means of accessing the first floor of their homes,”
The story raises the argument over whether or now older people are informed adequately about how to deal with people who may come to their door attempting to sell them illegitimate products. Perhaps campaigns which warn pensioners to always ask for Identification of any caller need to be stepped up and enhanced. Old people, especially lonely ones, are vulnerable to conmen and need help to be able to protect themselves and their money.
All in all Roach has been charged with 13 different offences, ranging from breaches of the Theft Act, the Trade Descriptions Act, the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act and the Consumer Protection Act. The move to prosecute may well come too late for some elderly people who have lost their life savings to someone whom they thought they could trust and who they thought would provide them with a much higher quality of life. However, at least a 14 month jail-term means that the conman will be off the streets and that he will not be able to destroy the lives of any more Devonshire pensioners.
The world’s tallest building, the Taiwan 101 tower, has entered the record books once more as it has been revealed that it has the fastest lifts in the world. The skyscraper’s two high-speed passenger cabins can take people to the top of the 508m tall building in just 30 seconds. That works out at a staggering 17 metre per second speed and has rocketed the tower into the record books once more. Such is the speed of the lifts that a pressure control system is needed to stop passenger’s ears from popping as they ascend the building.
The towering piece of architecture has 61 lifts in total, 34 of them being uniquely double-decker which will allow for a doubling of passenger capacity. Those visitors who don’t enjoy lifts will be able to avail themselves of the 50 escalators in order to traverse up and down the 106 floors. Interestingly, the two super-speed lifts do not drop down the shafts as quickly as they rise up them; passengers will have to wait almost a minute to get back down to the bottom of the building. However, this is still phenomenally fast and is hardly likely to result in mass-impatience within the Taiwan sky-scraper.
The record has been achieved with some very interesting technological innovations. As well as the prior mentioned pressure-control system, there is also an intriguing active-control system which is designed to help balance the lift and thus diminish any vibrations which may be felt by passengers. Also increasing the enjoyment for passengers is a new type of streamlined elevator car itself which is designed to reduce the whistling noise often created as the lift moves up and down the shaft. This is clearly a passenger system which has been designed with its users, as well as breaking records, in mind.
These lifts, manufactured and installed by Toshiba, join a half-century tradition of record-breaking lifts with the Guinness Book of World Records first recognising the worlds fastest lift in 1955. The lift that then held the record moved at less than half the speed of these new creations and proves how much technology has moved on as we leave the first decade of the 21st century. Of course buildings will get taller and lifts will get faster and, it would seem, in terms of breaking records, the sky really is the limit.
Katarzyna Woja was tragically killed in a lift accident at the age of just 32. The INVESCO Fund Manager had been working in that position for 5 years in London and was said to be very keen on developing businesses in Eastern Europe. Ms. Woja was herself Polish and was said to be a highly talented woman who will leave a gap the City will find very hard to replace.
Sir John Morgan, former British Ambassador to Poland, has spoken out about the tragedy saying that Ms. Woja was clearly destined for great things. She had lived in England for a decade after meeting her Serbian husband who was already based in the U.K. They lived together in Hornsey and the community there is also mourning her loss.
The circumstances surrounding her death are gruesome and sound like a description from some sort of tragic horror film. Katarzyna had entered a lift to go down to the basement gym at the Broadgate Club. The doors closed on her and trapped her, meaning she was unable to move out of the lift or get fully inside it. The lift then dropped and Ms. Woja was tragically dragged into the lift shaft; she was pronounced officially dead at the scene. Little else is known about what went on, but the club is closed whilst Health and Safety inspectors carry out an investigation into just how such a strange and horrific accident could occur. One would assume something within the lift malfunctioned to not realise that the doors were obstructed and thus prevent the lift from plummeting down as though passengers were already inside. The results of said investigation are likely to take a bit of time to come out but, when they are released, they should answer much needed questions about how this could happen and, perhaps just as importantly, how it can be prevented from happening again.
Whatever the inspection turns up however, it will not change the fact that the City, and Hornsey, has lost a shining star in Katarzyna Woja. Tipped to go all the way to the top in her sector, passionate and brilliant at her job, she will be missed and, hopefully, the Health and Safety inspection will determine how such a tragic loss can be prevented from ever happening again in the future.
The 12,000 people who step through Doncaster Station to use its trains every single day will soon find that their travelling experience is more enjoyable with a £2million renovation and improvement scheme.
At the moment any passengers who wish to use the station but cannot tackle the rather steep and imposing stairs have to use a lift only designed for goods and freight; this is all set to change. A new 16-person lift will be introduced to make access to all the platforms much easier. The improvements are not going to stop there either. The subway which runs beneath the platforms is also going to get a much-needed overhaul, taking it from drab to fab! The work is part of a larger plan to transform Doncaster with a new transport interchange which will be built next to the Frenchgate Shopping Centre. Eventually the Frenchgate, the bus interchange and the station will all be linked together meaning that travellers and tourists will get a much more fluid and accessible experience when they come to Doncaster.
The project also has an important environmental tangent to it; it is hoped that if it is made easier for people to use public transport within Doncaster, and indeed South Yorkshire as a whole, that more and more people will leave their cars at home and opt instead for the public transport network to get them to wherever it is they need to be. You can get on a train in Doncaster and be in London in around 2 and a half hours and so there are some definite high-speed travel links which the city will be hoping to make the most of once this project is complete. The said project has been going on for a while and, Ray Wicks of the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive has said, “”The transformation of the station is the last major step in providing a quality integrated transport hub in Doncaster.” Indeed, in such difficult economic times, getting people into the city, be it for business or consumerism, is now more important than ever.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this project though is one of equality. Andy Hendry of the Doncaster Disabled People’s Alliance has commented that he believes people will be “over the moon” that they will now have a dedicated lift at their disposal rather than being forced to use one not designed for use by people.
Residents in sheltered accommodation in Leicestershire have said that they have been left “miserable and lonely” by a malfunctioning lift. The vulnerable people in St. Mary’s Court at Donnington le Heath have been blighted by the lift which has not been working for around 2 months.
The flats are divided over different levels and are connected by the malfunctioning lift. This has meant that, whilst it has been out of action, many residents have been unable to leave their first floor bedrooms for simple chores such as getting themselves something to eat. The Council has apologised for the situation but have said they cannot speed up the process of fixing the lift as they are waiting on a part coming over from Italy. The Council has said that it will now be focussing its attention on how to avoid such problems in the future. The notion of putting in a stair lift is being considered. Such a step would likely be welcomed by residents as it would mean that, if the lift were to break again in the future then they would still be able to move about their accommodation as they wished. However, obviously a stair lift would not be as desirable as a fully-working lift as only one resident at a time would be able to descend or ascend the stairs and this could lead to backlogs of pensioners during the busiest times.
Residents and their families will likely be wanting to know why the process of fixing the lift has taken so long. Sheltered accommodation is often seen as a viable alternative to pensioners staying in their own homes as it is generally considered that they will be much safer and less vulnerable. This situation has brought into question whether or not this is actually the case. “Can you imagine getting up and just sitting here with no one to talk to all day long? It’s awful.” commented one elderly resident. At a time of their lives when they should be able to relax and feel secure, these elderly people have been placed under an unfair amount of stress and upset. Hopefully the repairs will be made as soon as the elusive part appears from Italy and then the pensioners will be once more mobile and will be able to enjoy the retirement in a manner which is befitting.
