Old And Rare Set Of 4 1960s Express Lifts

Original Express lifts at Mount Pleasant CarPark in Liverpool.
The logic is still relay controlled, they have the original indicators and they still have the original buttons!
The call buttons have been replaced, and they have also added a second button panel inside, but despite this they left the original buttons working!
There are 4 of these lifts in 1 set. 2 have the original buttons and the other 2 have had them removed for some reason. One of the lifts was crashed in the pit!
These lifts are 2 speed.
Location: Mount Pleasant Car Park, Liverpool, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, United Kingdom 🇬🇧.
0:00 Lift Tracker
4:56 Lift Tracker

[@ChristinaGXL]

These lifts have been burned into my memory. I remember these lifts in particular, I used to be totally terrified of these lifts with the tiny window. I used to take the stairs to the top level of the tower blocks in seaforth too as those lifts were creepy too.

[@Juliukas101]

My nan used to live in a block of flats called Highleigh in Brighton and they had those lifts. I remember the lozenge buttons and the metal panelling inside, with the strange noise the lift used to make in between floors.

[@blue.light.fazbear]

Very nice lifts! Thank goodness they are still original.

[@Lift.Tracker]

They're very nice! Not in great condition, yet everything is still working perfectly. Even the lamps in the indicators are working! I think that the owner of the car park is keeping these lifts running for as ling as possible deliberately. Otherwise I'd see no reason why they kept the original buttons despite adding a new panel and also continue to replace the lamps. Hopefully they stay for a lot longer.

[@LIFTEXCELSIOROfficial]

Epic express lifts! There are not many old lifts in where I'm from, but the Tallaght Hospital has well over 7 Express Series 2s with EPIC motors, some office block on Drury Street in Dublin has an original 70s Evans, and there is a building on the NUI Galway campus that had a 60s Otis that I saw original once in 2009, but in 2011 it was modded into a ModLogic.

[@Lift.Tracker]

Yeah. They’re great lifts aren’t they! Where I’m from there aren’t many old lifts either, but I do know of 2 70s Express lifts which I will try to film one day. :-)

[@europa2000man]

Nice to see there is still a few nice old gems left in Britain. In Ireland, almost every lift installed before about 1996 / 1997 have being modernised. Even lifts only installed in the early 2000's have being modernised, despite them not being 20 years old (and many of these are good lifts).

[@Lift.Tracker]

Mr.D1980 That’s a shame. I don’t see why they’re modernising lifts so early over there. It’s rare to find a 90s Lift which HAS been modernised in the UK. You can sometimes go to different towns and never find any nice lifts, but for the most part there’s usually something if you look hard enough. Do you go in lifts you’re not supposed to, For example a hotels staff lift? That’s usually where you’ll find an old one if you can’t find them in public. :-)

[@europa2000man]

@@Lift.Tracker I do try, but security in Ireland tends to be very strict (which has only done in the last 3-4 years or so) due to Ireland's obsession on Health and Safety. If you are caught, security can get nasty. Even going into some public lifts, such as lifts in hotels, hospitals and multi-storey car park (even some shopping centre's), are hard to get into without security catching you. Ireland has gone to the extreme in the terms of Health and Safety. I too do go to different towns to look for old lifts, but they are getting harder and harder to find. There was two Otis Europa 2000 lifts in a shopping centre in Kilkenny City, installed in late 1993, and they have being completely modernised (cabs and everything). I went to a shopping centre in Drogheda, Co.Louth and there are lifts that were only installed in 2001, and have already been modernised. It seems that Ireland are getting worse when it comes to modernising lifts (and only in the last 3-4 years). I do find that if you go to a town that is off the beaten track, there is a better chance of finding older lifts, but they too are getting rare.

[@Lift.Tracker]

Mr.D1980 Wow, I thought England was getting overly obsessed with health and safety, but Ireland seems worse. Yeah, that’s probably why the old lifts are gone then. In the UK, the old lifts are constantly having their classic levelling turned off because of “health and safety”. But in my opinion, if it was safe when installed, then how can it be dangerous now? The true reason I reckon sadly is that people are generally just getting clumsier and more stupid. People staring at their mobile phones then trip over the step while the lift is levelling. If you tripped, it would be entirely your fault, but now people always want compensation for their own accidents. That’s what so many companies are worried about.

[@europa2000man]

@@Lift.Tracker The world is becoming a more and more corrupt place. I'd say they reason for modernising lifts, especially if the levelling is not right, is because building owners are afraid of being sued for thousands of pounds, and giving their firm a bad name. Having said that, the lift companies are to blame too. They let them old lifts get run down so that they have an excuse to modernise them (probably because the lift companies get more money in modernising the lift than repairing them or servicing them).

[@europa2000man]

@UCrP4elUONSWP3IqPpzc3vsQ I know. When I was younger, I used to go with my father on the lorry (I used to go everywhere with him), but thanks to health and safety, the company that father worked for at the time stopped all passengers, all because of the insurance. That's another thing about Ireland, is the insurance fraud going on. The cost of car insurance is unbelievable. I have a full car licence for nearly two years now and the insurance is very expensive. For a 1.4 litre Toyota Corolla Diesel from 2012 (you have to have a diesel car in Ireland due to petrol being 10 cent dearer per litre), it was €1200 (£1095) for Third Party insurance and that was as a name driver too. If I was to go down as my own name, it could cost as much as €4000 (£3650) for the year or more. That's all thanks to the government of Ireland controlling insurance. The world is becoming a miserable place more and more with every passing year

[@ArthursLiftAdventures]

Wow, amazing original express lifts, also a jackson lift engineer is sending me a express selector and more

[@Lift.Tracker]

Wow! That’s awesome! Do you know which lift you’re getting it from?

[@ArthursLiftAdventures]

Lift Tracker he said 60s/ 70s lift and he mostly only does jobs in Northampton so maybe St. Andrews mental hospital, mayorhold, st Michaels who knows!

[@Lift.Tracker]

@@ArthursLiftAdventures Nice! Will you make a video when you get it? I look forward to seeing it! :-)

[@ArthursLiftAdventures]

Lift Tracker Yes!

[@elevatorfilmersg]

@@ArthursLiftAdventures did you upload any video of them yet? I can’t find any videos of the parts on your KZbin channel

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Really cool lifts! Sorry I missed this video first time around! Looks like all the car display lamps have blown. Any sound of the floor selector in the motor room?

[@Lift.Tracker]

I couldn’t hear any signs of a floor selector unfortunately, so they may have replaced it for one of those digital ones. I could hear inductors though. I assume it would ping when the indicator changes. You can hear the relays clicking away when it starts up too.

[@ZZ9ProductionsOFFICIAL]

oh so that's why there's one sitting out of use, its been crashed! I was always a bit confused as to what was going on with that one. Shame it doesn't look like it'll be fixed any time soon. Hopefully these stay original for a long time to come tho

[@Lift.Tracker]

Yeah, I hope these do stay for a lot longer. I have a feeling that the owner of this car park is deliberately keeping these old Express lifts running for as long as possible. It's just because first of all they kept the original buttons, and they also keep replacing the bulbs inside the indicators. It seems to me they are looking after them properly.

[@ZZ9ProductionsOFFICIAL]

@@Lift.Tracker and how the mechanical bells are still in full working order as well. It's a shame they can't fix the crashed one tho

[@Lift.Tracker]

@@ZZ9ProductionsOFFICIAL Oh, yeah! That's another thing, the bells! The reason may not be that they can't fix the other lift. It could be because they just don't see it as necessary to have 4 lifts in a car park this size. The lifts are actually very efficient! Even with 2 running it would probably be fine. I wonder how the relay logic works for 4 lifts in 1 set. I've never actually even seen Express lifts in a set of 2 before these.

[@ZZ9ProductionsOFFICIAL]

@@Lift.Tracker that could be the case. Also i didn't get a chance to watch the whole thing through, but if you didn't know, when i was last here the far right one (no original buttons) had its dewhurst 1 button not working. idk if its still like that or not but yeah that was an interesting experience XD

[@Lift.Tracker]

@@ZZ9ProductionsOFFICIAL When I went there, I got in that lift first, then got straight back out again as I saw it didn't have the original buttons! I didn't have very much time so I focused on the 2 with the original buttons. Something else which is interesting, the lift which had it's original buttons removed would've also had to have a whole new panel installed, otherwise there would be oval cutouts from where the buttons used to be. However, the Express badge was still on the replacement panel! They actually cared to take the badge off, and fix it onto the new panel. So yeah, I think the owner definitely likes their Express lifts. :-)

[@RapidAssistant]

I love the truncated "ding" of the Express annunciator it's as iconic as the Otis bell sound.

[@Lift.Tracker]

Definitely! It’s actually the first Express Indicator I’ve found which actually works. Most of the time the bell is broken.

[@RapidAssistant]

@@Lift.Tracker think the last building I was in that had it was the Hilton Grosvenor hotel in Glasgow which has early 80s Express lifts in it

[@Lift.Tracker]

@@RapidAssistant You don’t seem to find very many Express lifts from the 80s and 90s. All of them seem to be from the 70s and before. Is it because they just aren’t lasting as long, or where they not installed as much?

[@RapidAssistant]

@@Lift.Tracker I think they are all getting modernised or replaced given you probably can't get spare parts for them anymore. I know of several buildings in Glasgow that were all Express and the lifts have all been either comprehensively modernised and rebranded or completely replaced. For example the Glasgow Hilton had probably the very last and latest Express lifts from the 90s yet they have been replaced by Kone EcoDiscs now.

[@LiftSurferRYEGI]

Absolutely love these lifts, surprised they are still going :)

[@Lift.Tracker]

I am too. I feel like it's deliberate that they are still here. They seem to keep on top of their maintenance, even replacing the bulbs in the indicators and keeping the original buttons. Hopefully they stay for a lot longer. :-)

[@davidbelfalas7845]

I'm not surprised, I recently came across. A 56 year old duplex in Bristol university with a very low call out rate. Also an 80 year old gear box on a Express lift on the same site

[@VintageLiftLad]

I park here when I visit Liverpool (pretty often). Last time I was there I got in with one of the workers there who told me that only the 2 end ones are now working since it's hard to get parts so they've had to donate parts from the middle 2, massive shame really, lets just hope the end ones keep going for a good long while

[@Lift.Tracker]

That’s a shame. When I was there back in 2020, there were 3 running and it was the inner right hand one that was broken. It was crashed into the pit, so I think they were using that one for parts. I saw a recent video where there was only the right end one working on its own, so it’s good that they got the left end one going again since. It’s quite a shame that there’s such an unavailability of parts to keep these things going. If the parts were still manufactured, these could just last forever. Hopefully though, as you say, they can keep the end ones running for a while longer from the parts off the middle 2. I’d happily sacrifice 2 of them if it means the other 2 get to stay. Did you happen to notice which company was servicing them? I would try to get some bits off them like the car indicators to save them from the scrap if I can.

[@VintageLiftLad]

@@Lift.Tracker I'll deffo keep you updated, I'll be there next month :) and it really is a shame, but they don't make as much money supplying spare parts opposed to full modernisations I suppose. And sadly not, it was a council worker I was speaking to not an actual lift engineer, if I ever do see any there I will let you know

[@LiftSurferRYEGI]

@@Lift.Tracker Today I found Lift 4 with its door operator hanging off on ground (with doors open). So now only lift 1 works and that lift has some relay issues (it doesn’t always accept landing calls and it puts phantom calls to floor 11 in by itself)

[@Lift.Tracker]

@@LiftSurferRYEGI Yeah, I saw your photo! That’s really strange and I can’t figure out how that happened lol! I guess someone might’ve slammed the door open super hard or something and dis-attached the door arm. Did you try moving the arm out the way of the door sensors? Would be interesting to see what happens when it tries to close!

[@LiftSurferRYEGI]

@@Lift.Tracker it was too busy on ground so I didn’t, there was a long queue for the only working lift! However the indicator was blank so I assume it’s been switched off. Lift 4 was the most reliable of the lot and also still had the original buttons so it’s a shame the door operator fell off! I wonder if they can fix that.

[@MichalM]

Nice video! Glad to see these still going strong, unfortunately there are too many people filming them, and no one has got into the motor room, meaning that people are just filming the same thing over and over again :(

[@Lift.Tracker]

I would’ve loved to get into the motor room of these. I know what you mean, sometimes it can seem like there’s loads of the same video. One of the lifts were actually crashed into the pit! I’d assume it broke down but they just didn’t bother to fix it.

[@MichalM]

@@Lift.Tracker Same, yes I'm getting sort of bored of these to be honest. Strange that one is in the pit. Matt's video is coming out soon, I don't know if he plans to get into the MR here.

[@elevatorfilmersg]

Nice! You have not uploaded a lift video you have filmed yourself for quite a while

[@Lift.Tracker]

Yeah, it's been a while. It's not because I haven't been going out though, it's just that everywhere has been shut. I filmed these while I was on a week holiday near Liverpool. I just got back yesterday. Now I should be able to start getting a few more videos soon. :-)

[@hariranormal5584]

Creepy, but works :D

[@Lift.Tracker]

Absolutely! Thanks for watching! :-)

[@hariranormal5584]

Lift Tracker 😄

[@konemseries12]

Shame when I went only one lift worked without original buttons (12/2/21)

[@Lift.Tracker]

Yeah, I saw your video of them. It seems like they were not working correctly a couple of months ago when TheUkTransportBlogger filmed them. I suppose it was only a matter of time until they broke down with a fault like that lol! I’m hopeful that they get them fixed and they keep going for a few more years at least, but given the neglect of the car park, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just settle for having no lifts when the last one breaks!

[@gabrielcoyle3067]

Do the lifts still exist?

[@Lift.Tracker]

Very likely

[@Lift.Tracker]

@@urgentkestrel7990 Yes