20151103030DR Bad Schandau Ostrauer Aufzug

The Bad Schandau Elevator is a passenger truss-tower

elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They a ...

built in 1904 at

Bad Schandau Bad Schandau (; hsb, Žandow) is a spa town in Germany, in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district of Saxony. It is situated on the right bank of the Elbe, at the mouth of the valley of the Kirnitzsch and in the area often described as S ...

, a spa town in

Saxony, Germany Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state o ...

. The height of the elevator is , in an art nouveau-style steel framework tower, which has a diameter of at the ground and at the door such of . On the way upward it overcomes a difference in height of . It functions as an

observation tower An observation tower is a structure used to view events from a long distance and to create a full 360 degree range of vision to conduct long distance observations. Observation towers are usually at least tall and are made from stone, iron, an ...

Overview

The elevator is driven by an electric motor, with the electricity generated by the

Lichtenhain Waterfall The Lichtenhain Waterfall is a waterfall formed by the Lichtenhainer village brook and is situated in the Kirnitzsch Valley in the Saxon Switzerland of Germany. The village of Lichtenhain lies to the north of the waterfall, and is away on foot ...

. During the winter and emergencies, electricity was originally provided by a battery. In 1921 the drive of the Bad Schandau Elevator were changed to three-phase

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current which periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time in contrast to direct current (DC) which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in whic ...

, a crank handle was left for the emergency operation. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the facility was shut down. In 1950 a driving disk hoisting engine was introduced. In 1961 two additional anchoring wires were attached and in 1978 a new control. In the years 1989-1990 the plant, which was put under monument protection in 1954, was reconditioned. The elevator is visible in some scenes of Wes Anderson's 2013 film ''

The Grand Budapest Hotel ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' is a 2014 comedy-drama film written and directed by Wes Anderson. Ralph Fiennes leads a seventeen-actor ensemble cast as Monsieur Gustave H., famed concierge of a twentieth-century mountainside resort in the fiction ...

''.

External links

Information and photographs
(in German). *
Drawings of Bad Schandau Elevator
{{coord, 50, 55, 00, N, 14, 09, 40, E, region:DE-SN_type:landmark_source:dewiki, display=title Individual elevators Elbe Sandstone Mountains Transport in Saxon Switzerland

Art Nouveau architecture in Germany Buildings and structures completed in 1904 Observation towers in Saxony