Moving freight with passenger shuttle elevators

摘要

The hoistways of passenger shuttle elevators are provided with freight landings (78) adjacent commercial businesses in the higher floors of a tall building; passenger cabs (71) are exchanged for freight containers (73) on the car frames (48) of the shuttle elevators, and the shuttle elevators are utilized to move the containers of freight from a freight receiving area (68) at the lower end of the building to the respective freight landings (78). In one embodiment, a ballast weight (80) is loaded onto a car frame as a container of freight is offloaded from the car frame so that the car frame may return to the freight receiving area for another container of freight, without the elevator being misbalanced. Another embodiment utilizes one of two decks for carrying containers of freight while the other deck carries an empty passenger cab, thereby to reduce the difference between the heaviest and lightest that the car frame will be as it returns empty to the freight receiving area for a subsequent container of freight. Another embodiment uses compound or other extensive roping and an extra large traction machine to permit returning a totally empty car frame to pick up a subsequent freight container. <IMAGE>