Modeling in Elevator Shoes

“It all started when I tired of HO scale railroading,” recounts Ton at the door of his modest townhouse. Having built hills of cable cars and even a miniature subway system hidden under the front yard, he finally realized that the new challenge lay in vertical movement. Upon entering I was quite unprepared for the magnificent sight of a 15 foot Sears Tower that rose from the basement through a circular hole in the first floor, to loom over my head.

As I leaned on the brass guardrail, Mr. Snairt donned special shoes and energetically climbed ladders like an anorectic King Kong, dismounting parts of the model skyscraper to expose its interior. Revealed were the intricate movements of its 106 cab elevator system. Illuminated, thumb-size lifts on thread-like cables traveled the length of the 1:87 scale building. He pointed out with pride the 16 double deck elevators, the express elevators that only stopped at the 33rd or 66th floors and elevators filled with tiny tourists that zipped to the observation deck near the ceiling.

Ton took us to the basement to demonstrate his massive control board. “I can order a lift from any floor and push a floor button on any cab,” he explained. Though admitting to pressing an elevator’s emergency button on occasion, he swore that no elevator had ever crashed to the basement floor. Ton Snairt is no lone elevator hobbyist. He knows of a working Empire State Building in the Bronx and the Petronas Towers under construction outside Liverpool.