Inclinator Co. of California

KONE has announced that it has acquired Empire Elevator Co., Inc., founded in San Francisco in 1978. KONE said Empire’s operations and employees will be folded into KONE over the next several months. According to KONE, Empire President Bruce Moore is to play a key role in the newly combined company. “The Empire and KONE operations will fit well together, and we are thrilled to be adding great new customers in the very important San Francisco market,” said Larry Wash, KONE’s executive vice president for the Americas.

While KONE will acquire all the commercial business, the few residential customers Empire had will be forced to look for another company to install, service & repair their residential units. Inclinator Co. of Ca. and TL Shield & Associates continues to support our customers as well as those now looking for a company to handle their residential and commercial needs.

Contact Inclinator Co. of Ca. at (800) 201-1212 or TL Shield & Assoc., Inc. at (800) 954-3887

Skyview is a gondola lift built on the south side of the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden. The 100-Meter lift consists of two spherical cabins, which gives the visitors an entertaining ride up to the top of the Globe, about 130 meters above sea level.

The project began in 2004 and opened in February 2010. 160,000 people rode during the first year of operation.

The Falkirk Wheel is located in the Scottish Canals, lies at the end of a reinforced concrete aqueduct that connects, via the Roughcastle tunnel and a double staircase lock, to the Union Canal. Boats entering the Wheel’s upper gondola are lowered, along with the water that they float in, to the basin below. At the same time, an equal weight rises up, lifted in the other gondola.

Watch The Falkirk Wheel in Action

ThyssenKrupp Access, a significant player in the vertical transportation business, recently announced the termination of their United States operations. The phase-out began in August, and is scheduled to conclude by the end of this year.

Per their announcement, their demise was brought about by “a combination of slow economy, sluggish sales, and lingering manufacturing issues.”

Business is cyclical, and the elevator business is linked to the more susceptible segment of the economy often referred to as “expansion” or “new construction.” Everybody knows the economy is not the best right now, but if a business has a solid plan in place, it can hold strong during the most challenging periods. Doors are always opening and closing in our industry—yes, that was a pun—and it’s simply a matter of how fast you decide to walk through them. If you walk too fast, or even run, you can slip and fall.

Inclinator Company of California (ICOC) and TL Shield have always offered options to our clients, and with the termination of the ThyssenKrupp Access line of products, we are excited to be able to offer our customers a far superior alternative product line than what TKA was recently producing.

We did not recommend or install the TKA line of residential elevators or stairway lifts, but we did put in a fair amount of vertical and inclined platform lifts. At this same time, we were offering our customers both the Harmar and Savaria product lines. The industry seemed to prefer the better-known TKA product regardless of their decreasing quality and reliability. Now with TKA out of the market, the industry will be much better off with the alternatives, which we are proud to represent.

Please call Inclinator Company of California at 1-800-201-1212 for a free consultation or contact us.