Support for Other Transportation

As various eras of transportation gained prominence, the lifting industry and its machines provided support systems. Water was the first medium of transport whether small craft on the rivers of the Middle and Far East, or ships upon the Mediterranean and Indian Seas. Naturally, the hoisting of sails made travelling long distances easier and oars were the levers of motion. Where no waterways existed, they had to be introduced in the way of canals. Lifting machines dug the canals, but once water flowed within, craft could not be moved uphill! Solving the elevation of barges and other canal craft brought some of the industry's most innovative lifting -- the shiplifts -- and, not to be forgotten -- drydocks that lifted ships completely out of the water! As luxury ships housed hundreds, even thousands of passengers, they became mini-cities requiring transportation between levels. Rail and train travel competed on land, century after century, through all power eras. However, even the heaviest rail cars had to be lifted for maintenance by hydraulic power. Automobiles were also raised for maintenance, but by far the greatest problem associated with cars was their overabundance in urban centers. Storage schemes proliferated to alleviate serious congestion problems. As will be seen in other galleries, -- Escalators and Moving Sidewalks -- during the era of air travel, as aircraft became larger, they had to be dispersed in more widely separated areas for embarkation. This necessitated the continuous movement of people between planes and land transport. Escalators, moving sidewalks and shuttles helped alleviate this problem.