It's not expensive.
If you have $26 you can get it.
And yeah, my server is modded so I have access to a few things that aren't in vanilla minecraft.
The elevators were one of them.
Another is 'wireless redstone' which allows me to save real estate and wiring by using wireless redstone routing.
This will allow me to have plenty of open space inside the clock tower's clockwork room for gearworks.
It's similar to how I got the Collapsing Bridge to work.
As for moving gearworks, there's a way I can currently do it, but I have to see how much it starts to lag the server when I have it.
Otherwise it'll be gearworks that don't move (or only few gears would move).