I was lucky to work in a building equipped with a Paternoster in Munich, Germany. We had a fancy startup office, but the Paternoster was the feature I liked most!
Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
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Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
#12There really aren't many of them here in Germany. Funnily, the only one I ever used was in the UK, in Attenborough Tower at the University of Leicester. Never seen one in Germany, but here's a (probably incomplete) list of known paternosters worldwide: http://www.flemming-hamburg.de/patlist.htm
I used to ride one at the University of Leeds in the 1980s. It served a five floor lecture theater known for its brutalist 1960s architecture [1].
I rode it over the top on several occasions - the car went up one side, slid horizontally and then came down again. It was a good way to queue jump but allegedly could cause the whole system to jam, in which case the people caught in the middle would be carpeted. It's now been decommissioned, apparently.
[1] http://www.teachingspace.leeds.ac.uk/building_details.asp?ID...
Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
#13Sadly they are slowly disappearing. Mainly because of safety reasons, they are considered dangerous.
Security is not the main issue. The main issue is accessibility. A disabled person or a person with a baby carriage cannot use them. It becomes a security issue when they do. 100 years ago, accessibility was not an issue.
100 years later, security still is an issue.
Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
#14I used one in the Arts Tower of Sheffield University where I studied. It was fun, but felt slow. There were also 2 (3?) conventional elevators that seemed like the best bet when doing more than 5 floors.
It's still functional.
Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
#15Sadly they are slowly disappearing. Mainly because of safety reasons, they are considered dangerous.
Security is not the main issue. The main issue is accessibility. A disabled person or a person with a baby carriage cannot use them. It becomes a security issue when they do. 100 years ago, accessibility was not an issue.
I often see them beside elevators, so accessibility is not always the problem.
Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
#16Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
#17There really aren't many of them here in Germany. Funnily, the only one I ever used was in the UK, in Attenborough Tower at the University of Leicester. Never seen one in Germany, but here's a (probably incomplete) list of known paternosters worldwide: http://www.flemming-hamburg.de/patlist.htm
Here is another list: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Paternosteraufz%C3%B...
Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
#18I've seen it mentioned here and there that one isn't supposed to ride it all the way around (that is, on the horizontal sections), but the reason escapes me. If you stay inside the cabin, what exactly can go wrong? (serious question) Getting stuck doesn't seem logical, why would the probability of the paternoster stopping increase when there is a (modest) load on the horizontal sections?
Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Security is not the main issue. The main issue is accessibility. A disabled person or a person with a baby carriage cannot use them. It becomes a security issue when they do. 100 years ago, accessibility was not an issue.
I often see them beside elevators, so accessibility is not always the problem.
That is true. But they can be out of order or simply around a corner. We are sometimes suffering from tunnel vision or overestimate our abilities and realize mistakes too late.
Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters
#20Sadly they are slowly disappearing. Mainly because of safety reasons, they are considered dangerous.
Just out of curiosity. I have never ridden one of those but what can actually go wrong? From what I can see:
* You can jump in too late, thus falling an unexpected height and break your ankles.
* You take too long getting in thus getting a garment/arm/leg stuck between the ceiling of the paternoster and the floor.
Am I correct? Or am I missing something?