Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
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Re: Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
#2Holy crap! This thing exists? Just reading about it, and it overcame my fear of heights... and by that I mean it's more scary than what I'm most scared of.
Re: Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
#3They are quite rare actually. I have never seen one (living in Germany all my life). You'd have to actively seek one out to encounter them.
Re: Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
#4Previously in paternosters: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9642158 (includes link to the discussion before that - note that these aren't all referring to the same link, but the careful reader may spot a theme)
Re: Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
#5Unbelievably, the only quote I could find even vaguely related to actual statistics was, "And yet, TÜV chief engineer Reimo Simon says he can’t recall a fatal incident in Germany in the past 15 years. Official statistics don’t differentiate between elevator and paternoster accidents."
Come on, WSJ.
Re: Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
#6The article cites no statistics on actual injuries. Neither do the politicians wanting to ban them out of safety concerns. For something around for this long, you'd think they'd be able to at least give an example of someone getting hurt.
Re: Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
#7> “The paternoster is the VW-beetle of elevators. Not many people use it, but many love it,” Ms. Nahles wrote in a Facebook post.
Oh come on, VW is the largest car company in the world...
Re: Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
#8I made a special detour to ride one of these in Kobenhavn in the Axelborg building. If the statistics show them to be safe, I think they should be preserved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T49PsI6maMg
For most human traffic, they are less tedious than elevators: less waiting, no stop and go, a constant sense of motion. I don't think their riders would feel trapped the way I sometimes do in slow, busy elevators.
I think of them like a compacted escalator. I wonder if they actually are more compact.
Re: Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
#9> “The paternoster is the VW-beetle of elevators. Not many people use it, but many love it,” Ms. Nahles wrote in a Facebook post. Oh come on, VW is the largest car company in the world...
Yes, and they produce other models of cars besides the beetle.
Re: Is It Time for Germany’s Doorless Elevators to Move On?
#101. > “Modern lifts are so idiot-proof you could use them in your sleep,” says Mr. Pfaff. “In fact, they are disenfranchising. Paternosters make you free to hurt yourself if you don’t pay attention.”
For those thinking it is odd to want to have some potential pain in your life, keep in mind that Germany is the birthplace of the PainStation [1]. Wanting your elevator to be gunning for you then makes more sense.
2. In case it was not clear, the passenger carts do not flip over when they go over the top (or under the bottom). They are suspended in a way that keeps them upright. If you fail to get off at the top you just come around and have another shot at your floor on the down side.
(Although a version that did flip would probably be extra popular there. See #1).
3. In an earlier discussion of paternosters, a link to a video of a modern take on this, by Hitachi, was posted [2].
It's an interesting approach. It has many of the advantages, but with no more injury risk than a conventional elevator. The basic idea is that the circulating cars are divided into matched pairs on opposite sides, with each pair independently driven by a cable. The shaft is not completely filled with cars like in the paternoster. There are gaps. Those gaps allow a pair to stop for passengers while other pairs are still moving.