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Comment by Odenwaelder | Hacker News Reader

There are 3 places left in Germany where they're allowed to operate. One of those places is Leica in Wetzlar. It's absolutely fun to ride it, much faster than conventional lifts, but it's understandable that they're being shut down for safety reasons.

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Are you sure about that number? The WSJ said in 2015 that Germany had 231 left.

It might be the publicly accessible ones.

Three sounds a bit low. There's even one at my University HTW Berlin.

Stuttgart's Rathaus has two. Uni Stuttgart had one that I know of, but last I heard it had been stopped.

I always make a point to go to the Rathaus and ride them when I visit.

The floors fold up where the lift's floor meets the building's floor to prevent crushing your foot. It also has a switch which immediately stops the paternoster and sounds an alarm. I had not realized that and stopped the system while showing it to my son.

Really, only 3? Because there’s two alone in Kiel (old city hall and the Landtag)

I guess it's similar to the Czech Republic - old ones are allowed to remain in operation, but you can't build new ones except for the places GP listed.

Then this information might be wrong, I only heard it from some employees.

Yeah, it's a factoid that you usually hear from people surrounding places that have one installed, but given that I've seen more than 3 in person, it's certainly not true.

There is a list in the German Wikipedia[0].

[0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Paternosteraufzügen

That's quite a few! A lot of those show up on the list as "nur für Mitarbeiter" and "nicht öffentlich"; is there a nice list anywhere of those few that are open to the public? I'd like to try one sometime while they're still operating.

Due to the no-doors nature of a Paternoster the "employee only" is usually weakly "enforced" by a sign inside the Paternoster that says so, in order to waive liability. So if you are willing to go slight grey-hat, a lot of the ones listed as "employee only" are still accessible for you.

There's one at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in Berlin but visitors aren't allowed to use it.

What is so dangerous about them? I do not get it.

They don’t stop at floors: you have to time it right and step in or out fast enough to avoid falling too far or getting crushed.

My mother’s workplace had one when I was about seven, and I was terrified even to think about it.

I know how they work, it's just that they don't seem more dangerous than other things in my daily commute (walking on a subway platform next to many people, walking on a street filled with cars, etc). It seems almost impossible to get accidentally hurt by a paternoster, unless you try to.

I guess it's that people are walking since their first months after being born, so they are pretty good at it and even when you are older, unwell, intoxicated, etc., unless you are dancing on the edge of subway platform or right on the curb, you are generally pretty safe even in traffic. Compare that to jumping on and off platforms moving vertically, that's pretty new.

I had a go on this a long time ago, the building was empty on Saturday and they turned the elevator on just for us who were having a programming competition there. We rode in circles, went over the top and jokingly returned in handstands, jumped on and off on each floor... And while they are generally pretty safe - each platform in upward shaft and in the cabin was on hinges, each top of the "door"frame and top of the cabin had a hanging piece of wood and if any of these things were moved, the elevator would stop, so your feet or other body parts won't be crushed if stuck between the cabin and the frame. But still, you can hurt yourself pretty badly (think broken bones or head injury) just from slipping or falling forward/backward if you try to step on or off too soon or too late.

Being twenty-somethings, we had a great fun on them, but if you think of people you see daily moving on escalators, in the mall, on the pavement, you can pretty easily see that an older person or a less coordinated person may have a problem with them.

Btw. For the brave out there, there is also an industrial "version" called belt manlift. Dying on them is pretty easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kPOxeV2lzs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUdL_st3FFw

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