Paternoster

choi

Bertrand Benoit, In Escalating Battle, Germans Step up for Doorless Elevators; Despite government push, Paternosters keep moving; 'definitely the most dangerous.' Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2015 (front page).
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10 ... 4581068283842808972

Quote:

"The nonstop, doorless elevator known as paternoster was popular in European office buildings early last century. Today, it is largely extinct, replaced by conventional elevators almost everywhere.  Everywhere except Germany

"In 1877, British engineer Frederick Hart patented the first paternoster—Latin for 'our father'—a nickname earned because its string of cabins suspended on a cable resemble beads on a rosary. * * * Imagine a necklace of closet-sized open cabins moving between wheels at the top and bottom of a building. As cabins rise next to ones descending in a gentle perpetual motion, users step on and off.

"they’re [paternosters are] a novelty: 'Once we [Germans] lost a delegation of Chinese journalists and eventually found them playing in the paternoster.'

There is no official statistics on safety of paternoster in Germany: "Official statistics don’t differentiate between elevator and paternoster accidents.

"The paternoster has become a German cultural icon.

Note:
(a) Regarding quotation 2. It is hard to conjure an image without watching the animation in paternoster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster
(not to be confused with the Lord's Prayer (Pater Noster) [qv])

(b) etymology

paternoster (n; from Latin pater noster our father, from the opening words): "often capitalized : LORD'S PRAYER"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paternoster