A look at the last remaining paternoster lifts

(25 Aug 2017) LEAD IN
The paternoster elevator, which works on a circuit and never stops moving, is rarely seen these days.
But despite some concerns over safety, a handful still operate in Central and Eastern Europe.

STORY-LINE:
Paternoster elevators are a holdover of times when safety regulations were a little more lax, but the unusual elevators are still in use.
The name Paternoster, Latin for Lords Prayer, comes not from a last ditch effort to nervously atone before jumping on one. It actually gets its name because each car runs on chains on a belt system in a loop, a little like rosary beads on a rosary.
Passengers are supposed to exit before the paternoster passes the top or bottom floor. If they don't nothing serious happens, but they must wait to make the turn in the circuit before heading back up or down in the opposite direction. Some people make the turn just for fun to see what happens.
The inventors of the paternoster saw it as a way to deliver more people up and down floors without as a long of a wait.
The disadvantage is they could be very dangerous if they don't have an emergency shut off triggered by an obstruction. This one in Prague's Lucerna Palace, a downtown Art Deco shopping passage, has an emergency shut off.
There are dozens of decades old paternosters still in use in the Czech Republic, where they are mainly used by staff in government buildings. A few are open to the public to ride.
There are also as many 200 of them still in use in the Germany. But they are slowly being replaced, since new ones are no longer allowed to be installed in buildings.
And a few remain in the UK where the invention of the paternoster, dating to the 19th century, has its origins.

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