A Peculiar Paris Pod (1)

Did you note that it runs on “roads'” controlled by lasers that guide the pods using the roads:’ kerbs. Simple?

But The Paris Pod?

It looks like a straightforward cable car but with no wire from which to dangle. But it is hauled by wire as in this example from Russia.

Imagine, say, a cable car but technologically turned upside down. The mountain cable car turns on a big wheel at the end of its run …

… rotating slowly on a carousel in the ceiling …

… so you can hop on or off! The mechanism then hooks you on to the main, faster  cable and off you jolly well go into the wide blue yonder.

There is a video of the pods on-line but it is a bit long and in French, so fbb has snatched some screen shots, alas of poor quality. But you will get the idea.

Here the man tells us about the lift, escalator and stairs …

… and the ever present self-service ticket machines i.e. no staff.

Downstairs we first glimpse the “turning cage” …

… and the control room where skulk the staff on duty.

We can see the “carousel” below the pod …

… showing how the little car is turned.

There isn’t a lot of room inside and the “seats” look less than comfortable.

It then whisks its sardines off …

… to the far terminus, in the Paris case a journey of about three minutes.

There are no intermediate stops.

fbb has not shown the far end as it is a clone of the start “station”

fbb came across this nugget of transport intrigue in a YouTube video by Tim Traveller (bet that’s not his real name) …

… a chum of UK YouTuber Geoff Marshall. 

Tim is English, but lives in Paris and blogs/vlogs about transport stuff world-wide. Both blokes are rail, bus and tram nuts of very high nuttiness. Their videos are always fascinating but (Geoff’s especially) can be so nerdy as to be almost mystifying.

Geoff’s latest project is to see how many eggs he can balance on the arm rest of an Underground train until at least one of them falls off as the carriage jiggles a bit too much.

Actually, fbb made that up, (you would never have guessed), but with Geoff it is certainly possible!

So why had fbb never hitherto heard of the Peculiar Paris Pod?

For this, we need to meet this man …

… but there is a bit of a hint in the time stamp on the video screen shots!

More tomorrow.

It wouldn’t be a fellowship meeting month without fbb’s published quiz. The topic of the leaflet is Cost.

How much does it Cost to become a Christian?

What is the Cost Benefit Analysis of a commitment to “following Christ”?

What did it Cost to make Christianity work. (Obvious clue : we are approaching Easter!)

So the quiz is about the Cost of Living.

You may need to enlarge the graphics. The challenge is to remember or guess the Cost of things 50 years ago

Some more expensive items?

And a few more.

Answers tomorrow.

Its Lego!

Once upon a time you bought a box of Lego and made up a series of models as your imagination led you. But that was for the kiddies. Now Lego (like Model Railways) has become a rich old man’s game. You buy an expensive kit, make it up and then, well …

… look at it!

On balance, fbb prefers the real thing!

There was also an Airfix kit for a life-size Kingfisher.

The loco was an LNER A4 Pacific named Kingfisher; (as in Mallard).