Annabel Smyth wrote in message ...
I've just returned from a very unexpected week's holiday in Warsaw -
husband had to go on business, and took me with him - and thought you
might like to know about the public transport system there.
....
There was a variety of different stock, some articulated, some not (the
not all had 3 doors, and you could enter or leave by any of them), some
with electronic displays, some without.... so it went on. The newer
buses, I was amused to note, prominently displayed the "Connex" logo,
but they still worked. Even the older buses had padded seats, though,
with brown leather covers.

I went to a conference near Warsaw earlier this year, and getting
there by bus went very smoothly apart from one minor detail that
nearly caused a bit of grief: the longer distance buses don't have
automatic doors. So when a bus pulled into the bay I happily sat there
for ages, wondering if this bus was in service and when the driver
would finish his break. Luckily, another passenger turned up and
simply opened the door himself...


I've also discovered an evil contraption that I don't think I've seen
reported before, at Geneva Airport: the raised travelator. It's the
usual moving walkway, but gratuitously raised 40-50 cm above the
floor, apart from the very ends that form steep moving ramps.

My usual "flying leap" boarding technique failed as when you step on
to the thing you land on the up slope and most of your body loses
momentum, apart from the feet which helpfully gain some, nearly
resulting in a back flip. And as for getting off...

It would surely have made a lot more sense for it to have been sunken
below the floor.

Henry

On 19 Aug 2004 14:01:39 -0700, Henry Nebrensky
wrote in :

I've also discovered an evil contraption that I don't think I've seen
reported before, at Geneva Airport: the raised travelator. It's the
usual moving walkway, but gratuitously raised 40-50 cm above the
floor, apart from the very ends that form steep moving ramps.

My usual "flying leap" boarding technique failed as when you step on
to the thing you land on the up slope and most of your body loses
momentum, apart from the feet which helpfully gain some, nearly
resulting in a back flip. And as for getting off...

We've got to get you travelling to CERN more often Henry. After
a couple of dozen trips you don't even notice them any more. :-)
They're only in arrivals, aren't they? I'm pretty sure the ones down to
A1 departure lounge are flat. But not always working...

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

"Dr Ivan D. Reid" wrote in message . ..
On 19 Aug 2004 14:01:39 -0700, Henry Nebrensky
wrote in :

I've also discovered an evil contraption that I don't think I've seen
reported before, at Geneva Airport: the raised travelator. It's the
usual moving walkway, but gratuitously raised 40-50 cm above the
floor, apart from the very ends that form steep moving ramps.

My usual "flying leap" boarding technique failed as when you step on
to the thing you land on the up slope and most of your body loses
momentum, apart from the feet which helpfully gain some, nearly
resulting in a back flip. And as for getting off...

We've got to get you travelling to CERN more often Henry.

I think you mean
We've got to get you travelling to CERN *with a proper airline* more
often...

After
a couple of dozen trips you don't even notice them any more. :-)

You walk round them? Those things are vicious - I'm sure they're only
there to ensure a steady stream of patients so that the casualty
departments keep their hand in outside the skiing season.

Henry