A Peculiar Paris Pod (2)

Pellerin's Pet Project

He was a developer notably famed for one stunning building at La Defense, the huge business district to the west of Paris.

His baby was the Tour Pacific ...

... a huge block with a huge hole in the middle.

Buoyed by his success out west, M Pellerin turned his mind to his next project. There was a development opportunity at Noisy-Le-Grand a suburb to the east of Paris.

Noisy-le-Grand was once a relatively insignificant village served by a creaky double deck tram.

But its 1960s development was to encompass all sorts of "trendy" architecture. Like one of these ...

... or a bit of this.

Like so many sixties developments things are looking a little tired at Nutty-the-Great but M Pellerin had big plans for big development in the late 1980s - perhaps not as big as La Defense.

His initial proposals were for a "business centre" to the west of the town centre.

It was to be called Maille Horizon ...

... and would be joined to the main station by a mysterious red line.

Noisy-le-grand is on RER Line A which tuns to Marne la Vallee Chessy.

It has a distinctive building as befits the trendiness of the town. 

Needless to say all the bus services stop just outside!

But if you look for M Pellerin's development at Maille Horizon you will only see a few chunks of open space ...

... and some large chunks of modern housing.

There is no shopping center and no tower blocks!

M Pellerin's company went bust with only one of his three key projects constructed.

As we saw in yesterday's blog, the "Mini-Metro" was built!

We saw the delights of the terminus serving the RER station yesterday, but however intense his search, fbb could find no mention, no picture or no diagram of the Pod Metro at the RER station.

It just wasn't there!

But the station has FOUR exits; one leads out to the bus station area as you would expect ...

... seen here on a station map ...

... and here in more detail as entrance and exit 4

The three others are along an underground passage which emerges in the depths of the Arcades shopping centre.

These are numbered (surprisingly) 1, 2 and 3.

Unfortunately, StreetView does not fully penetrate the shopping centre and its many crooks and nannies ...

To add to the challenge, parts of the shipping centre are/were undergoing  refurbishment.

StreetView does, however, retain one sign and one obvious (?) entrance and exit.

Can you spito the lavish entrance to the "M" Mini Metro?

Not very imposing is it?

Another entrance to the lower floor of the shopping mall is equally uninspiring.

By now our astute reader will have discerned that the Mini Metro no longer operates. There is no Maille Horizon Business Centre for it to operate to. 

It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It's pushing up the daisies! Its technological processes are now history! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off the railway map, run up the siding and joined the eternal depot invisible!!

Even more, although the Mini Metro was kept in working order for a number of years, it was subsequently abandoned completely.

So it is no wonder we cannot find any sign of it.

But ...

Maybe there IS something to see.

More tomorrow.

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Quiz Answers : 1974 prices

Crisps - 3p

Sliced loaf -  10p

2nd class stamp - 3.5p

Pint of Red Barrel - 16p

Pint of milk - 7p

Newspaper - 3p

Short bus ride - 5p

Tights - 19p

W Midlands semi - £7000

Austin Mini - £695

Twin tub - £87

Colour TV - £239

Scientific calculator - £90

Omega watch - £33

Electric kettle - £6

Bottle of whisky £3

Litre of petrol 7p

Average weekly wage £37

The big challenge, however, is to apply inflation to these figures and see which items, if any, are cheaper than on 1974. Any guesses? It is no secret that most products are dearer.

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 Next Peculiar Paris Pod blog : Weds 6th March 

A Peculiar Paris Pod (1)

But First, A Heathrow Pod

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.

The Paris pod functions in a similar manner.

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.

How Much?

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.

Puzzle Picture

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).

 Next Paris Pod blog : Tuesday 5th March