The fuelling hoses drop down once you pay. Article: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/flying-saucer-gas-stations/
this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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That was my first and only question, thanks!
I mean, fuck cars, but I always appreciate creative and funky design. Can’t have everything look the same cough american suburbia cough
If those were in the US it would have one guy in a huge truck parked diagonally across the entire space.
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Little drops of gasoline raining down on your head
This is also in 1970s USSR, so there is a non-zero chance someone pulled up while smoking. Embers and ambient gas fumes are probably why this gas station is no longer around.
I can't think of any downsides, besides the increased construction cost (not really sure how much increase, considering the ground space required is less, and no digging, but designing hanging fuel tanks, maybe about 1-2 tons of fuel would be hard) and limit on the capacity stored. Why were they discontinued? Was the disaster risk any higher. My initial guess it that any body driving and smashing the pumps is not present anymore, they are built high enough to not be hit by trucks.
If one of those catches fire, say from a spark, it's going to be dumping burning gas all over everyone nearby. They obviously retract out of the way when not in use, and if the hose you're holding suddenly turns into a flamethrower, your first instinct is going to be to let go of it.
that seems to be a solvable problem, you can add pretty good fail proof (read resistant) valves. And the retraction can be controlled to never let any fuel come back, so even if the hoses catch fire, they would pretty quickly dry out. Combined with good sensors, these could outperform modern stuff in theory. (or atleast I believe so)
I guess short people were just screwed? I guess it was probably full service.
I remember seeing one or two stations like this when I was a kid. The hoses lowered down after you paid, so you don't need to be tall to use it.
Self service started in the USA about a decade earlier due to minimum wage hikes: entrepreneurial attempts to cut off until then required pumping jobs succeeded, much to everyone’s surprise.
Then devious concept followed in Europe about a decade later, about the time the time this picture was taken. Still most were full service there
I mean I’m personally happy I don’t need to have someone help me fill a fuel tank. I’m happy to do self checkout. Hell, I’d be happy to make my own sandwich at a restaurant if they’d let me.
In theory, I would like full service if it was just like 10-20¢ more and the person performing the work truly cared about the job they were doing.
Imagine someone topping off your wiper fluid, washing your windows and doing a high level walk-around your car to ensure nothing looks out of place. Perhaps even some small talk about a good route for a Sunday drive or interesting events in the area, like a parade or public concert downtown next week.
But the reality is, like the beautiful sink your teeth into burger on the commercial versus the squished train wreck I actually get, those kinds of service people would be few and far in between. And, while I don’t necessarily blame folks for going all minimum viable product, I still think it sucks that we do. So self service it is.
You would imagine that someone would have already re-tried this idea and called it "bespoke gas service" or some nonsense. Put it as a subscription service and prolific nature of Love's or Buc-ee's and you would get people signing up like crazy.
I don’t mind filling the tank but I hate self checkout.
I make good sandwiches though.
Out of curiosity, what’s to hate about self checkout? It’s faster and you don’t have to talk to anybody.
Obviously preference matters so I’m not going to judge you for it!
I’m slow at it and I find just loading groceries onto a belt a more efficient process. Plus when the machines mess up or I bag an item too quickly I get held up.
I just don’t enjoy it.
For me it is entering correct vegetable and fruit codes. I found it fun and a novelty when self checkout was first introduced, now I will go out of my way, slightly, to not enter or scan
You have to remember the codes?! I can either, depending on the type of selfcheckout, weigh at a weighing station and pick from images with text and get a sticker barcode printed to put on it, or select from images with text at the bagging station.
Where I am at, it’s much easier to just stuff things into bags without a care, and have God figure it out at the checkout
They have to approve my bloody bag every single time!
"Unexpected item in bagging area." No, that's the shit I just scanned...
It's not self-service if you have to wait for a manager's approval every time!
For some reason, Greece remains primarily without self-service. I wonder why it never caught on.
They still have those in Japan, I've seen a few
Just start dumping gas all over everything below when it starts leaking I guess
I was watching a YouTube video about Victorian clothing (idk sometimes the suggestion algo actually pops up things that are interesting), where I learned about UFO (phantom airship) reports in the USA from 1896-1897. The illustrations I saw when I searched online resembled lighted zeppelins.
Looking like UFOs
Fuck short people, I guess.
I'm betting the idea was that it works without electricity.
Unless the fuel storage tanks are up that high, nope. You gotta pump it up there.
Yes, the tanks would be up there (why else build those huge saucers?)
The fuel truck can pump it up into those tanks using its engine.
Those aren't big enough to hold any significant amount of fuel.
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