In message , at 12:24:43 on
Sun, 6 Dec 2009, Peter Masson remarked:
We are discussing passenger carrying trains, not empty ones, or those
not carrying people.

But we are all used to unstaffed passenger-carrying vehicles which
follow a vertical route. They do in general have 'platform-edge doors).

But they don't all work the same. A couple of variants I've experienced
in my travels:

Very small lift in a Paris hotel: only one door, hinged and opening
outwards. The front of the lift is open and allows passengers to "rub
past" the doors and walls on the way up. I've seen similar lifts
elsewhere.

Set of lifts in a Cairo 5* hotel. Calling the lift is done by pressing a
centrally-located button in the lobby that requests a particular floor.
You are then directed to the relevant lift when it arrives. Once inside
the lift you can't "redirect" it to any additional floors. The lift
doors also *very* fierce. Snapping shut in less than a second with a
*whoosh* that looks like it would cut your appendages off (although I
didn't see anyone caught in them). I've never seen either of these
design features anywhere else.
--
Roland Perry