The fuelling hoses drop down once you pay. Article: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/flying-saucer-gas-stations/
That was my first and only question, thanks!
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.
If those were in the US it would have one guy in a huge truck parked diagonally across the entire space.
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
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 mean, fuck cars, but I always appreciate creative and funky design. Can’t have everything look the same cough american suburbia cough
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 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.Based on the weird license plate, this is just a made up AI photo right?
Russians do not use the English alphabet, on account of not speaking English.
That wasn't the only part I was referring to. The edges around the letters on the license plates are weirdly lumpy. Every license plate Ive seen in Europe and the US are generally cleanly printed/stamped. These look hand painted. But I was never behind the Iron Curtain. It just looks very "AI smoothed" to me.
But everything about this picture feels weirdly AI. The logo on all of the pumps is just slightly different in each iteration. The guy's face. The texture on the wall down the entire left side, which somehow bleeds over the front of the car. The license plate on the left car has some numbers but the letters don't even look Cyrillic, they're just kinda mush.
So "Cyrillic letters on the license plate" aside, this photo is just FULL of weird AI anomalies.
