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The Transdimensional Gas Station

I've just re-read all of this for probably the tenth time since the post was originally posted and something strikes me... the weird behaviour of the gas guy. Now not that weird old guys are hard to come by, I'm married to one, but his behaviour is beyond weird. The way he greets the OP, holds the keys out, the strange two handed wave, it's like an approximation of how a person would act. It reminds me of those tales of MiBs, trying to pass off as human.
Many humans also display odd behaviour.
 
Many humans also display odd behaviour.

I cannot argue with this. As I said however, the description reminded me of the sort of approximate human behaviour often ascribed to those we would call MiBs - almost right but not quite.

I don't say that's of any importance, mind you.

The older I get the more my memory fails me and the more I tend to ascribe this sort of event down to misremembering.
 
Ten years on it's probably relatively unlikely that the original poster is still around browsing these forums. But this remains a fascinating thread.
 
Ten years on it's probably relatively unlikely that the original poster is still around browsing these forums. But this remains a fascinating thread.

Even if he were, it seemed that receipt was long gone anyhow.
 
I'll be driving past there again in two weeks but unfortunately, I don't think I've got the time to turn off and explore the road in question. Maybe on the way back if I've got more time.
 
"RINGO EXPLORES THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL GAS STATION ROAD"

Well, I've just got home from a trip to Malmö and on the way down, Friday afternoon, I convinced the wife that we should drive on the road in question and look for a transdimensional gas station. We turned off at Mjölby and joined the road. It is very pretty down there and we drove on the road all the way to Västra Harg. We didn't see any evidence of an old or abandoned gas station.

In Västra Harg we found a lovely looking church but not much else. We took a different route back to Mjölby on the off chance that the original poster had confused his route. We found an interesting building which could have been a garage/petrol station once upon a time (if you squinted and really used your imagination). It's the red building in the photos after the church photo.

Once more or less back in Mjölby, we found some old and derelict buildings which looked the part but were not on the road in question and were not in the middle of nowhere. They were at the edge of town but on the wrong side if the tracks, as it were.

So, here are some photos I took with my iphone through the car window. Everything before the white church is Mjölby to Västra Harg via the road called Hargsvägen. After the church is alternate route via Pilkällevägen, through the village of Say and back to Mjölby.
 
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Sterling work, there. The red building looks like the most likely candidate, if only because it has a big garage on it. In which case, the gas station wasn't transdimensional at all, it was normal. Maybe that's why the OP wandered off?
 
It looks a pretty old building, the tanks could have been removed decades ago and tarmacked over. I'm assuming it was ever a gas station here, it might not have been.
 
No sign of the petrol tanks? It's a pretty big job removing them.
No sign of tanks above the ground and no old pipes sticking up through the ground either.
 
Bit of a conundrum: if you don't find a gas station, it both proves the OP was right, and proves the OP was wrong simultaneously.
 
It looks a pretty old building, the tanks could have been removed decades ago and tarmacked over. I'm assuming it was ever a gas station here, it might not have been.
When I was growing up we had a teeny weeny abandoned garage/petrol station just around the corner. Must have been abandoned not long after the war as it had manual fuel pumps not electric* Room for one car to be refuelled and a two car workshop, all with beautiful but decaying period hand pained signage. It's tanks were above ground and were trucked away eventually.
With pump and tanks unbolted you'd not know what had been there. A house now stand where it was.

If the TDGS was anything like my tiny fuel station it could dissapear almost overnight.

* I pumped out a little petrol as a kid, the tank still had some in!
 
I've just re-read all of this for probably the tenth time since the post was originally posted and something strikes me... the weird behaviour of the gas guy. Now not that weird old guys are hard to come by, I'm married to one, but his behaviour is beyond weird. The way he greets the OP, holds the keys out, the strange two handed wave, it's like an approximation of how a person would act. It reminds me of those tales of MiBs, trying to pass off as human.

The other thing is if the original OP had been making this all up, surely at one point he'd just say he looked for the receipt and couldn't find it?

good insight. are you a john keel fan? like you i think the strange approximately almost human behavior gives it such a surreal aspect and is the creepiest. this is such a great post. reminds me of the disappearing bakery in mary poppins.
 
When I was growing up we had a teeny weeny abandoned garage/petrol station just around the corner. Must have been abandoned not long after the war as it had manual fuel pumps not electric* Room for one car to be refuelled and a two car workshop, all with beautiful but decaying period hand pained signage. It's tanks were above ground and were trucked away eventually.
With pump and tanks unbolted you'd not know what had been there. A house now stand where it was.

If the TDGS was anything like my tiny fuel station it could dissapear almost overnight.

* I pumped out a little petrol as a kid, the tank still had some in!

youre right. it doesnt take much to seem to make a gas station disappear... after the building is gone it quickly is overgrown. too bad you didnt grab those signs. you would not believe how much old gasoline signage goes for, even rusted out signs.
 
Yep. Photobucket has swallowed them so here they are again. Not much to see.
 

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Thanks, Ringo!

And i agree that the red building could well have been a garage/gas station at some point.

Not knowing the Country was it common (either now or in the past) to have fuel tanks for petroleum above ground?

Here in the UK (at least in my lifetime) they've always had to be stored underneath the forecourt of a fuel station. Tanks very much under a good number of feet of concrete.

That said, there is also a noticeable two different tones in the surface materials on that site.

  • A more standard grey tarmac in front of the building (and winding around presumably back to the road?)
  • A redish coloured tarmac beyond that.
It's entirely possible that red coloured surface was laid later to cover the removal of pumps and other bits and bobs as the usage of the site was changed.

Typically (at least here in the UK) that would involve emptying the tanks and filling them with concrete. Removing the pumps and tarmacing over it all.
 
Thanks, Ringo!

And i agree that the red building could well have been a garage/gas station at some point.

Not knowing the Country was it common (either now or in the past) to have fuel tanks for petroleum above ground?

Here in the UK (at least in my lifetime) they've always had to be stored underneath the forecourt of a fuel station. Tanks very much under a good number of feet of concrete.

That said, there is also a noticeable two different tones in the surface materials on that site.

  • A more standard grey tarmac in front of the building (and winding around presumably back to the road?)
  • A redish coloured tarmac beyond that.
It's entirely possible that red coloured surface was laid later to cover the removal of pumps and other bits and bobs as the usage of the site was changed.

Typically (at least here in the UK) that would involve emptying the tanks and filling them with concrete. Removing the pumps and tarmacing over it all.

If I remember rightly, the grey tarmac was the newer of the two. It looked as if it had just been completed. Some of the grey tarmac had been carried over onto the red stuff (probably by vehicles moving around). The whole lot had been renovated and the large portion of the red building was much newer than the lower portion. It's quite possible that it was something else years ago but now looked to be owned and operated by the local Council. Maybe storing equipment and vehicles they needed to maintain roads etc. There was some sort of large JCB or similar in the large portion of the red building.

There was another low building off to my right hand side as I took that picture. I can't really remember how it looked but in my mind it was about the size of a large garden shed.

The two different roads I travelled on couldn't really be confused with one another. The original poster was quite certain of the route and I found nothing there to even suggest an old petrol station. However, there were places where one could have been and the countryside had now blocked the view/entrance. There were quite a lot of high hedges and overgrown areas with trees blocking the view beyond the edge of the road. I might take another crack at it next time I'm in the area.
 
If I remember rightly, the grey tarmac was the newer of the two. It looked as if it had just been completed. Some of the grey tarmac had been carried over onto the red stuff (probably by vehicles moving around).


Ah, okay. So likely a recent addition. That's good to know.


The whole lot had been renovated and the large portion of the red building was much newer than the lower portion. It's quite possible that it was something else years ago but now looked to be owned and operated by the local Council. Maybe storing equipment and vehicles they needed to maintain roads etc. There was some sort of large JCB or similar in the large portion of the red building.


That would make a lot of sense. In a spot like this I'd imagine that kind of maintenance to be pretty crucial.


There was another low building off to my right hand side as I took that picture. I can't really remember how it looked but in my mind it was about the size of a large garden shed.


I see. Okay.

If you had to speculate (I know :) ) would you consider it to be the kind of size or shape a building which could, in times past, have been a fuel station/vehicle repair shop/Garage? The like of which the original poster encountered?


The two different roads I travelled on couldn't really be confused with one another. The original poster was quite certain of the route and I found nothing there to even suggest an old petrol station. However, there were places where one could have been and the countryside had now blocked the view/entrance. There were quite a lot of high hedges and overgrown areas with trees blocking the view beyond the edge of the road. I might take another crack at it next time I'm in the area.


While not wanting to suggest you go off hacking through undergrowth in a remote area :) if you are ever in the area again it would be interesting to know. Cheers for all the info, Ringo. Especially given my having effectively dragged this one back up from the archives at this point.
 
This thread emerges every now and then. It has a special..something.

I certainly will go exploring next chance I get but it may not be until next Spring.

I don't think the red building is the one in question. It was on the wrong road and looked too new. Butthere lay have been something else there entirely years ago.
 
What a great story! I've read it before. Did it get posted to Reddit or somewhere like that?

I would most likely be more skeptical of it actually being true if I had not had an experience of my own that's very similar in some ways. I'm fixin' to post that in an appropriate place here on FTMB.
 
What a great story! I've read it before. Did it get posted to Reddit or somewhere like that?

I would most likely be more skeptical of it actually being true if I had not had an experience of my own that's very similar in some ways. I'm fixin' to post that in an appropriate place here on FTMB.


Please do link to it when you've committed it to Post. I'm sure several of us would love to hear about it.
 
I wonder if the petrol station was just one of these vibrational abberations. I watched these appear, stabilise, and then disappear. Who knows.:

http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/odd-unexplainable-appereances.59882/#post-1525142
Re-reading that account, I realised that the appearing/disappearing houses were only a relatively small distance away from your homestead. Which makes the 'mirage' theory less likely. I'm thinking that what you saw was something definitely out of the ordinary.
 
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