Holborn escalator speed

[sjoh]

Strangely, Luke O'Sullivan has made a Youtube video on this very topic, released today!

 

[bluegoblin7]

The escalators into St. Pancras concourse by the southern exit are refreshingly/annoyingly (take your pick) much slower than the ones down to the tunnel from the Tube ticket hall - presumably an NR/TfL thing? I always feel compelled to walk up or down as they are only short.

These are not LUL/TfL assets. The LUL boundary is the set of metal fire doors where the flooring changes.

 

[Taunton]

They always seem to be trialling not running one of the three escalators to/from the Tube ticket hall whenever I'm at Euston... "broken"

I was given to believe that's intentional, to avoid the hazardous overloading of the inadequate lower ticket hall that used to happen, especially if several main line services arrive close together. It causes the congestion to be back up at ground level joining the single escalator, which nowadays puts the queue out into the open air plaza.

 

[Mawkie]

Strangely, Luke O'Sullivan has made a Youtube video on this very topic, released today!

I watched this last night too. Interestingly, the opening shot sees Luke standing with two escalators running at different speeds if I'm not mistaken. I presumed the left one was in 'reduced speed until someone walks towards it' mode.

Relatedly, can confirm the escalators at Arsenalna (Kiev) ran very fast when I was there, and they all seemed to have a Mamushka sitting in a cabin at the bottom to make sure no rules were broken. (First and only time I've seen signs saying "No Sitting" on an escalator.)

 

[Mikey C]

That was very interesting. Not been to Prague since the 1990s, so all the escalators I used would have been the Soviet fast ones!

 

[artemic]

These are not LUL/TfL assets. The LUL boundary is the set of metal fire doors where the flooring changes.

I thought as much as it explains the difference in speed - which is more noticeable where a set of NR owned escalators is followed almost immediately by TfL owned ones!

I was given to believe that's intentional, to avoid the hazardous overloading of the inadequate lower ticket hall that used to happen, especially if several main line services arrive close together. It causes the congestion to be back up at ground level joining the single escalator, which nowadays puts the queue out into the open air plaza.

It would be a rather strange way to avoid overloading the lower ticket hall as when it does work it can also be (and usually is?) set as a second 'up' escalator. I am inclined to believe it actually is broken as occasionally one can spot someone working on it - as opposed to some kind of cost-saving conspiracy!