Where is the world’s longest escalator?
I’d have to dig out my 2000 Guiness BoWR to be precise, but I think it’s in Hong Kong, probably on the side of one of the hills above the strait on the mainland.
Washington, DC, has some pretty big ones, some of which descend/ascend 21 stories vertically. St. Petersburg and Hong Kong are named as more worthy, but I cannot find figures that reconcile total length and vertical ascent.
(Please, visitors to My Fair City, if you’re going to be mesmerized by the spectacle, stand to the right while gaping. I’m always late, in a hurry, and jumping down that bastard like a mountain goat, tourists permitting. I’ve always maintained that each escalator should be accompanied by a slide.)
I’ve ridden the length of Central - Midlevels escalator in Hong Kong, and it may not qualify depending on your definition. It’s a series of separate escalators, with canopies overhead and with platforms at the major street intersections, not a single machine. It goes one-way downhill in the mornings, then one-way uphill the rest of the day - yes, there are a lot of people in Hong Kong who commute to work by escalator. Once you get to the top, you’re within walking distance of the base of the Victoria Peak tramway that gets you the rest of the way up the mountain. The view from anywhere along the route makes it hard to believe that anyone could actually build anything in Hong Kong - the land is all vertical, not horizontal.
I recall from a trip to Expo '67 in Montreal that the US pavilion (the giant geodesic dome, now stripped of its Plexiglas and renamed Biosphere) had the world’s longest single escalator at that time. The record must have been broken in the meanwhile.
The one at the Woodley Park/Zoo metro stop used to be the “tallest” (rising the most stories) in the US. (maybe the world?)
replaced it as the tallest some years ago IIRC.
Escalators on the DC metro system (and I imagine everywhere) have hockey puck sized knobs on the flat, sloped surfaces between the up and down escalators. This so people are not inclined to “slide” down the slopes. However, it was kinda cool as a youngster to put a penny on the top and try to let it slide all the way down without hitting any of the pucks. Never knew if I’d made it, though.