{"id":2106,"date":"2021-04-25T08:36:24","date_gmt":"2021-04-25T12:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/?p=2106"},"modified":"2025-09-13T13:56:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T17:56:54","slug":"escalator-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/2021\/04\/25\/escalator-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"Escalator Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The \u201cMoving Up<\/a>\u201d post recalled an unforgettable moment in my past, when I still rode the Washington Metro somewhat sporadically (my youth was spent riding busses, before the advent of the Metro).\u00a0 It was the first time I confronted the escalator at the DuPont Circle stop.\u00a0 I was going to a math talk with a friend and we were busy discussing math when I stepped onto the escalator.\u00a0 Suddenly, I looked up and saw the stairs disappearing 188 feet into the heavens and froze.\u00a0 I have always been afraid of heights, and the escalator brought out all the customary terror.\u00a0 There was of course no turning back.\u00a0 And then people started bolting up the stairs past me, not always avoiding brushing by.<\/p>\n

My hand was clamped to the handrail in a death grip.\u00a0 I had to hold on even tighter as the sweat of fear made my hands slippery.\u00a0 In such situations I often feel a sense of vertigo or loss of balance.\u00a0 It was then that I thought the handrail was moving faster than the steps so that I was being pulled forward.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t tell if it was the vertigo or an actual movement.\u00a0 In any case, I periodically let go and repositioned my death grip.\u00a0 After an eternity, it was over, and I staggered out into the street.\u00a0 Needless to say, on our return I sought out the elevator.\u00a0 Fortunately, it was working\u2014not always the case in the Washington Metro.<\/p>\n

Once my brain was functioning a bit, I pondered the question of the relative speeds of the handrail and steps.\u00a0 How could they be synchronized?\u00a0 But after a while I left it as an interesting curiosity.<\/p>\n

(Update 9\/13\/2025) The Railing Does Move Faster<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So I didn\u2019t imagine it.\u00a0 This recent 22 min Youtube video<\/a> from Veritasium \u201cThe Most Dangerous Escalator in Rome\u201d describes the history and mechanism of an escalator in explaining the tragedy that occurred in Rome in 2018.<\/p>\n

At 10 min 22 sec in the video the narrator describes the mechanism for the handrail movement<\/a>.\u00a0 And sure enough, a new handrail drive wheel is calibrated to move about 2% faster than the steps.\u00a0 As the wheel wears down, the handrail slows down. \u00a0Hopefully the wheel is replaced before the handrail moves slower than the steps.<\/p>\n

The whole video about the incident and escalators is fascinating.<\/p>\n

See Escalator Terror<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cMoving Up\u201d post recalled an unforgettable moment in my past, when I still rode the Washington Metro somewhat sporadically (my youth was spent riding busses, before the advent of the Metro).\u00a0 It was the first time I confronted the escalator at the DuPont Circle stop.\u00a0 I was going to a math talk with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[133],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curiosities-and-questions","tag-algebra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4572,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/4572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}