Escalator

Principal areas of usage include department stores, shopping malls, airports, transit systems (railway/railroad stations), convention centers, hotels, arenas, stadiums and public buildings.

His invention, the "revolving stairs", is largely speculative and the patent specifications indicate that he had no preference for materials or potential use (he noted that steps could be upholstered or made of wood, and suggested that the units might benefit the infirm within a household use).

Reno, a graduate of Lehigh University, produced the first working escalator (called the "inclined elevator") and installed it alongside the Old Iron Pier at Coney Island, New York City in 1896.

The Smithsonian Institution considered re-assembling one of these historic units from 1914 in their collection of Americana, but "logistics and reassembly costs won out over nostalgia", and the project was discarded.

This device consisted of flat, moving stairs, not unlike the escalators of today, except for one important detail: the step surface was smooth, with no comb effect to safely guide the rider's feet off at the ends.

Also on display at the Exposition were Reno's inclined elevator, a similar model by James M. Dodge and the Link Belt Machinery Co., and two different devices by the French manufacturers Hallé and Piat.

Noted by Bill Lancaster in The Department Store: a Social History, "customers unnerved by the experience were revived by shopmen dispensing free smelling salts and cognac.

"[8] The Harrods unit was a continuous leather belt made of "224 pieces... strongly linked together traveling in an upward direction", and was the first "moving staircase" in England.

After the Exposition, Hallé continued to sell its escalator device in Europe but was eventually eclipsed in sales by other major manufacturers.

As the last of the "big four" manufacturers to emerge onto the global market, Kone first acquired the Montgomery Elevator company, then took control of Germany's Orenstein & Koppel Rolltreppen.

As evidenced in Seeberger's handwritten documents, the inventor consulted "a Latin lexicon" and "adopted as the root of the new word, 'Scala'; as a prefix, 'E' and as a suffix, 'Tor.

[20] "Escalator" was not a combination of other French or Greek words, and was never a derivative of "elevator" in the original sense, which means "one who raises up, a deliverer" in Latin.

In 1950, the landmark case Haughton Elevator Co. v. Seeberger precipitated the end of Otis's exclusive reign over the word "escalator", and simultaneously created a cautionary study for companies and individuals interested in trademark retention.

Design factors include innovative technology, physical requirements, location, traffic patterns, safety considerations, and aesthetics.

For example, a single-width escalator traveling at about 0.5 metres per second (1+1⁄2 ft/s) can move about 2000 people per hour, assuming that passengers ride single file.

The truss is the hollow metal structure that bridges the lower and upper landings, composed of two side sections joined with cross braces across the bottom and just below the top.

The handrail is pulled along its own track by a chain that is connected to the main drive gear by a series of pulleys, keeping it at the same speed as the steps.

In the mid-twentieth century, some handrail designs consisted of a rubber bellows, with rings of smooth metal cladding called "bracelets" between each coil.

It is notorious in this art for being a frequent site of injuries and failures, due to the possible entrapment of materials (including body parts) in the machinery.

This causes the stairs to lay in a flat sheetlike arrangement, one after another, so they can easily travel around the bend in the curved section of track.

Seeberger devised at least two helical designs between 1906 and 1911 (including an unrealized arrangement for the London Underground), and Gilbert Luna obtained West German, Japanese, and United States patents for his version of a spiral escalator by 1973.

When interviewed for the Los Angeles Times that year, Luna was in the process of soliciting major firms for the acquisition of his patents and company, but statistics are unclear on the outcome of these endeavors.

[33] Helixator, an experimental helical escalator design that currently exists as a prototype scale model, could further reduce floor space demands.

[38][39] The softness of the shoe's material combined with the smaller size of children's feet makes this sort of accident especially common.

The King's Cross fire of 1987 illustrated the demanding nature of escalator upkeep and the devices' propensity to collect "fluff" and other small debris when not properly maintained.

[42] The official inquiry determined that the fire started slowly, smoldering virtually undetected for a time, and then exploded into the ticket hall above in a previously unrecognised phenomenon now known as the "trench effect".

In the escalators' undercarriage, approximately 8,800 kilograms (19,400 lb) of accumulated detritus acted as a wick to a neglected buildup of interior lubricants; wood veneers, paper and plastic advertisements, solvent-based paint, plywood in the ticket hall, and melamine combustion added to the impact of the calamity.

Some of longest and fastest escalators in Europe are found in Prague, and are set to be replaced with slower versions in order to meet modern safety standards.

Nonetheless, Foster-Miller Associates' 1980 plan, Escalator Modification for the Handicapped was ultimately ignored in favor of increased elevator installations in subway systems.

[54] In certain high-traffic systems, including the East Japan Railway Company and the Prague metro, escalator users are encouraged to stand on whichever side they choose, with the aim of preventing wear and tear and asymmetrical burdening.