When there’s a mention of “moving staircases”, there’s two types of imagery that can usually occur. Both imagery surely has steps in them, but how it “moves” is probably what changes in them.
For those of us muggles who’ve been introduced to the magical world of the Harry Potter series — especially the movies — it brings to mind an entire flight of stairs moving from one place to another. The concept is introduced in the first movie in the series with massive, interconnected structures swinging and pivoting in unison. Those who are more faithful to the books will remind you that the movement is actually less frequent and not even directly mentioned, with author J. K. Rowling choosing instead to say that some flight of stairs led to different places on different days.
For the rest of us No-Maj (pronounced as no-madge and is the American slang for non-magical person, or muggle, in the Harry Potter universe), moving staircases likely reminds us of escalators. If you come to think of it, these stairs help you move up and down a flight of steps, even as you are standing still. Tell that this is really possible and can take place everyday to someone who lived centuries ago (if you work out time travel that is), and it might sound magical to them!
It is about these escalators that we’ll delve into now, quickly taking in the progress in the field that has spanned over 100 years.
First of their kind
The first U.S. patent for an escalator-like contraption was awarded to American Nathan Ames. Born in 1826 as Nathan Eames before officially changing his name in 1843, Ames is now best remembered for two things — for this patent and as a poet.
Making a living as a patent solicitor, Ames had a way with words, often expressing his ideas through poems that were both reflective and evocative. In addition to writing about love, loss, and relationships — the standard tropes of poems — Ames also wrote poetry about local pirate legends. He even published a book titled Pirates’ Glen and Dungeon Rock in 1853 that was a dramatic, lyrical-verse narrative focussing on the New England coastline.
On August 9, 1859, Ames was awarded a patent titled “Revolving stairs”. He called it a “new and useful improvement in stairs” in his patent and provided a description of its construction and operation, along with drawings. While a quick glance at the patent drawing is enough to notice similarities with present-day escalators, Ames never tried to create these himself, nor was his escalator-like machine made by others.
Reno’s ride
There were other escalator-like stairways that were patented in the decades that followed. Foremost among them were those of American Leamon Griffith Souder, who not only patented stairways for ascending and descending, but also held one titled “Spiral column for endless chain conveyor” in the 1880s and 1890s. None of these, however, ever saw the light of the day as they remained unbuilt, just like in the case of Ames.
The first of the escalator-like machines that were actually built were courtesy American inventor and engineer Jesse Wilford Reno. Born in 1861, Reno chalked his first plans of an inclined elevator while still in his teens.
A patent drawing from Reno’s patent.
| Photo Credit:
U.S. patent US470918A
By the 1890s, his ideas took shape. At the base of his idea was a conveyor belt inclined at 25 degrees, fitted with planks of metal with serrated surface. This design, especially the teeth in each stair, allowed for smooth transition throughout the inclined stairway, and particularly in the landings, where people would have to get on or off. In order to make its users feel more secure, especially since it was going to be a novelty, Reno decided to provide handrails for support. On March 15, 1892, Reno received his patent titled “Endless conveyor or escalator”.
When Reno’s proposal to have his machine installed in a subway station failed, he agreed to build a model of his inclined elevator to be installed as an amusement ride. One of the first working escalators was thus installed as a ride at the Old Iron Pier amusement park in Coney Island, New York. The temporary attraction — it was there for only a few weeks — with wooden steps was inclined at 25 degrees and managed a vertical climb of just 7 feet. That, however, was enough to draw in 75,000 people in a short span of time as the novelty of moving up with the stairs while they stood still on it dawned on them.
Further trials were followed by retail applications, with Reno even setting up his own company in 1902. Less than a decade later, Reno’s company and the patent rights for his escalators were purchased by the Otis Elevator Company, who were responsible for giving escalators their name too. Reno was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2007 for this contribution.
The lure of the spirals
Have you seen a spiral escalator?
| Photo Credit:
Nandaro / Wikimedia Commons
Just like Souder, Reno too was lured towards spiral escalators. In fact, we now know that it was more than just on paper, as rusty remains of his engineering experiment were unearthed in 1988. Buried at the bottom of a lift shaft at Holloway Road station, a London Underground station, were the remains of what were Reno’s attempts at a spiral escalator.
These structures, raised around 1906 and left incomplete probably due to fears over safety, had a double spiral design. While you have to wait for an elevator to come to your level to enter it, such a design would have made ascending and descending simultaneously possible within the same space. With a central core, the two spirals encircled it, with the outer for coming down and the inner for going up.
The travel time to reach the street level from the underground or vice versa was about 45 seconds, as the spirals were expected to run continuously in a clockwise direction, travelling at the rate of 30 metres per minute. It surely didn’t enter passenger service, probably because the design had a mistake. It was dismantled in 1911, the same year the London Underground’s first escalators were installed at Earl’s Court station. Spiral escalators, however, did become a reality in the 1980s.
Today, there are nearly a million escalators in operation worldwide, ferrying billions of people in their effort to move up and down everyday. With an average lifespan of nearly 30 years, each of these escalators travel roughly anywhere between 2,00,000 to 5,00,000 km. Given that the Earth’s circumference is a touch over 40,000 km, a single escalator can cover a total distance that is equivalent to anywhere between one-fourth to half the Earth’s circumference every year, enough even to take it to the moon over a lifetime!
Have you ever seen an escalator while it is still under construction?
| Photo Credit:
A.S.Ganesh
Escalator etiquette
Is there something like an escalator etiquette? Is there a certain way that you have to use escalators? The answer depends on whether you are thinking about the individual or people as a collective.
Popular escalator etiquette suggests that people should stand on one particular side, holding the handrail for safety, and keeping baggages, if any, close to themselves. Which side you stand on again depends on where you are using the escalator. In countries like India, we stand on the left side, allowing people on the move to pass on the right. This is akin to how it is on our roads, where the slower vehicles keep to the left, with overtaking on the right being the right way to ride or drive.
While this is largely followed across the world — barring of course the side in which the standing group have to stand — there’s no clear consensus if this is the most efficient way of actually doing it. In fact, in a video titled “The Messy Science of Escalator Etiquette” from the YouTube channel Half as Interesting, the makers suggest that, based on studies, leaving half your escalator for walking is not the most efficient way for transporting people for escalators that are more than 60 feet tall. Instead, they argue that in such cases, people should stand on both sides, with one person in each step.
Of course, their interest here is to get across the most number of people on that escalator for any given time. In real life, however, there might be some who are in a hurry and hence walking on the escalator, and certain others who are willing to wait. That is surely not factored in in such a scheme.
And then, obviously, is the fact that no etiquette is followed on some escalators in some regions. Maybe there’s some merit in the haphazard nature in which those escalators are used as well.
Now that it is completed, how much distance do you think this escalator will travel?
| Photo Credit:
A.S.Ganesh
*Escalator and stairway leading up to Banking Floor in PSFS Building. Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS) photographs (Accession 1993.302). 1932. 93302_box3_215. Box 3 ‘PSFS building interiors,’ Folder ‘Escalators and stairways’, Audiovisual Collections, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE 19807. Accessed 2026-03-05; https://digital.hagley.org/93302_box3_215
