The Angel escalator

One aspect of metro railway systems like the London Underground which is often overlooked is the escalator. They make getting to and from the platform level much easier especially on deep level stations. The alternative is to use lifts, and if you have ever used an escalator-less station like Elephant & Castle or Covent Garden then you know they very easily become bottlenecks or the stairs, and having climbed 180 steps at Clapham South at the weekend that is usually something to be avoided!

The longest escalator on the Underground is at Angel tube station on the Northern Line, only an escalator at Heathrow Airport is longer in the UK in fact. They are the fourth longest in Europe [1]. The escalator is sixty metres long and rises just over twenty-seven metres [2]. The escalators were installed during a rebuild of the station in the early 1990s.

Going up

And down again!

[1] Paul Moss, London Underground (Haynes, 2014) p. 158
[2] Jason Cross, London Underground Guide 2017 (Train Crazy, 2017) p. 99