Mental Floss

The 10 Longest Escalators in the World

By Ellen Gutoskey

The escalator in St. Petersburg's Admiralteyskaya Metro Station.
The escalator in St. Petersburg's Admiralteyskaya Metro Station. / Poudou99, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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When it comes to the longest escalator system in the world, the title goes to the Central Mid-Level escalator in Hong Kong, which boasts an elevation of roughly 135 meters (about 443 feet) and a distance of more than 800 meters—just short of half a mile.

Though the longest continuous single escalator is a fair bit smaller than that, it’s still impressive. And the designation doesn’t just go to one escalator, but three. They’re all 453 feet long, 226 feet high, and located at separate metro stations in St. Petersburg, Russia: Ploshchad Lenina, Chernyshevskaya, and Admiralteyskaya. 

The list of longest escalators, compiled on the blog Panethos, contains quite a few found in other metro stations around the world. In fact, only one of the top 10 isn’t part of a railway station—and that’s not the only reason it stands out from the rest of the pack. Trondheim, Norway, is home to a bicycle escalator known as Trampe that ferries bikers up the very steep Brubakken Hill. You keep your left foot on your left bike pedal and rest your right foot on a footplate that protrudes from a narrow curbside ramp. As the footplate moves up the 426-foot ramp, you move with it.

If there were an award for building really massive escalators, Russia would undoubtedly win it. In addition to the top three, the nation also took the sixth spot for Moscow’s Park Pobedy Metro Station escalator, which measures 416 feet in length and 208 feet in elevation. Ukraine, Turkey, Georgia, China, and Azerbaijan also made the top 10.

You can see the shortlist below, and check out the top 70 from Panethos here.

  1. (Tie) Ploshchad Lenina Metro Station // St. Petersburg, Russia (453 feet)
  2. (Tie) Chernyshevskaya Metro Station // St. Petersburg, Russia (453 feet)
  3. (Tie) Admiralteyskaya Metro Station // St. Petersburg, Russia (453 feet)
  4. Kreschatik Metro Station // Kyiv, Ukraine (432 feet)
  5. Trampe // Trondheim, Norway (426 feet)
  6. Park Pobedy Metro Station // Moscow, Russia (416 feet)
  7. Sirkeci Metro Station // Istanbul, Turkey (~400 feet)
  8. Rustaveli Metro Station // Tbilisi, Georgia (394 feet)
  9. Huangguan Escalator // Chongqing, China (367 feet)
  10. Khatai Metro Station // Baku, Azerbaijan (328 feet)

[h/t Panethos]

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