On Mar 5, 6:24*pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 11:20:03 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

Many countries have escalators that work "on demand" and usage is on a
combination of signage and context.

Including Hamburg, where my old local station, Kiwittsmoor, had one
escalator which was up in the morning and down in the evening, as I
recall.

I'm pretty sure I've also encountered ones that will go either way
depending who gets there first!

I believe it, but what possible use could that be? Unless there was
some control, you'd end up with everything going the same way and no
way either in or out depending on chance.

Why should an one person set the direction of the whole escalator by
chance? An intelligent decision about how many escalators need to go
each way at a particular time of day is far more appropriate.

Steve Dulieu wrote:

Most (all?) of the ones on the Munich S/U-Bahn seem to work on a "who
steps on the actuator plate first" system. As you approach your
stopped escalator (with an illuminated sign showing two arrows
pointing up and down) and step onto the flat plate at the start, the
escalator bursts into life, the double arrow light at the start end
changes to a single arrow pointing in the direction of travel and the
double arrow at the terminus end changes to a "No Entry" type
roundel. The escalator keeps going for as long as people keep
stepping on the actuator plate, then after it has moved sufficient
distance to transport the last person to step on the actuator to the
other end, it runs for about another 5 seconds then stops and goes
back into "first-come" mode. Of course, for the impartial observer,
this provides for some most amusing spectating of "can I get to the
actuator before that bugger coming the other way" type racing.

So if two people approach two escalators from the top, both escalators start
running down, and then a trainfull of people arrive at the bottom with no up
escalator for them?

"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
Steve Dulieu wrote:

Most (all?) of the ones on the Munich S/U-Bahn seem to work on a "who
steps on the actuator plate first" system. As you approach your
stopped escalator (with an illuminated sign showing two arrows
pointing up and down) and step onto the flat plate at the start, the
escalator bursts into life, the double arrow light at the start end
changes to a single arrow pointing in the direction of travel and the
double arrow at the terminus end changes to a "No Entry" type
roundel. The escalator keeps going for as long as people keep
stepping on the actuator plate, then after it has moved sufficient
distance to transport the last person to step on the actuator to the
other end, it runs for about another 5 seconds then stops and goes
back into "first-come" mode. Of course, for the impartial observer,
this provides for some most amusing spectating of "can I get to the
actuator before that bugger coming the other way" type racing.

So if two people approach two escalators from the top, both escalators
start running down, and then a trainfull of people arrive at the bottom
with no up escalator for them?
From what I can remember (most of my jaunts around Munich have involved
pub-crawls, so details are sometimes a bit hazy) if there is more than one
flight of escalators in a stairwell there is a dedicated "up" one and a
dedicated "down" one. The two way ones seem to be where there is only one
escalator in a stairwell. Most stations that I have used have multiple
entrance/exits that only get one escalator each, however the main entrances
to busy stations in the middle of town often have 4 escalators (2 up, 2
down) available. These still go to sleep when no-one is using them but the
light up signs indicating DOT remain illuminated so you know which actuator
plate to step on.
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change jealous to sad to reply.