Stairs, Lifts, Escalators and Luggage

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter May 2025

Over the years, urban transport systems such as rail and light rail, have been built further and further from ground level, facilitated by the successive invention of stairs, lifts and escalators. Over a four part series Dick Dunmore looks at the history of these approaches in London and the possible future challenges.

Part 1: the technologies emerge

1863: stairs

London gained, in 1863, the world’s first underground railway, the Metropolitan line between Farringdon and Paddington. It was built as a commercial venture by cut and cover, generally just deep enough to squeeze a pedestrian cross-passage below the road and above the trains, as at Euston Square. Access from street to platforms was stairs. The line was successful, and soon other cut and cover lines were built, including the whole of the current Circle line. Other early systems such as Paris (1900) and New York (1904) began with a similar approach.

1890: lifts and emergency stairs

1890 saw the first deep tube railway, the City and South London Railway, which went beneath the Thames and hence had deeper stations. The 1884 Bill specified that there be hydraulic lifts, which had first been tested in 1823 and had become seen as a proven technology, often with short flights of steps to platform level. Much of the line is now part of the Northern line, and Borough station’s lift still use the original 17-metre deep lift shaft.

One limitation of lifts is that their hourly capacity declines both with depth, because each round trip up and down takes longer, and with size, because more time is required for passengers to board and alight. Capacity is therefore maintained or expanded by adding lifts, which also allow more frequent departures and shorter waiting times. At the deepest tube station, Hampstead, 55 metres beneath Hampstead Heath, there are three, and at Bank there are four down to the Northern line. Lifts can also have entry at one end and exit at the other, allowing boarding to begin before alighting has ended. Motor and other equipment can be above ground level, parts and equipment can be raised and lowered in the shaft, and lifts in separate shafts can be worked on independently.

1911: escalators, lifts and emergency stairs

A new invention, the escalator, first introduced at Earls Court in 1911, changed all that. Up and down journeys were always separated, boarding and alighting were always at opposite ends, and steps appeared at a constant rate, so although journey time increased with depth, hourly capacity remained fixed and waiting time was almost eliminated. Escalators were, in effect, an enormous bank of tiny lifts, offering not only more than one departure every second but also the option of walking forwards onto an earlier ‘departure’. They required shafts to be inclined, rather than vertical, but capacity could be increased with larger shafts holding more escalators. Holborn gained a bank of four in 1933 with a 23.4-metre rise, exceeded by the bank of three at Angel in 1992 with a 27-metre rise.

Over time, passenger volumes grew, and depths increased as new lines had to pass beneath existing ones, with exceptions such as the 1960s Victoria line at Kings Cross, and the 2020s Elizabeth line at Tottenham Court Road, both above the earlier Northern line. Stations which were becoming busier, or served by more lines, required additional capacity, and often had escalators retrofitted to replace or complement the original lifts. The engineering was not always ideal: in some cases, the escalator was part of the structure, rather than an independent item resting on a solid base.

Part 2: ‘the rise and fall of the escalator’ will describe how escalators may now be falling out of favour.