No shortages of these things at airports, though. We could certainly do with a travolator between Euston and Kings Cross/St Pancras, I reckon. That journey is a pain in the neck with luggage whichever way you do it. I remember decades back travolators were also suggested for a plan for the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street. That, I'd have liked to have seen.
My eldest brother was an engineer with Otis Elevators, which was called Waygood Otis at the time, from the late 1950's until he retired around 2001. I remember him telling me he was working on this new fangled Travelator thing on the underground when I was a kid but I never actually experienced one for myself until some years later when I was travelling abroad on holiday, from Gatwick I think.
0:22 "I'll let you guess which stations." Come on, you have to tell us, it could be ANY 2 of the Waterloo & City Line stations! The possibilities are endless.
@@highpath4776 Of course, Partick is the only direct interchange between the national rail network and the Subway, but even this wasn't always the case. It's only existed in that form since 1980, when the modernized Subway and the reopened Argyle Line (the name for the line between Finnieston and Rutherglen via Glasgow Central Low Level) opened for business a few months apart (both were formally reopened by the Queen in November 1979, but the Subway didn't open it's doors to the public until April 1980). Both British Rail and the Subway had stations in the area that were closed in favour of this new interchange (Partickhill for the former, Merkland Street for the latter). As a final point of relevance, Merkland Street is the only station on the Subway that was closed permanently.
Bank 'station' really is such a dogs dinner. The Waterloo and City is so far away from the actual Bank junction, halfway down Queen Victoria Street and the DLR is so deep and remote from the rest of the other lines. Just imagine if the Great Northern line had continued as initially planned from Moorgate to Lothbury, that too would have proberbly have been named 'Bank' and been linked by some endless walkway!
Quite so. Monument station, via the infamous "escalator connection" that used to appear on Tube maps, is closer to many parts of Bank station than they are to each other. The current tube map shows them as a single interchange (like Chatelet-Les Halles) and it does seen roughly geographically correct in its indications of which lines are closest to each other.
Building "multi-stage" express moving walkways to resolve a city's traffic problems is really an old idea, from the 19th century. And yet we still use trains in mass transit systems. I think the basic problem with the idea is that a system that is really fast and effective needs a lot of dead mass to be moved around and it'd be very energy consuming. Like, with cablecar systems: some 95% of the energy used to go into keep the rope moving, and that's just a single rope.
@@mancubwwa Oh, they can do curves! The moving walkway in the underwater tunnel at the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium 上海海洋水族馆 (international address code: HT-GX-HR-PJ) is a nice example for that; here's a photo [...] - EDIT: Google removed my comment after a few seconds, seems this US-American company does not like a link to a Chinese website :-(
Can't really see the Underground ever being replaced. It'll change and evolve - the trains will be different and probably more automated, and the stations will be rejiggled and improved, but ultimately there really isn't a better system for efficiently transporting a huge amount of people from one destination to another as fast as possible. If it wasn't for the fact that building a underground metro system is *ridiculously* expensive we'd see other ones across the UK - but in London that cost has already been paid for over the 150+ years the system has been built.
I've been watching a few of your videos now. At the end I've finally worked out you're saying "Hi all!", but it's been coming out on other videos as "Heil!". I thought you were going for something jaunty and provocative!
They have a couple of these at Châtelet-Les Halles in Paris, because the longest distance between all platforms is a whopping half mile/800 metres. The French call them "rolling carpet", which sounds a lot more prosaic than "travelator" if you ask me. And once you've been a couple of minutes on one of these "tapis roulants", you think "how long is this effing thing?" Have to visit London again once it's safe, and provided we don't need to apply for a visa or something.
I wish I could remember the Sci Fi story where cities have traveltor expressways. Even intercity. They ran in bands with the fastest band in the center. You'd step onto the first slow one, like we have in airports, but the one next to it was moving that much faster. It sounded incredibly dangerous.
@@tardis4229 It seems to have been quite a common theme in the 40s and 50s. Heinlein pipped Isaac by 13 years, but I doubt if even he originated the idea.
Otis learned a hard, hard lesson by not trademarking the word Elevator. Hence, when Travelators were no longer, in fact, Travelators, all references using the word hard to be removed.
I love that the photo of the waterloo travelator shows everyone walking down the central reservation to avoid all the people who just stop dead as soon as machinery takes the strain.
Growing up in London in the 60s, I would go trainspotting, Waterloo always good as steam ran till July 67 Alway by Waterloo and city line, I would run down the travelators at the speed of sound. The Southern railway tube type trains were green, and they had a funny but not unpleasant smell
1. Yes, I do like travelators, particularly the Waterloo and City ones. 2. I don't recall walking backwards along a travelator, though I might have done so. I did race a friend up the down escalator at Wanstead station, though (I won, but modesty forbids me from saying so). 3. I don't think that changing the principal mode of transport in the Undergound is the same thing as replacing the Underground. I hope that this helps, best wishes. :)
Many years ago, Michael Bentine narrated a programme looking at modern inventions - one included an external fire escape made up of a tube of elastic which people jumped into, the elasticity slowing their rapid descent, to get into you held the tube to stop the person above and then you jumped into the space in front of them. One invention included a moving walkway with fold-over steps, so you got onto it at a slow pace, and the plates then separated into a faster moving walkway - there were no holes to fall into. If you can find that video...
There was a fun one at Montparnasse Bienvenue on the Paris metro - à long high speed one with rollers at the start and end to accelerate/decelerate you to jogging pace. Closed after a while - too many accidents from people who didn’t obey the ‘stand still on the rollers part’
Great series 😊 When we used to go to London Train Spotting in the late 80’s , to get from Stratford via Bank to Waterloo, we used to run down the Travelator at break nick speed, great fun! Great channel mate, keep up the good work 🙏🚂❤️🎸
With respect to your last item about the proposal for replacing the underground with a travelator system, it looks like the architects had been reading 'The Roads Must Roll' by Robert Heinlein.
I remember going to Gatwick and Heathrow airports in the ate 80's and early 90's, they still had rubber travellators...i rembember the Dunlop logo, and gave you the sensation of bouncing along, very fun
New York has some of the most terrible subway transfers. Atlantic Avenue and Smith-Ninth Street in Brooklyn are some of the worst. Atlantic has multiple subway lines and crammed in the middle is the stub-end Long Island R.R. regional rail service. Smith-Ninth Street is famous because you start in a subway and keep climbing a long ramp until you are nearly 90 feet above the street. At least you do that if you are me as a tourist visiting NYC and not someone who knows better and arranges their trip to walk down the ramp instead.
A bit of history: The subways in NYC were originally designed by three separate companies, originally with no intent to transfer between each other. That's why situations at places like Atlantic Avenue are so weird: you've essentially got two separate railroad systems converging. The only crazier transfer I'd argue would be Fulton Street, where a bunch of transfers between pairs of stations that were close together made up one of the biggest and longest transfers in the system. Seriously, it's so large that it connects 2 stations on the same line (2/3 @ Park Place / Fulton Street).
The only station to have moving walkways was Court Square however they were removed in 2018 after the passageway was expected to see an exponential increase in traffic due to a nearby line shutting down (L Train Shutdown)
considering how many commuters have trouble navigating the impossible task of disembarking the flat moving walkways in Waterloo, I can't see the idea of a high speed running walkway happening anytime ever
The couple of times I went to Bank on the Waterloo and City in the 1950s and 60s were either side of the installation of the Travolator. The first time required going up what seemed to be a never ending corridor punctuated by numerous sets of steps, those old bankers must have got pretty fit doing this every day. I don't remember there being as many steps at the Waterloo end. The Travolator made a huge difference, but if one was still walking quickly at the end one needed to know how to break into a quick sprint; the Travolator was quite fast! (I wonder if it is slower now?) Oh yes, the train entering (or leaving) the tunnel in the model used to introduce the Travolator was a very accurate representation of the shape and colour of the very rattily trains running on that line then.
There's one in Sydney, connecting Hyde Park to an underground carpark, that's very steep at one end. When I was a kid, I used to love running as fast as I could down the steep end, so I'd fly off the end of it. I've only tried the standing still thing on trains, at underground railway stations.
For years the *Otis* company’s UK head offices were based in *Reading.* You can imagine the _soulful_ wags who used to ‘phone up... like that tradition of ringing the eponymous Cambridge college on December 25th: _”Hello, is that ‘Jesus’?”_ Porter *giving world-weary sigh:* _”Yes...”_ _”🎵HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!... 🎶 “_
Replacing it with travellators will just not happen. Can you imagine a 75 year old grandmother using it? I mean without laughing. But it's a ponderance that they exist in the Issac Asimovs early R Daneel robot books. Getting around was accomplished by stepping onto progressively faster travellators until one could reach a carriage.
Interestingly here in Singapore our MRT system has quite a number of them throughout the system, mostly at interchange stations along the transfer walkways. As far as I can remember: Dhoby Ghaut, Serangoon, Botanic Gardens, and Bugis stations have them for that purpose, though the ones at Bugis are pretty useless as they are more like smack in the middle of nowhere and don’t run the full length of the transfer walkway for some stupid reason.
Correction on the architecture firm mentioned in the video. It’s NBBJ (not GBBJ as stated). I happen to work there. The traveler as tube concept is actually quite a fascinating one, though in practicality it would never be done.
Hi Jago, I remember my first sighting of the Travolator. Circa 1960/61. A friend and I came across it by accident and complete surprise. It looked somethimg from the space age, so long, bright and clean (most escelatore's had wooden stairs, dark and dingy). On reaching the bottom seeing the old carriges, which looked like something from a Dan Dare Comic. As the train rattled throgh the tunnel, mostly in the dark. at breakneck speed or so it seemed. It was more like a Ghost Train in a Fairground. Even today it looks modern, and every time i see it now, that first memory comes flooding back. Oh to do that experience again.
Can you imagine the Underground converted to these later travel things? Does that mean travel permitted only at night? Who'd care if it's day or night when you're underground? Ah yes, but install beds on them and you might have a winner. Except I'll still oversleep and end up in St. Albans. Again. Love the vids Jago, keep 'em coming.
Can you imagine the problems of having these outside? Slippery with rain, they'd collect an endless amount of dirt / garbage. It seems like a nightmare from a maintenance point of view.
Not only should we replace the tube lines with travoleators (how do those vowels go?), we should replace lifts with those vertical wind tunnels, and develop supersonic flume technology for main lines.
I went on the travelators a few times and they were fun but it was always how much I could accelerate. Usually not much because the person in front was ever so slow and would stand in the centre. However, I cannot help but think of gladiators whenever I hear travelator and in my mind's eye I imagined commuters rubbing uphill in suit and tie
As an impressionable child and having read "The roads must roll". I agree. They are evil and should be kept under restraint. Preferably at those pernicious hells, international airports!
So true about Bank! Damn, I got lost walking underground one Friday night when rushing for a last tube after several drinks in a near by wine bar. Quite a spooky experience when no one else is in sight. Like something out of the ‘Creep’ movie!! The walk from Bank to Monument is much better above ground than under.
Wow. A massive high speed travelator. What a great idea. What could possibly go wrong with that? For a start, I'm sure that there would never be any health and safety concerns whatsoever.
Perhaps a high-speed travolator might be the way to re-open Aldwych? There are two tunnels, only one of which has tracks in it. So use the other tunnel for this purpose....
the walk to kingsway is ridiculously short,but the only way to get down there is by walking 200 steps and trains will no longer be able to be brought in and out , actualy bad idea
@@bussesandtrains1218 Trains will still be able to go in/out; only one tunnel has a track, the other is empty. I suggested using the empty one, therefore the other can still be used by trains. And 200 steps.... If this IS being realized, it stands to reason that new lifts are installed in the old lift shafts. Yes, I see this probably doesn't have any economic benefit and therefore will not happen. But installing travolators to replace running trains is a terrible idea, so better to see if existing disused tunnels (that also have no railwaytracks at the moment) can be used instead.
Haha omg, I remember years ago, during one of our Friday afternoon discussions in our office, we talked about how you could replace the Waterloo and City Line with a moving walkway. We thought it might speed things up and stop all the crowds. Maybe someone was listening in?!
At the risk of starting another Mine-ories/Min-ories debate, I always thought they were Travel-ators, instead of Travo-laters. At least that's how it's said. Ain't it? Ne'er mind. Laters Homie.
The TTC, in Toronto, had a "moving sidewalk" at Spadina station, but, in the early 1990s, the government slashed TTC funding to almost nothing. The TTC couldn't afford to maintain its infrastructure. The moving sidewalk kept breaking down, and was out of order for years. Finally, with funding and replacement parts no longer available, the TTC removed it completely.
Well, in my city, the only set of travelators has only been in service for 7 months...mind you, the same system have been wholly equipped with platform screen doors or platform edge gates for more than 10 years...
These are all over the Atlanta Hartsfield airport here in America because it is largely a collection of long rectangular corridors which go on for literal miles.
I have when I have had the misfortune to have to change at Bank - generally found it quicker to get out of the system and re-enter at a different point either of the "Bank complex" or at another station.
Not the first time moving walkways have been proposed for longer distances: one was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900! And Isaac Asimov imagined high-speed versions with multiple lanes of different speeds. But people have spent decades trying to find more efficient alternatives to the train, and nothing matches up. I can't imagine any universe in which any kind of travelator replaces the Tube. But who knows? Maybe I'll be proven wrong. Doubt I'll be around to see it though.
The NYC Subway had ONE Travolater. It was located at the Court Square Station and I remember riding it as a kid but it was NOTORIOUS for breaking down so it was removed. Didn’t really do much and even when it didn’t work we’d still walk on it!
Sydney in Australia has a longish one that runs from the Domain multistorey carpark to Hyde Park (The cathedral corner). Its 207 metres long, and when it was opened in 1961 it was the longest in the world. Its not very well known, and as it runs from the back of a big carpark, its inconvenient except for the car park users, which is who it was designed for. Its quicker to walk over the top of the Domain, as you have to twist about to discover the entrance! I went on it a couple of times - a bit of fun when visiting Sydney, which incidentally is a great city! Look up "Sydney moving walkway" in Google.
In France were we love everything "grande vitesse" (high speed) at all costs, and the more it costs the more we love it, we had a "high speed moving walkway" in Paris underground, that doubled as an occasional minced meat grinder. It was (as many french technological things) a very expensive and pathetic failure! It was located at Montparnasse station.
The tube has only two travelators (Bank), the ones at Waterloo are "Passenger Conveyors". Perhaps once the asset management systems are amalgamated this will change.
Now there's a funny thing: I was at my local Safebury's, Sainsco, Tesda, Waitdl & Sparks or whatever the shop was (today was a bit of a blur, so sue me) and, as I left the Travelator, I muttered something to the effect of the title of this video. Spooky or what? Were you spying on me? Did the butler do it?
I don’t live in the UK & likely won’t be there anytime soon because ‘Rona. I’m not a train nerd but I love riding in them. I also enjoy a well placed “sliding floor snake”. Yet your channel was recommended by the *algoyou tubesorithim* and you seem very pleasant and made me giggle 🥰 and while I doubt the travolater hates allll animals, wouldn’t it be nice to walk against one for exercise in an outdoor space? Maybe in a glass tube tunnel aesthetic like an airport. Also could they not just use another spelling like _TravElator/Travuhlayder?_ (idk but I subbed yo so cheers 🥂)
I thought a Tail from the Tube was what you found when a rat or cat didn't move its rear from the rail fast enough to avoid the wheel of the train going through.
The station Châtelet of Paris metro has two sets of moving walkways. ( -Between lines 7-11 and the rest of the stations) -Between the RER part and lines 1-7-11. If you transfer between the RER and lines 7 or 11, you will take two travelators. The station Montparnasse bienvenue is also notorious for it's long transfer. There is a set of moving walkway between the lines 4-12 and lines 6-13 part of the station. Fortunately you only have to take it if you transfer between lines 4 and 13 or between the south of line 12 and the south of line 13. Unfortunately, you have to take it if you transfer between lines 4/12 and the main line train station.
Thyssen Krupp have a variable speed travelator, slow at the start and end but does a weird extension/contraction of the footplates to speed you up in the middle.
ThyssenKrupp have really interesting ideas. I like their “sideways maglev track” elevators that can go sideways and share multiple cars in a single shaft with passing places. I think they could make really large stations easier to get around if they were designed carefully (possibly repurposing long corridors and an escalator or two along the way?)
(As opposed to the truely dreadful 'another station, another mile' videos which as little more than shot-for-shot copies of Marshalls videos - really painful to watch)
I liked the idea of citywide fast moving walkways since I first encountered them in the Asimov book "The Caves of Steel" a great read which also highlights a possible problem with them...
We had probably the most pointless travelator in my home town of Wolverhampton, it was about 30 feet long, in the Mander Centre, and yes, using them to replace the tube is a crazy idea
Travelator always walk the wrong way 😊👍 love the travelling on travelators we have a short travelator at our local Tesco to the first floor. It would be a good idea to replace trains and have a travelator on one of the circle lines the longest travelator in the World 😁😲cool
Its nicer to run down the steps. Pain to come up them, at bank the final incline you walk on is quite steep, but when additional exits went in when the mapping and webb building was replaced so turning back to tescos up top is easier
Well I don't try to look like I'm standing still, but I always tried to run up the down escalator in my local shopping centre when I was younger. And yes, it was hard. Didn't stop it from being fun, though.
" ..... is evil and probably hates animals." Brilliant.
No shortages of these things at airports, though. We could certainly do with a travolator between Euston and Kings Cross/St Pancras, I reckon. That journey is a pain in the neck with luggage whichever way you do it. I remember decades back travolators were also suggested for a plan for the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street. That, I'd have liked to have seen.
Yes, the walk between Kings Cross to platform 9 3/4 is painful
If Crossrail 2 is successful, I guess the station called "Euston St Pancras" will get you that moving walkway.
Moving walkway!
There's one in the Montparnasse-Bienvenüe metro station in Paris that moves at a whopping 9km/h (5.6mph).
My eldest brother was an engineer with Otis Elevators, which was called Waygood Otis at the time, from the late 1950's until he retired around 2001. I remember him telling me he was working on this new fangled Travelator thing on the underground when I was a kid but I never actually experienced one for myself until some years later when I was travelling abroad on holiday, from Gatwick I think.
0:22 "I'll let you guess which stations."
Come on, you have to tell us, it could be ANY 2 of the Waterloo & City Line stations! The possibilities are endless.
My edit would be the possibilities are beginingless.😉
@@chrisstephens6673 There are some at the Heathrow end, but are they airport ones or LUL ones
@@highpath4776 I think the first time I've seen such a thing in my life was there. And they definitely took me to the tube. They were fun...
Don’t forget the ghost station at the halfway point ;)
The Glasgow Subway may be tiny by comparison with the Tube, but it has nearly as many travelators (ie one).
Ohh , where is that, I have done Paisley To Paisley (anti clockwise) and visited St Enoch and museum.
@@highpath4776 Buchanan Street. I don't think you meant Paisley as it's not on the Subway...
Oops, Partick.
@@highpath4776 Of course, Partick is the only direct interchange between the national rail network and the Subway, but even this wasn't always the case. It's only existed in that form since 1980, when the modernized Subway and the reopened Argyle Line (the name for the line between Finnieston and Rutherglen via Glasgow Central Low Level) opened for business a few months apart (both were formally reopened by the Queen in November 1979, but the Subway didn't open it's doors to the public until April 1980). Both British Rail and the Subway had stations in the area that were closed in favour of this new interchange (Partickhill for the former, Merkland Street for the latter). As a final point of relevance, Merkland Street is the only station on the Subway that was closed permanently.
@@davidpanton3192 is that reopened now? It was closed for ages, which sucked
Bank 'station' really is such a dogs dinner. The Waterloo and City is so far away from the actual Bank junction, halfway down Queen Victoria Street and the DLR is so deep and remote from the rest of the other lines. Just imagine if the Great Northern line had continued as initially planned from Moorgate to Lothbury, that too would have proberbly have been named 'Bank' and been linked by some endless walkway!
Quite so. Monument station, via the infamous "escalator connection" that used to appear on Tube maps, is closer to many parts of Bank station than they are to each other. The current tube map shows them as a single interchange (like Chatelet-Les Halles) and it does seen roughly geographically correct in its indications of which lines are closest to each other.
In a while, turnstile
Love the ending haha. I think that the underground will remain for the foreseeable future. Maybe in 30 years or so they'll be replaced
Building "multi-stage" express moving walkways to resolve a city's traffic problems is really an old idea, from the 19th century. And yet we still use trains in mass transit systems.
I think the basic problem with the idea is that a system that is really fast and effective needs a lot of dead mass to be moved around and it'd be very energy consuming. Like, with cablecar systems: some 95% of the energy used to go into keep the rope moving, and that's just a single rope.
@@comandanteej also travolators don't do curves.
@@mancubwwa Oh, they can do curves! The moving walkway in the underwater tunnel at the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium 上海海洋水族馆 (international address code: HT-GX-HR-PJ) is a nice example for that; here's a photo [...] - EDIT: Google removed my comment after a few seconds, seems this US-American company does not like a link to a Chinese website :-(
Can't really see the Underground ever being replaced. It'll change and evolve - the trains will be different and probably more automated, and the stations will be rejiggled and improved, but ultimately there really isn't a better system for efficiently transporting a huge amount of people from one destination to another as fast as possible. If it wasn't for the fact that building a underground metro system is *ridiculously* expensive we'd see other ones across the UK - but in London that cost has already been paid for over the 150+ years the system has been built.
See ua-cam.com/video/VYko6Zov3rA/v-deo.html for the next big thing in transportation. According to the 1950s.
Hello from Colorado, USA! We love London and the Tube. Glad to have found another London-themed channel to subscribe to. Thanks for your efforts.
"But some people have bigger plans..."
And there was me expecting Jago (the sarcastic) to say "teleporters"
Now there’s a thought!
Now that would be interesting 😂
@@JagoHazzard Remember BR had a patent for a Flying Saucer so maybe teleportation might not be as daft (ish)
Ah yes, I often wonder how serious they were about that patent. Was there a spaceship under a tarpaulin at Eastleigh, for instance?
@@JagoHazzard If it was Eastleigh was it one of the pre-cast concrete circular structures that supposedly Nazi Germany were working on in the 1930s ?
I've been watching a few of your videos now. At the end I've finally worked out you're saying "Hi all!", but it's been coming out on other videos as "Heil!". I thought you were going for something jaunty and provocative!
They have a couple of these at Châtelet-Les Halles in Paris, because the longest distance between all platforms is a whopping half mile/800 metres. The French call them "rolling carpet", which sounds a lot more prosaic than "travelator" if you ask me. And once you've been a couple of minutes on one of these "tapis roulants", you think "how long is this effing thing?"
Have to visit London again once it's safe, and provided we don't need to apply for a visa or something.
I wish I could remember the Sci Fi story where cities have traveltor expressways. Even intercity. They ran in bands with the fastest band in the center. You'd step onto the first slow one, like we have in airports, but the one next to it was moving that much faster. It sounded incredibly dangerous.
The Roads Must Roll
The Caves of Steel (Asimov)
@@tardis4229 It seems to have been quite a common theme in the 40s and 50s. Heinlein pipped Isaac by 13 years, but I doubt if even he originated the idea.
@@cargy930 ua-cam.com/video/VYko6Zov3rA/v-deo.html
@@Ghauster Thanks, for the link. I've already seen it (listened to it, technically!) but I appreciate the thought.
Ah yes Bank... I swear I saw a man wandering the passageways unravelling a ball of string closely pursued by a tall bloke with horns.
Otis learned a hard, hard lesson by not trademarking the word Elevator. Hence, when Travelators were no longer, in fact, Travelators, all references using the word hard to be removed.
I love that the photo of the waterloo travelator shows everyone walking down the central reservation to avoid all the people who just stop dead as soon as machinery takes the strain.
Growing up in London in the 60s, I would go trainspotting, Waterloo always good as steam ran till July 67
Alway by Waterloo and city line, I would run down the travelators at the speed of sound.
The Southern railway tube type trains were green, and they had a funny but not unpleasant smell
That funny smell was the people arriving from Hastings - esp in 67 when the pier attracted some rock giants...
I only remember them in the BR Blue Era.
1. Yes, I do like travelators, particularly the Waterloo and City ones.
2. I don't recall walking backwards along a travelator, though I might have done so. I did race a friend up the down escalator at Wanstead station, though (I won, but modesty forbids me from saying so).
3. I don't think that changing the principal mode of transport in the Undergound is the same thing as replacing the Underground.
I hope that this helps, best wishes. :)
a travelator system is possible there.
@@SamSitar
Where, Wanstead? Where to, the cellar of The George? ;)
I think the moving walkway idea has legs - as an augmentation of the tube as opposed to a replacement
Many years ago, Michael Bentine narrated a programme looking at modern inventions - one included an external fire escape made up of a tube of elastic which people jumped into, the elasticity slowing their rapid descent, to get into you held the tube to stop the person above and then you jumped into the space in front of them. One invention included a moving walkway with fold-over steps, so you got onto it at a slow pace, and the plates then separated into a faster moving walkway - there were no holes to fall into. If you can find that video...
There was a fun one at Montparnasse Bienvenue on the Paris metro - à long high speed one with rollers at the start and end to accelerate/decelerate you to jogging pace. Closed after a while - too many accidents from people who didn’t obey the ‘stand still on the rollers part’
I like when u get off and feel like you’re SpeedRacer
Love an architectural model! The ending made me laugh 😂
I'm guessing the model is in the London Transport museum.
Great series 😊 When we used to go to London Train Spotting in the late 80’s , to get from Stratford via Bank to Waterloo, we used to run down the Travelator at break nick speed, great fun! Great channel mate, keep up the good work 🙏🚂❤️🎸
Thanks!
With respect to your last item about the proposal for replacing the underground with a travelator system, it looks like the architects had been reading 'The Roads Must Roll' by Robert Heinlein.
I remember going to Gatwick and Heathrow airports in the ate 80's and early 90's, they still had rubber travellators...i rembember the Dunlop logo, and gave you the sensation of bouncing along, very fun
New York has some of the most terrible subway transfers. Atlantic Avenue and Smith-Ninth Street in Brooklyn are some of the worst. Atlantic has multiple subway lines and crammed in the middle is the stub-end Long Island R.R. regional rail service. Smith-Ninth Street is famous because you start in a subway and keep climbing a long ramp until you are nearly 90 feet above the street. At least you do that if you are me as a tourist visiting NYC and not someone who knows better and arranges their trip to walk down the ramp instead.
so the nyc subway looks like a jigsaw puzzle.
A bit of history: The subways in NYC were originally designed by three separate companies, originally with no intent to transfer between each other. That's why situations at places like Atlantic Avenue are so weird: you've essentially got two separate railroad systems converging. The only crazier transfer I'd argue would be Fulton Street, where a bunch of transfers between pairs of stations that were close together made up one of the biggest and longest transfers in the system. Seriously, it's so large that it connects 2 stations on the same line (2/3 @ Park Place / Fulton Street).
Thomas Kain similar to early LU then; except they would happily sell you an interchange ticket
The only station to have moving walkways was Court Square however they were removed in 2018 after the passageway was expected to see an exponential increase in traffic due to a nearby line shutting down (L Train Shutdown)
considering how many commuters have trouble navigating the impossible task of disembarking the flat moving walkways in Waterloo, I can't see the idea of a high speed running walkway happening anytime ever
Those things are everywhere in airports! For obvious reasons
And if the Underground was ever replaced, I'd probably never go outside ever again
I love a travelator. They remind me of 60s style looks into the future. I feel like Jane Jetson going to pick up the dog from the hyper vet.
The couple of times I went to Bank on the Waterloo and City in the 1950s and 60s were either side of the installation of the Travolator. The first time required going up what seemed to be a never ending corridor punctuated by numerous sets of steps, those old bankers must have got pretty fit doing this every day. I don't remember there being as many steps at the Waterloo end. The Travolator made a huge difference, but if one was still walking quickly at the end one needed to know how to break into a quick sprint; the Travolator was quite fast! (I wonder if it is slower now?) Oh yes, the train entering (or leaving) the tunnel in the model used to introduce the Travolator was a very accurate representation of the shape and colour of the very rattily trains running on that line then.
you sure CONVEYED your opinion hehehe
I like to face the wrong way and walk slightly slower than the travelator so it looks like I’m Moonwalking.
I've only ever used the Waterloo one, and until very recently didn't know that there was one at Bank as well.
There's one in Sydney, connecting Hyde Park to an underground carpark, that's very steep at one end. When I was a kid, I used to love running as fast as I could down the steep end, so I'd fly off the end of it. I've only tried the standing still thing on trains, at underground railway stations.
For years the *Otis* company’s UK head offices were based in *Reading.* You can imagine the _soulful_ wags who used to ‘phone up... like that tradition of ringing the eponymous Cambridge college on December 25th:
_”Hello, is that ‘Jesus’?”_
Porter *giving world-weary sigh:* _”Yes...”_
_”🎵HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!... 🎶 “_
Thanks for the video.
Very moving
Grocery shopping with Mom = boredom so I played on the "moving ramp" at the Valley Forge Shopping Center back in the sixties .
Replacing it with travellators will just not happen. Can you imagine a 75 year old grandmother using it? I mean without laughing.
But it's a ponderance that they exist in the Issac Asimovs early R Daneel robot books. Getting around was accomplished by stepping onto progressively faster travellators until one could reach a carriage.
There are quite a few of those at stations of the Lisbon metro stations and I think they're quite convenient.
Interestingly here in Singapore our MRT system has quite a number of them throughout the system, mostly at interchange stations along the transfer walkways. As far as I can remember: Dhoby Ghaut, Serangoon, Botanic Gardens, and Bugis stations have them for that purpose, though the ones at Bugis are pretty useless as they are more like smack in the middle of nowhere and don’t run the full length of the transfer walkway for some stupid reason.
Correction on the architecture firm mentioned in the video. It’s NBBJ (not GBBJ as stated). I happen to work there. The traveler as tube concept is actually quite a fascinating one, though in practicality it would never be done.
Hi Jago, I remember my first sighting of the Travolator. Circa 1960/61. A friend and I came across it by accident and complete surprise. It looked somethimg from the space age, so long, bright and clean (most escelatore's had wooden stairs, dark and dingy). On reaching the bottom seeing the old carriges, which looked like something from a Dan Dare Comic. As the train rattled throgh the tunnel, mostly in the dark. at breakneck speed or so it seemed. It was more like a Ghost Train in a Fairground. Even today it looks modern, and every time i see it now, that first memory comes flooding back. Oh to do that experience again.
Can you imagine the Underground converted to these later travel things? Does that mean travel permitted only at night? Who'd care if it's day or night when you're underground? Ah yes, but install beds on them and you might have a winner. Except I'll still oversleep and end up in St. Albans. Again. Love the vids Jago, keep 'em coming.
Have some at Birmingham NEC, although not always working. Good video.
Can you imagine the problems of having these outside? Slippery with rain, they'd collect an endless amount of dirt / garbage.
It seems like a nightmare from a maintenance point of view.
Never used the one at Bank but I do like the burst of speed from walking the one at Waterloo.
We have these as well on the Paris Metro, the most notable examples being at Châtelet - Les Halles and Montparnasse - Bienvenüe stations.
I would consider the enormous safety implacations of a miles long high speed mechanical treadmill but yeah they would do that thing you described lmao
Not only should we replace the tube lines with travoleators (how do those vowels go?), we should replace lifts with those vertical wind tunnels, and develop supersonic flume technology for main lines.
The Jubilee line connection to Piccadilly at Green Park really needs one! It is exhausting having to rush down that long corridor
I went on the travelators a few times and they were fun but it was always how much I could accelerate. Usually not much because the person in front was ever so slow and would stand in the centre.
However, I cannot help but think of gladiators whenever I hear travelator and in my mind's eye I imagined commuters rubbing uphill in suit and tie
Stand on the right!
I love them, it makes me feel like a superhero with super fast walking abilities.
As an impressionable child and having read "The roads must roll". I agree. They are evil and should be kept under restraint. Preferably at those pernicious hells, international airports!
So true about Bank! Damn, I got lost walking underground one Friday night when rushing for a last tube after several drinks in a near by wine bar. Quite a spooky experience when no one else is in sight. Like something out of the ‘Creep’ movie!!
The walk from Bank to Monument is much better above ground than under.
The Montreal Metro has at least one Travelator-style walkway. I've used that particular walkway but I can't remember the station where it is.
Wow. A massive high speed travelator. What a great idea. What could possibly go wrong with that? For a start, I'm sure that there would never be any health and safety concerns whatsoever.
Two jokes in one episode, haha, you’re killing me! 😂😂😂
Perhaps a high-speed travolator might be the way to re-open Aldwych? There are two tunnels, only one of which has tracks in it. So use the other tunnel for this purpose....
the walk to kingsway is ridiculously short,but the only way to get down there is by walking 200 steps and trains will no longer be able to be brought in and out , actualy bad idea
@@bussesandtrains1218 Trains will still be able to go in/out; only one tunnel has a track, the other is empty. I suggested using the empty one, therefore the other can still be used by trains. And 200 steps.... If this IS being realized, it stands to reason that new lifts are installed in the old lift shafts. Yes, I see this probably doesn't have any economic benefit and therefore will not happen. But installing travolators to replace running trains is a terrible idea, so better to see if existing disused tunnels (that also have no railwaytracks at the moment) can be used instead.
@@bussesandtrains1218 not for passengers from holborn
@@hx0d so what?
@@bussesandtrains1218 it would make holborn easier to get to and also would give it more capacity
Haha omg, I remember years ago, during one of our Friday afternoon discussions in our office, we talked about how you could replace the Waterloo and City Line with a moving walkway. We thought it might speed things up and stop all the crowds. Maybe someone was listening in?!
At the risk of starting another Mine-ories/Min-ories debate, I always thought they were Travel-ators, instead of Travo-laters. At least that's how it's said. Ain't it? Ne'er mind. Laters Homie.
Moonwalking on travelators... loved the balanced opinion in outro btw!
The TTC, in Toronto, had a "moving sidewalk" at Spadina station, but, in the early 1990s, the government slashed TTC funding to almost nothing. The TTC couldn't afford to maintain its infrastructure. The moving sidewalk kept breaking down, and was out of order for years. Finally, with funding and replacement parts no longer available, the TTC removed it completely.
But signage warning about it persisted for years after
@@raakone to this day the words "please hold the handrail" are engraved on the walls, even though there hasn't been a handrail for decades
I knew there was one at Waterloo but I didn't know there was one at Bank lol
I say replace the whole Tube, DLR and Network Rail with Heathrow-style pods. Then focus funding on research to improve speed and batteries/power.
Might need them, if they were self cleaning and went vertical at the terminal stations to exit to street level even better
I've been along the walkways at Waterloo many times. Don't think I've ever seen them moving.
So it was constructed 1960, very interesting. There is one at Waterloo too. Connecting Northern and Jubilee.
Well, in my city, the only set of travelators has only been in service for 7 months...mind you, the same system have been wholly equipped with platform screen doors or platform edge gates for more than 10 years...
Yep need screens and doors on all below ground platforms, best investment of funds govt could make to keep people working.
These are all over the Atlanta Hartsfield airport here in America because it is largely a collection of long rectangular corridors which go on for literal miles.
Sounds much more normal at 1.25x speed
I have when I have had the misfortune to have to change at Bank - generally found it quicker to get out of the system and re-enter at a different point either of the "Bank complex" or at another station.
I’m the same - I avoid Bank whenever possible.
@@JagoHazzard
Bank and Green Park - though mostly Bank.
I once led a school party through Green Park changing lines and never again LOL
I see them a lot at airports , but after a long flight its nice to walk. However , at big tube stations I think they are a good idea.
Not the first time moving walkways have been proposed for longer distances: one was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900! And Isaac Asimov imagined high-speed versions with multiple lanes of different speeds. But people have spent decades trying to find more efficient alternatives to the train, and nothing matches up. I can't imagine any universe in which any kind of travelator replaces the Tube. But who knows? Maybe I'll be proven wrong. Doubt I'll be around to see it though.
The NYC Subway had ONE Travolater. It was located at the Court Square Station and I remember riding it as a kid but it was NOTORIOUS for breaking down so it was removed. Didn’t really do much and even when it didn’t work we’d still walk on it!
Sydney in Australia has a longish one that runs from the Domain multistorey carpark to Hyde Park (The cathedral corner). Its 207 metres long, and when it was opened in 1961 it was the longest in the world. Its not very well known, and as it runs from the back of a big carpark, its inconvenient except for the car park users, which is who it was designed for. Its quicker to walk over the top of the Domain, as you have to twist about to discover the entrance! I went on it a couple of times - a bit of fun when visiting Sydney, which incidentally is a great city! Look up "Sydney moving walkway" in Google.
That went quick!
I’ve been on the walking travelator at Bank. Reminds me of going on one at Gatwick Airport.
In France were we love everything "grande vitesse" (high speed) at all costs, and the more it costs the more we love it, we had a "high speed moving walkway" in Paris underground, that doubled as an occasional minced meat grinder. It was (as many french technological things) a very expensive and pathetic failure!
It was located at Montparnasse station.
At least its easier to get to this Travelator as there are no other obstacles in your way unlike in Gladiators.
Well I agree, a gladiator usually is a bit of an obstacle. But do they really have them on the underground?
@@jonistan9268 More likely to be Gladys with her shopping trolley (or "sholley")
The tube has only two travelators (Bank), the ones at Waterloo are "Passenger Conveyors". Perhaps once the asset management systems are amalgamated this will change.
“Passenger conveyor” sounds like a term invented by a manager.
Now there's a funny thing: I was at my local Safebury's, Sainsco, Tesda, Waitdl & Sparks or whatever the shop was (today was a bit of a blur, so sue me) and, as I left the Travelator, I muttered something to the effect of the title of this video. Spooky or what? Were you spying on me? Did the butler do it?
As much as it might pain Jago, I admit I would love to see high speed travolators whisking people around London like in the Jetsons.
I don’t live in the UK & likely won’t be there anytime soon because ‘Rona. I’m not a train nerd but I love riding in them. I also enjoy a well placed “sliding floor snake”. Yet your channel was recommended by the
*algoyou tubesorithim*
and you seem very pleasant and made me giggle 🥰 and while I doubt the travolater hates allll animals, wouldn’t it be nice to walk against one for exercise in an outdoor space? Maybe in a glass tube tunnel aesthetic like an airport. Also could they not just use another spelling like _TravElator/Travuhlayder?_
(idk but I subbed yo so cheers 🥂)
Great video. does anybody else do the little run when you get off the jubilee travolater at waterloo the answer is to stop just before you step off.
Coming soon: a Travolator for pedestrians using the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Why not? :D
I thought a Tail from the Tube was what you found when a rat or cat didn't move its rear from the rail fast enough to avoid the wheel of the train going through.
The station Châtelet of Paris metro has two sets of moving walkways. (
-Between lines 7-11 and the rest of the stations)
-Between the RER part and lines 1-7-11.
If you transfer between the RER and lines 7 or 11, you will take two travelators.
The station Montparnasse bienvenue is also notorious for it's long transfer. There is a set of moving walkway between the lines 4-12 and lines 6-13 part of the station.
Fortunately you only have to take it if you transfer between lines 4 and 13 or between the south of line 12 and the south of line 13.
Unfortunately, you have to take it if you transfer between lines 4/12 and the main line train station.
It looks like that lazy review of Doom Bar is almost turning into a part-time job. Good luck to you!
That ending 😂😂😂
Thyssen Krupp have a variable speed travelator, slow at the start and end but does a weird extension/contraction of the footplates to speed you up in the middle.
ThyssenKrupp have really interesting ideas. I like their “sideways maglev track” elevators that can go sideways and share multiple cars in a single shaft with passing places. I think they could make really large stations easier to get around if they were designed carefully (possibly repurposing long corridors and an escalator or two along the way?)
Replacing the tube? Have they gone nuts? Congratz to your 11,6k subs yet. :D
The roads must roll!
Jago - have you considered doing a vid of the old Motorail terminus that used to be at Kensington Olympia?
Well sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine bona fide electrified six car monorail
I did consider the idea recently - I was doing some filming there the other day.
I see Geoff Marshall has done something on Olympia but haven't watched it yet
The Jago vids i find more enjoyable. Doesnt take himself too seriously, which makes for a nice contrast to Marshalls efforts.
(As opposed to the truely dreadful 'another station, another mile' videos which as little more than shot-for-shot copies of Marshalls videos - really painful to watch)
My first experience of these was at LHR in the late 1970's.
I thought this was going to be a farewell video.. as in you were leaving! L0L
I liked the idea of citywide fast moving walkways since I first encountered them in the Asimov book "The Caves of Steel" a great read which also highlights a possible problem with them...
Ah yes! It’s a while since I read that one.
Soldier: Whats that? Waterloo isnt a waterpark?
Fall back, men! Fall back!
We had probably the most pointless travelator in my home town of Wolverhampton, it was about 30 feet long, in the Mander Centre, and yes, using them to replace the tube is a crazy idea
Travelator always walk the wrong way 😊👍 love the travelling on travelators we have a short travelator at our local Tesco to the first floor. It would be a good idea to replace trains and have a travelator on one of the circle lines the longest travelator in the World 😁😲cool
Its nicer to run down the steps. Pain to come up them, at bank the final incline you walk on is quite steep, but when additional exits went in when the mapping and webb building was replaced so turning back to tescos up top is easier
Well I don't try to look like I'm standing still, but I always tried to run up the down escalator in my local shopping centre when I was younger. And yes, it was hard. Didn't stop it from being fun, though.