Ride this escalator with us to the very top!

We are in Australia, at Westfield Sydney, a large upmarket shopping centre located underneath the Sydney Tower on Pitt Street Mall, and it has an awesome escalator! It’s a Schindler 9300 AE model and it was installed in 2010.

A few things you may not know about the “ups and downs” of escalator history:
- In 1859 the escalator was FIRST PATENTED, and it was designed to either run by water power or hand-crank power. However, no actual working escalator was built until 1896, when the world’s FIRST ESCALATOR WAS INSTALLED at Coney Island, New York.
- In 1900, the first step-type escalator was installed by Otis at the Paris 1900 Exposition. The escalator won first prize.
- Nowadays, SCHINDLER the largest escalator manufacturer in the world.
- THE WORLD’S SHORTEST escalator is in the basement of More’s Department Store in Kawasaki, Japan. With only 5 steps, the escalator has a modest rise of 32.8 inches (83.4 cm). Of course, since it was recognized as the world’s shortest escalator by the Guinness Book of Records back in 1989, it’s possible a shorter, even more useless escalator now exists.
- THE WORLD’S LONGEST FREESTANDING escalator is in the CNN building in Atlanta, Georgia and it measures 193 ft long (58.83m). The escalator ascends eight stories as part of the CNN Studio Tour.
- THE LONGEST ESCALATOR IN THE WORLD is also the world’s longest covered walkway. It was installed in Hong Kong in 1993. This escalator is 800 metres long and rises 135 metres in elevation over the journey, making it also THE TALLEST ESCALATOR IN THE WORLD !