Discover Germany | Culture | Barbara Geier Column
On Germany’s ‘escelatorism’ TEXT & PHOTO: BARBARA GEIER
Now, if it wasn’t for German media I would have missed this: On 16 January 2018, the world celebrated the 125th anniversary of the escalator. Something that seemed to have been missed by UK papers, or at least I didn’t read anything about it, while German papers up and down the country ran stories on this momentous occasion, digging deep into escalator trivia. Which is why I can share the following information with you: Did you know that Hamburg’s dazzling new Elbphilharmonie concert hall, opened last year, is home to a one of a kind representative of the international escalator community: The 82-metre-long escalator taking visitors up to the Plaza, a public viewing platform at a height of 37 metres above ground, is the longest of its kind in western Europe and, according to the Finnish manufacturer, the only one worldwide that forms an arc. The ride up takes two and a half minutes and the escalator is, incidentally, called ‘Tube’. I now also know, and am very happy to impart the following snippet of ‘escelatorism’ to you too, that Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft, or short MVG, the company operating Munich’s public transport, is one of the biggest escalator operators in the whole of Germany, with 771 escalators under their control, transporting up to 6,500 passengers per hour. Remember it, people! Might come in handy one day, you never know. Germany’s biggest steel company thyssenkrupp also used the occasion for 98 | Issue 59 | February 2018
a bit of corporate PR: The multinational conglomerate issued a press release assuring the world that, while it might have been the American engineer Jesse Reno who invented the first working escalator that was put into operation as a so-called ‘incline elevator’ on 16 January 1893, it was, of course, thyssenkrupp who ‘perfected’ the technology over the decades. And here are the facts: thyssenkrupp, running Germany’s only factory for escalators in Hamburg, maintains about 25,000 escalators in Europe and installs the moving stairs all around the world. Apparently, if all escalators installed by the company were joined together, they would be long enough to scale a 500-kilometre-high mountain. Ok. They love their numbers big, in these corporate PR departments, don’t they? And should you be after a mini escalator or a longer version, don’t hesitate to call thyssenkrupp either: They offer 890 centimetre options as well as 53,68 metre ones (not as long as the ones from their Finnish colleagues, though!), plus so-called ‘Royal Mode’ escalators for kings and queens, with easy operation by pressing a button. Ok, enough of that. This whole escalator anniversary business in the end also reminded me of one of the things I most like to ‘complain’ about when back in Germany: Why, oh why does everything, or rather everyone stop on escalators (exaggerating slightly for the purposes of this column)? During my recent “back home for Christmas” stay
in Germany, I had the usual moments of mild rage in department stores or at the station when, still in my manic London mode, I was stuck on escalators because people stand right, left and everywhere. But hey, I’m telling myself then, you’re back in the country of ‘Gemütlichkeit’ that still manages to be one of the most productive and efficient in the world. Not the worst combination, after all.
Barbara Geier is a London-based freelance writer, translator and communications consultant. She is also the face behind www.germanyiswunderbar.com, a German travel and tourism guide and blog that was set up together with UK travel writer Andrew Eames in 2010.