As you write up an escalator.

You've seen this view plenty of times, but have you

seen this view? Or this view. In today's video, I'd like to show you how an
escalator works. It's hard to imagine the modern world without the escalator.

It was initially called the revolving stairs. The first idea can be traced back to
1859.

But it was a few more decades until we had our first working escalator.

Since then, society has come to heavily depend on these machines. The escalator is
most useful in places where there are large amounts of people to move, such as
airports, shopping malls and subway systems. Elevators can only move so many
people, even if there are several of them. But if the same space is used for
escalators, we can move a lot more people through. Of course, there's usually an
elevator nearby. For those that can't use the escalator, you'll usually find at
least two escalators alongside each other, one going up and the other going down.

They can extend from multiple levels sometimes to save space. They'll be arranged
in a crisscross pattern. But the layout will change depending on the needs of the
place. Some escalators might need to be longer or shorter, depending on the height
of the next floor. Maybe they'll need to be wider to fit more people or several
escalators might need to be right next to each other. Sometimes stairs are in the
middle for those that want to walk and on some occasions the escalators will all be
pointed in the same direction.

This helps when you want to direct the flow of traffic towards the exit.

Let's not forget the variations such as the moving sidewalks or even the spiral
escalators. Yes, they really do have these. But for this video, let's take a look
inside of a regular escalator.

There's a series of individual steps that make up the moving stairs. They have
ridges on the top and are sometimes made out of rubber so that they have better
grip.

The steps are painted yellow around the edge to encourage passengers not to stand
too close to the edge.

These steps stay flat while they're on top, and it's a good thing, too. Each step
has two wheels on the bottom to guide it as it moves along. Then we have what's
called the step chain. This attaches to the top of each step. Now, all we need is a
track system to guide these wheels. The step chain rolls along the top here and the
bottom wheels roll along this track. The positioning of these tracks is what keeps
the steps level.

Let's just focus on one of the steps as it comes down. You can see what would
happen if this bottom wheels just a little bit higher. The step would no longer be
flat.

Once we get to the end, the steps flip over and come around the other side. The
same thing happens once we get back to the top here. The escalator motor is usually
up at the top. It has to move this axle and two big gears that pull the step chain.
Now, we just connected with mortgagers and a roller chain. Now comes a few more
Geer's. These are connected by another small chain underneath. This is what moves
the handrail.

It's really important that the handrail move at the exact same speed as the steps.

All of these parts are placed inside a strong metal frame, which is called the
truss.

At the top and bottom of the escalator is what we call the complaint. The steps go
right underneath. Is there ridges fit close together? If the ridges weren't there,
it would be much easier for something to get stuck. But either way, just remember
that it's never a good idea to play around an escalator. My name's Jared and I love
3D animation. Hit that subscribe button if you want to see more videos, just like
this one.