The World’s Smallest Escalator Is Useless



The escalator is one of humanity’s most useful inventions, allowing people to effortlessly travel between floors in places where elevators would be impractical. However, the world’s smallest escalator is pretty much useless. Holding no purpose other than to claim the Guinness record for the world’s smallest escalator, a 5-step, 32.8-inch escalator in the basement of More’s Department Store in Kawasaki, Japan, is considered more of a tourist attraction than a useful piece of technology. While it’s usable, its five steps offer no real benefit to riders over traditional stairs. In 1989, its designers wanted to connect the store’s underground level to that of the adjacent Azalea underground shopping center. They weren’t perfectly aligned, so even though the difference in levels wasn’t that great, they decided to implement a set of conventional stairs and a small escalator………only that escalator ended up shorter than they planned because of a design oversight. After failing to fulfill its original purpose of connecting the floors, it just connects to a short set of conventional steps, making it virtually useless.