Västra Skogen Escalator – Stockholm, Sweden - Atlas Obscura
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Västra Skogen Escalator

Stockholm, Sweden

A Stockholm metro station is home to an escalator that is not only the longest in Sweden, but among the longest in the world.  

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People always had an obsession with records, taking immense pride in having the biggest, longest, oldest, or smallest version of a thing. Sometimes the records are small, and only count for a neighborhood or city, and sometimes they cover a country or even more. The exact object can seem very arbitrary, like the world’s biggest Dalarna horse, which is located not far from the world’s smallest Dalarna horse.

The Västra Skogen area of Stockholm does not pride with Dalarna horses, but rather with Sweden’s longest escalator. This escalator measures a staggering 66 meters  (217 feet) long, and descends 33 meters (108 feet) into the ground. This makes it the ninth-longest in the world and the fifth-largest in Western Europe. (All titles which you can find being used.) 

The escalator is part of the Stockholm Metro Art Gallery and is decorated in a way that both shows off its length, and the difference between the over and underworlds. At the top, riders are met with smooth walls and bright colors that fade away into a ghostly white as they travel farther down.

At the halfway point, a checkered mosaic signals the midpoint of the journey. After that, the walls become rough and wild, showing the naked rock walls of the tunnel itself. You have now entered the underworld. The location is popular amongst children and escalator enthusiasts. 

A journey on the escalator takes approximately one minute and 24 seconds. The platform is another seven meters down, which is bridged with a shorter, non-record holding, escalator. 

Know Before You Go

You need a metro ticket to access the escelator. There is only one exit to the building, so you can't miss it. 

escalators world's longest records stairs subways transportation
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Published
September 10, 2021
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