The most dangerous thing about Tube escalators is probably getting your laces caught in the gaps but when London Underground opened the first ever escalator at Earls Court station in 1911, the public was terrified of this strange new moving staircase. So much so that it is said that they hired an engineer with one leg to ride up and down for the entire opening day.
William ‘Bumper’ Harris is said to have lost a leg in a train accident, but his ease using the new escalator put the public at rest.
There are doubts as to whether Bumper really existed but he is commemorated with a tiny figurine at the London Transport Museum.
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