What is a “Horizontal Lift” you may ask? Well it a unique subway station design only found in St Petersburg, Russia. St Peterburg’s subway system was built in the late 1950’s when the city was known as Leningrad and Soviet Russia was in the middle of the Cold War. The cities subway system is not only one of the most beautiful in the world but also one of the deepest with 53 of its stations being deep level. At the time of building, Leningrad pioneered the use of platform screen doors, but with a design known as the “Horizontal Lift”. Basically the station’s platform looks like a large room with lots of lift doors in it, the first time you are aware of a train being on the other side is once the large steal doors open up reveling the insides of the train. While the design has some good ideas, it was not popular and only about 10 stations were built like this. Today platform screen doors made of glass are becoming more and more popular around the world, so check out the video above to see how the original “Horizontal Lift” works.
