"Walter Briscoe" wrote in message

I visited this outer London station on Tuesday - before Boris's fares
and improvement budget announcement on Thursday.

I was surprised to see a wood-slatted up escalator. I would have
thought all these have gone since the King's Cross fire.

It's because it's an open air station, not underground. Very unusually
for an "Underground" station, the escalator takes you up to viaduct
level, and the platforms are in the open air, so there's no real fire
risk.

Alperton had a similar escalator, disused since 1988, to the east
(south) bound platform. I can't remember what steps it had, but presume
that they also had wooden treads.