I finally rode the weird, curved German elevator. 

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Love that you’d have to take the stairs either from or to the elevator. True German accessibility.

My takeaway from this video is that we (germans) need to find more strange elevators to ask Tom to make videos about them

I express my gratitude to you on behalf of the entire German people

I love that Hannover claims to have the only curved elevator in the world. I went to college in the St. Louis area and did a study abroad program in Germany with Leibniz University. It was part of our presentation that we both claim to have the only curved elevators in the world.

"Germany, you can stop emailing me - I have finally taken a trip on your elevator" is the single most Tom Scott sentence ever uttered.

Imagine being pestered for years about using an elevator and when you finally do, you still have to climb 5 floors of stairs 😂

I absolutely adore the solution to leveling it. Not every problem is significant enough to warrant the complexity required to solve it! I've worked with so many engineers who would hunger at the challenge without really considering if maybe they should just not touch.

That is really cool! I like the pragmatism of it - self levelling floor? Clever tilting cage? No, just go with a non-level floor for a minute - it's not going to hurt you.

The shots of Tom marching impatiently to the lift while the lady is languidly explaining it's history are killing me

Only in Germany would they invent some new and crazy engineering marvel to get around a small inconvenience

As a german who wrote this elevator and thought "meh, it's an elevator", i am very happy for you, that you enjoyed it.

As a German I've found it really interesting over the years just how often Tom ended up in my country for these videos. We truly have some interesting stuff here.

I'd always imagined Tom Scott to be the kind of person to take multiple steps at a time

As a Hannoveranian, I can confirm that there are so many tourists that I never visited it.

I lived in Hannover area 29 years, went even to school there for some years. I knew this elevator existed but never cared. I moved abroad last year and when I came back to visit my family I finally went up this summer. It took me more than 30 years and I needed to become a tourist to ride that elevator.

As a German thank you for teaching me about this elevator. I had no clue we got a curved elevator. I guess I have to visit Hannover now.

Damn it now we need to find something else to keep emailing him about 😂

Tom needs to make an elevator series.

You had it easy, Tom. On a business trip in Köln, I decided to walk up the spiral staircase of the South spire of the St. Petrus Kölner Dom Cathedral. At over 300 ft., it is a workout!

Seeing Tom Scott in a place where you commute to work every day presenting something which you also used a couple times feels odd... and kinda cool! Thanks for the video, Tom. As a Hanoverian I can proudly say that I never pestered you about any of this.

I hear Tom got so many e-mails about this lift that it literally drove him round the bend.

As a Hannoveranian I am beyond delighted to see my hometown in a video with a reach of 6 million people

I love seeing people go to my city and talk about it because hanover often gets left out when bigger citys like Cologne, Berlin or hamburg have so much more to offer. So thank you for education the world about my beloved City hanover

My cat was VERY into this. He loves all things mechanical and landscaping, very obsessed with landscaping videos 😹 Thank you for making his day❤️

Hanover is Germany’s best kept secret. Pretty sure that it has Europe’s biggest inner city forest. Up until relatively recently it was kinda cheap to stay in despite the amenities. Super flat to cycle everywhere and some weird and wonderful places like a curved elevator.

A classic closing line, Tom. "For a video about an elevator ride, that was a lot of steps."

Never knew about this elevator so far. Thanks for showing it. The new elevator looks neat. I appreciate that they kept it.

My wife's cousin took me to the Neues Rathaus when we visited relatives in Hannover in '98. The elevator was a unique experience. As it slowly moved forward along its angular track, I was concerned it might stall and leave us trapped. But it didn't happen. Great views of the city from the top.

No matter how many interesting elevators Tom rides, he'll always be that funny long haired "two drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff" guy to me 😂

I love the shots of Tom rushing to get to the elevator, while the lady was talking.

Glad to see you mentioned the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, because that is exactly what I thought of when you mentioned a curved elevator.

Tom, I don’t want to say I wouldn’t be here without you but you’re videos bring me joy and a life full of joy is a good one. Thanks tom.

BRB, gonna become filthy rich and build a freaky elevator so we can bother Tom once again.

Well, it took a lot of engineering, but Kudos Germany - you've made the world's least wheelchair accessible elevator. EDIT: IT'S A JOKE! Geeze! How do you some of you function?!

That is amazing, I went past this town hall to go to school for 2 years and never knew this. Thanks Tom!

Have lived about 25 years in Germany, watched a lot of goofy YT videos too, never ever heard of this elevator. Thanks for the post!

Love that you still have to walk up a narrow set of stairs before you reach the observation platform. It's not often that you see an elevator open to a flight of stairs.😂

I love the annoyed energy that Tom has from start to finish in this video. From the thumbnail, to all of the stairs, to the shots where he’s literally just walking because there’s nothing more interesting to film, to the extremely mediocre view. This is an instant classic.

Omg this video unlocked a memory 😂 I rode this elevator almost exactly 5 years ago (it was the election weekend around 15th october 2017) and simply forgot about it. The view is stunning and the nearby lake/pond looks kinda tiny from up there. Thanks for the memory refresher 😁

Thanks for your captions!

I live 50km from Hannover and have never heard of this elevator. Thanks Tom, for taking the ride for me, I would be too scared anyway. 😄

Thank you Tom Scott for always elevating my knowledge about the elevator industry

Thx Tom for visiting my hometown :) hope you had a good time

Thanks, this lifted my spirits.

Wow, never expected Tom Scott to visit the city that I grew up in that has a reputation for being "boring" within Germany. I took the elevator too many times as a child, though always found it a bit underwhelming, in my childish imagination I expected something more roller-coaster like, but the tilt was barely noticeable, even though I recognize it now as a feat of engineering for the time when it was constructed.

I’m so happy that Hannover finally made it into a Tom Scott video! And as a Hannoveraner I can confirm that we are very proud of our curved elevator.

Thank you Tom I needed this

Thats my home town!! So proud to see it on Tom Scott

Glad you mentioned the Gateway Arch. Also a very interesting "elevator". The museum underneath has tons of details about the construction and design challenges and is worth a visit for anyone visiting St. Louis.

In Stockholm, Sweden they have a elevator that curves up around a spherical building. It also happens to be the largest spherical building in the world too. 😁 But the tilting floor will sure make me nauseus because I'm sensitive to that since I have problems with motion sickness...

Man I'm going to miss you Tom, haven't missed a video since day 1.

This reminds me of St. Louis Arch in Missouri, USA where it also follows the curve. Been up that 3 times and each time is an experience.

Awesome elevator video Tom, but have you heard of the elevator in Hanover City Hall that goes up a dome?

I recently rode the tram at Gateway Arch in St. Louis, glad you mentioned it briefly here. The self-leveling mechanism in that thing really makes for a strange experience indeed, even stranger, it's a tram where you start with cars left to right at ground level, and by the time it reaches the top the cars are organized right to left. This elevator here just maintains its orientation relative to the rails the whole way up, I find that absolutely hilarious!

Another excellent video. Thank you for this.

Very interesting young man. We enjoyed watching your video. Keep up the great work.

How very uplifting

I swear Tom always gets a lift with these elvator videos.

As a former inhabitant of Hannover I can confirm: this is a very quirky elevator.

Great video , thanks Tom.

As a hannoveranian and a true tom scott fan, I love that you finally visited us. There will probably be another video about water in hannover soon?

I was in an amusement park in germany recently and one of the coasters there also had a curving elevator (would first go strait up, then curve to one side, then curve back before going strait to the top again). Thing is they dont warn you about this before hand (that the ride brings you up with an elevator and that the elevator curves). Almost had a hard attack when the elevator suddenly moved in a direction it wasnt supposed to 😂. For those wondering it was in europapark and the ride was called matterhorn blitz

So interesting to see that after all those years watching your videos, you actually came to my hometown for a video

I klicked this Video randomly in my timeline.. and was suprised that you are in hanover - where i actually live. I was there a few times up as a teen and was often told that this wa special but I never felt this way :) Now I feel like its more special (20 years later) to see it in a YT Video :)) Greetings!

The way this elevator works is just kinda hard to believe, just like something out of a movie.

Come on guys there must be a second peculiar elevator in Germany we can e-mail him about.

Great to see requests being done, thank you

my man you're lookin good with the full gray, damn i havent watched your vids in a while

Another curved elevator is used to take people up to the top of the "Gateway Arch" in St Louis, US. It is 630 feet high and I travelled up it many years ago - it is quite scary.

This reminds me of the curved elevators in the St. Louis Gateway Arch. They have to follow the curve of that structure, too. Edit: I heard you mention it at 2:38. Nice

The solutions you mentioned to keep the elevator level sounded complex, I’d think simply 2 large bearings (on which the entire elevator can rotate) positioned above the centre of gravity (so that it will always position itself along gravity) would be easiest

One of my biggest wishes finally got fulfilled, you made the trip. Thank you for taking it in consideration to visit and make this video. Feel free to visit anytime again, for example, to take a look at the Einstein-Elevator of the Leibniz University of Hannover.

The elevators in the Gateway Arch in St Louis also must follow the curved path of the arch legs up to the top - as well as auto-rotate to stay level. I remember riding those cool little cars.

I'm gonna miss these kinds of silly little videos, Tom. I hope you continue to do things like these periodically, even after you wind down the series

From Hannover! Happy to see Tom there!

Just went on YT to see this video about the townhall of my city. Very nice video!

I've been in this elevator once. It makes me so happy to have been somewhere, Tom has been!

the last remark made me laugh as I was wondering why you were huffing and puffing :) Great video!

It was about three quarters of the way though when I realised I misread the title and stopped waiting for a curved *escalator.*

You should have tried the curved elevator on the Montreal Tower when you visited the Olympic stadium there! It uses some of the hydraulic concepts you mentioned to keep the cabin vertical, and it has an amazing glass window view. :)

Wait can we talk about how the "New Town Hall" was built 100 years ago but is still called "New Town Hall?"

I live in Leipzig, which has the Völkerschlachtdenkmal (Monument to the Battle of Nations) which is one of the tallest memorials in the world and the tallest in Europe, constructed in 1913. There is an elevator now that can get you about halfway up but to get all the way to the top it is and always has been and always will be (bc there is no space for an elevator) stairs upon stairs upon stairs upon stairs. They say that in the past people would take especially visitors they didn't quite like up there (which is fully understandable. I've walked up there. It is way too many stairs and it gets incredibly narrow towards the top). It does have an amazing sound though. There are concerts held in there from time to time and I had the privilege to sing in one this year and I kid you not after you stop singing the echo lasts for at least 15s. It's incredible.

Thanks for showing me something new about my home country! Next time in Hannover I will try this one! 👍😃

For once Tom goes somewhere I've already been! Saw this back in spring of 2010. Met some other American tourists on the way back down. I had spent my entire weekend speaking German, and when my brain suddenly had to speak English, I could hardly put 2 words together in my own native language!

I enjoyed the urgency of your walk in this one.

They have closed it today for an unknown amount of time 😢. So good thing you‘ve had the oppurtunity to use it!☺️

I seem to get recurring dreams (not so much recently) where I get into "lifts", but they take me to entirely new buildings as they travel in all kinds of directions, like they morph into some kind of pod transport. There's also the lifts that never take me to where I want to go, and I end up getting out at some random location.

As a German I can confirm it's very German to obsessively email him about things from our country. 😂

Im from Hannover and never went up there in my 40 years here, but i will go up there with my 4 y old on a friday in next spring, because most of the surrounding Museums are free to visit fridays! ;)

I really love the elevator guy's videos. Keep it up!

This a very rare instance of a Tom Scott video of a place or experience that I've actually been to or done before. Love it!

Glad to see that you've took a ride in our elevator. It's funny to see a childhood memory and a for me normal thing in one of your videos. Greetings from Hannover! ^_^

Well, this is a really nice video, Scott! Greetings from Thuringia.

I went here a few months ago, its so crazy, and the views are amazing from the top

Realising that you anounced you are concidering to do less videos per month as you have done for the years past, makes me enjoy every video you put out on youtube even more. Gadget geeks with you and colin furze, i loved every second of it. And thats why i watch and follow you both over here on youtube.

I didn't know you were in this city! I've been on this elevator a bunch of times, I knew it was unique but it never felt unusual to me. I would have never expected a video from you on it!

This video about German dome elevators has taken my knowledge to a whole new level!

I can’t believe this video popped up on my recommended of you being in my hometown checking out that one curved elevator but here we are

When I started watching your videos a couple years ago, I would have never imagined to see my flat in an aerial shot in one of your videos. I hope you enjoyed your time in Hannover.