These spikes are embedded every couple of feet in the hand-rails of a staircase at Highbury & Islington station in London, presumably to prevent kids (or adults) sliding down them. They’re not especially sharp, but would bruise someone pretty badly.
Note that there are also additional stainless steel hand-rails - this staircase may have replaced an escalator, and the rubberised rails may be the original escalator ones, with the spikes added much more recently.
You see these all over the place. I remember when i was younger it amused me that the effort the owners went to must have meant it was a real problem. But at the same time couldn’t believe how they could be such “kill-joys”.
Some non-escalator staircases have spikes at the bottom - which simply require a more skillful exit than otherwise.
I wonder how much of it is to avoid being sued because of umpteen broken coccyxes of less skilful sliders an their incompetent landings, vs their collisions with passers by?
Another fun thing is demonstrating in the rush hour when the up escalator is empty and the down escalators and stairs are full-up, that the up escalator can also be used to descend (you can generally overtake the walkers descending via the stairs). A good rhythmic stride can be developed stepping down two escalator steps at a time. You only have to gamble that a train doesn’t unload at the bottom before you get there - and a bunch of Japanese tourists who don’t understand ’stand on the left’ get on (it takes time for Japs to come to an agreement as to whether to adopt Tokyo or Osaka rules).
NB ‘Stand on the left’ - one of the few controls that the public will self-police.
STAND ON THE RIGHT! You moron!
And the signs in the wider section between stairways with the “Stand on the right” text in the middle also show you a message and prevent you from sliding down the middle. Although they’re only spaced every 30? feet or so, IIRC from my time in London. Saw a friend do it once, on the free 30 or so feet after the last sign and before the end of the escalator. They’re also for safety I would say; some escalators on the Tube are quite long on an incline, in case you somehow manage to fall our of the escalator >:-)
Also on the hand-rails, notice how the landings make the handrails nothing nice and continuous to slide down either, as they get a nice sawtooth pattern.
This is probably not a bad idea… kiljoy as it may be. Several years ago a good friend of mine, out on a night of boozing in London, took advantage of the lack of such barriers to go for a ride. Here’s an excerpt from the wonderful email he wrote me at the time (sorry in advance for the long comment):