IELTS HOPECO Vocabulary: Unit 3 - Getting from A to B (WB 4-5.5)

When London Underground railway's escalators were first installed in 1911, they were completely 1  revolutionary  . People had never seen anything like them before. Young people thought they were great fun, but many older passengers were 2 …………… to use them because they thought they were dangerous. They were frightened the escalators would stop suddenly, and throw them all the way to the bottom. As a result, wherever possible, they used 3 …………… forms of transport such as the bus or taxis.
Worried about losing their passengers to the 4 ……………, London Underground managers employed a man with an artificial leg to ride up and down on the escalators all day. Their 5 …………… was to prove that the escalators were safe. It worked, and the escalators became such a success that 6 …………… started coming into stations from the street just to ride them. Today, the escalators are more than just a 7 …………… More than three million people rely on London Underground trains to get them to and from their 8 ……………  every day, and the system would collapse without a fast and efficient way of getting them to and from the platforms.