Animating escalator steps? (3ds Max) Matching speed of func_conveyor (source engine)?

[kinggambit]

Forgive me, I dont have much experience in animating and the few tutorials/forum posts I found online led to dead ends.

First problem: How do I achieve an animation of the escalator steps?

I have a spline path constraint tied to my first step, but array/snapshot/spacing tools dont constrain the duplicate steps to the path (and even if done manually, I'd have to adjust the % along path for each step then set ).

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/62c0sSs.jpg[/IMG]

Second Problem: I have a func_conveyor set to push players along the escalator at a set speed. Is there any way of matching the animation speed with the func_conveyor other than trial-and-error?

I might consider just letting the collision models of the steps move the players but I have a feeling it'd lead to a lot of buggy movement.