As I was born and raised in Wuppertal, the Schwebebahn was nothing special to me and I used it frequently and almost daily. Best/Worst part: You have to "wait" for the next train if you miss one ... they only drive every (!) 3 minutes!!! :)
Nice, brings back happy memories. I rode the whole length of the Schwebebahn in 1974 when I went to Wuppertal for a school exchange trip and again the next year when I went back to visit a friend I'd made while my parents visited the family my Dad had befriended when he was stationed in Wuppertal after the war.
Any conventional railway can on parts of their route where there is enough space for road-separated tracks at ground level be built much cheaper than a suspension railway. Related to this, if you have other light railway systems (subway, tram, etc.) in your city, you cannot integrate those with the suspension railway. They cannot share tracks in central areas, in case of a disruption on a line, you cannot re-route either on the tracks of the other system to detour around the disruption. Things also tend to be more expensive because you cannot choose between multiple suppliers as it is possible with subways, trams or other kind of trains using widely used standard form of tracks. Usually because of these issues, any kind of non-standard tracks like monorails (which would include a suspension railway) tend to be used in situations where there is only a need for an isolated route like on airports that does not have any other rail system nearby it could be integrated with.
I like the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn a lot (for me it is only a few hours to get there and make a ride on it). I do not think the system is very easy to build in other cities: first reason for that is modern privacy laws. From the Schwebebahn you can "look in the peoples sleeping room" on the tracks above the street in Vohwinkel. Apart from that which city is willing to build a construction with so many huge poles in it's streets? For Wuppertal it is perfect: there is not much space because the city is largely build in a small valley and the design of the Schwebebahn was ment to make use the space above the river Wupper. So: it is safe, it is using electric energy (750V dc), it is nice, it is a reasonable fast mode of transport, but there is also that other side. Hopefully they keep it in service for many, many years to come because it really is a unique industrial monument. And it works very well.
I love Wuppertal but the stairs that I had to take to my hotel had me exhausted and after a long day without sweat I was going up these stairs and got super sweaty. Didn’t ride the Schwebebahn btw. I’m too afraid of falling down and drowning.
more impressive is a film from the year 1902 of the suspension railway, called "the flying train" which is speed corrected and recoloured (2,7 Mil views) ruclips.net/video/EQs5VxNPhzk/видео.html
afaik, there should also be another video that combines this old train ride with the same ride from recent years (was that splitscreen? can't remember and currently also not look it up on my phone), making it easy to see how much (or how little) the city and landcape below and around the Schwebebahn have changed.
2:50 5 years? Today the planning permission, environmental impact studies, traffic studies, local consultations etc. alone would take about 10 years. Then give it another 10 years for all the lawsuits of local citizen initiatives and other NIMBYs that fear the view from their balcony may be changed and the veto from the historical conservation authorities... It would be 25-30 years and over budget by a factor of 5, with so many concessions given to all sorts of groups that it could probably not function effectively anymore, because operating speed would be limited, so it would not make any sound and it could not operate for several months a year, because the shadows over the water might disturb fish in the river during spawning season... That's why we can't have nice things anymore in Western countries. Everyone believes their interests outweigh everything else, instead of just shutting up from time and thinking about the community / city / country as a whole. Sorry for the rant 😀
I think, 500 Mio € per 100 years for public transport of a whole city is probably quite "cheap" compared to solutions inside tar/concrete roads. Not even considering the costs of the accidents, road blocks, downtimes etc.
As I was born and raised in Wuppertal, the Schwebebahn was nothing special to me and I used it frequently and almost daily.
Best/Worst part: You have to "wait" for the next train if you miss one ... they only drive every (!) 3 minutes!!! :)
Nice, brings back happy memories. I rode the whole length of the Schwebebahn in 1974 when I went to Wuppertal for a school exchange trip and again the next year when I went back to visit a friend I'd made while my parents visited the family my Dad had befriended when he was stationed in Wuppertal after the war.
Any conventional railway can on parts of their route where there is enough space for road-separated tracks at ground level be built much cheaper than a suspension railway. Related to this, if you have other light railway systems (subway, tram, etc.) in your city, you cannot integrate those with the suspension railway. They cannot share tracks in central areas, in case of a disruption on a line, you cannot re-route either on the tracks of the other system to detour around the disruption.
Things also tend to be more expensive because you cannot choose between multiple suppliers as it is possible with subways, trams or other kind of trains using widely used standard form of tracks. Usually because of these issues, any kind of non-standard tracks like monorails (which would include a suspension railway) tend to be used in situations where there is only a need for an isolated route like on airports that does not have any other rail system nearby it could be integrated with.
I like the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn a lot (for me it is only a few hours to get there and make a ride on it). I do not think the system is very easy to build in other cities: first reason for that is modern privacy laws. From the Schwebebahn you can "look in the peoples sleeping room" on the tracks above the street in Vohwinkel. Apart from that which city is willing to build a construction with so many huge poles in it's streets? For Wuppertal it is perfect: there is not much space because the city is largely build in a small valley and the design of the Schwebebahn was ment to make use the space above the river Wupper. So: it is safe, it is using electric energy (750V dc), it is nice, it is a reasonable fast mode of transport, but there is also that other side. Hopefully they keep it in service for many, many years to come because it really is a unique industrial monument. And it works very well.
I love Wuppertal but the stairs that I had to take to my hotel had me exhausted and after a long day without sweat I was going up these stairs and got super sweaty. Didn’t ride the Schwebebahn btw. I’m too afraid of falling down and drowning.
more impressive is a film from the year 1902 of the suspension railway, called "the flying train" which is speed corrected and recoloured (2,7 Mil views)
ruclips.net/video/EQs5VxNPhzk/видео.html
afaik, there should also be another video that combines this old train ride with the same ride from recent years (was that splitscreen? can't remember and currently also not look it up on my phone), making it easy to see how much (or how little) the city and landcape below and around the Schwebebahn have changed.
2:50 5 years? Today the planning permission, environmental impact studies, traffic studies, local consultations etc. alone would take about 10 years. Then give it another 10 years for all the lawsuits of local citizen initiatives and other NIMBYs that fear the view from their balcony may be changed and the veto from the historical conservation authorities... It would be 25-30 years and over budget by a factor of 5, with so many concessions given to all sorts of groups that it could probably not function effectively anymore, because operating speed would be limited, so it would not make any sound and it could not operate for several months a year, because the shadows over the water might disturb fish in the river during spawning season...
That's why we can't have nice things anymore in Western countries. Everyone believes their interests outweigh everything else, instead of just shutting up from time and thinking about the community / city / country as a whole. Sorry for the rant 😀
I think, 500 Mio € per 100 years for public transport of a whole city is probably quite "cheap" compared to solutions inside tar/concrete roads. Not even considering the costs of the accidents, road blocks, downtimes etc.
Gotham City😊❤