The Only University With Its Own Suspended Monorail

Yes! Today we're visiting the only university on earth with its own suspended monorail. But, er... why exactly does a University need its own suspended monorail?

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[TheTimTraveller]

MINOR CORRECTION: I have been informed that the thing I called "what appears to have once been a busy road" is actually a half-constructed road that was abandoned before completion. In other words, it was *supposed* to be a busy road, but never became one, following complaints about the traffic it might generate. Thank you to the many knowledgeable locals in the comment section for this extra info!

[AnastasiaThemis]

Honestly I think all Universities should have their own weird, unique, mildly impractical, expensive gadgetbahn. Just imagining the race to build increasingly absurd ways for students to get to class makes me want to manifest it.

[WillyGoat]

The Dangle Train Trilogy is now complete. Excellent work, Tim.

[MarkusWitthaut]

Excellent video. And yes, Tim is right on the reasons to build the H-Bahn instead of just using a shuttle bus service. It was intended as technology demonstrator. Siemens recieved substantional public funding for developing the system. It was hoped to sell the H-Bahn to other cities; but it was only sold to Düsseldorf Airport. So Siemens has dropped out in marketing the technology. But Dortmund will extend the system. The city council decided in June 2024 to extend the H-Bahn so that it is connected to Dortmund's city railway network (connection to the U42, station Theodor-Fliedner-Heim). Commissioning of the entire two-kilometre extension to is scheduled for 2029.

[jenesisjones]

I'm almost 70...a grandma from Tasmania, Australia. I binge watched your videos the day I found your channel. I drop everything when I see you have a new video. I LOVE everything about you and your videos, especially your sense of humour. 🙃

[kaibroeking]

Dortmund University was built from the "Aufbau- und Verfügungszentrum" (the centre for construction and disposition), which is now the South Campus, while the North Campus was being built. Between these two was a projected four lane street that was meant to connect directly to the A45, running through a valley in between the campuses, since abandoned and overgrown.
I studied Physics there a long, long time ago, and a fellow student lived close to the terminus in Eichlinghofen; we used that thing on an almost daily basis.

[namenamename]

Hey, my friend goes to that uni! He even uses the H-Bahn regularly. I was planning on visiting him sometime, mostly because I want to visit my friend, but also because I want to ride the H-Bahn. Can't believe Tim beat me to it.

[neonity]

There might be another advantage compared to buses: those cabins are driverless. They don't need an driver who might get sick, want his six weeks of vacation or salary. Well, some people are needed for the control center, but its far less than to man every cabin.

[after_glow]

Hey, as a Student there who rides the H-Bahn multiple times a week, I want to confirm that it is indeed a very nice idea, and makes absolutely sense there. Without it, making it from one side of the campus to the other, multiple times a day, is quite annoying. Reaching it by foot doesnt only take long, but also requires quite a lot of stairclimbing, because of the steep terrain. Not only that, but it links the two halves of the University, the Train Station, the Industrial/Research Area on one end, and a Suburban Street with good Bus connection, a Store and many Residential Buildings and Dormitories on the Southern end of the line. Without it, it wouldnt feel like one Campus, and Accessibility would be impaired as well. People use and appreciate it a lot, so thanks for showing it :)

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

The Dresden Suspension Railway stands out in that while it's a suspended monorail, it functions as a conventional funicular. Like the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, it was designed by Eugen Langen and opened in May 1901, just two months after the Wuppertal system opened! While World War II destroyed much of Dresden, the system survived the Allied aerial attacks. Tokyo's Ueno Zoo in Japan also used to have a suspended monorail! It shuttled people between the two halves of the zoo, the West Garden and East Garden. It was a constructed as a trial system for a future city plan. This line was not operated as an amusement facility of Ueno Zoo but as a means of public transportation system as per Railway Business Act by the Traffic Bureau of Tokyo Metropolitan Government. It was built similarly to the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, but rather than steel wheels, it used rubber tires! It opened in 1957, which made it the first zoo monorail in the world. It was suspended in 2019 due to the high costs of replacing the aging trains, and officially closed in December 2023, dismantling it, with its replacement being a transit line...on ROLLER COASTER track! Even Memphis in Tennessee built a suspended monorail, opening in 1982 with two suspended cars constructed in Switzerland. It was beneath a footbridge over the Wolf River Lagoon connecting to the southern tip of Mud Island, an entertainment park, from downtown. After multiple malfunctions in 2018, including requiring the fire department to rescue stranded passengers, it has been shut down, with the system mothballed in 2024 as 5 million dollars in funding for it in 2022 was reallocated after it was deemed it was not enough to repair it.

Other unique transit systems that serve universities: Oregon's Portland Aerial Tram connects the city's South Waterfront district and the main Oregon Health & Science University campus! The Rakavlit in Haifa is a cable car, from the HaMifratz Central Bus Station and public transit hub at the foot of Mount Carmel to the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology; the oldest one in the country as it was established in 1912 under Ottoman rule) and then onto the University of Haifa, for a total distance of 4.4 km and an elevation gain of 460 m! Mount Carmel also has an underground funicular for its neighborhoods, the Carmelit! The Carmelit opened in 1959, making it the oldest underground transit system in the Middle East, and has six stations with a length of just 1.8 km! The Carmelit doesn't serve the university however. Zurich's Polybahn is a funicular that links Zurich's Central square with the main building of ETH Zürich, formerly called Eidgenössisches Polytechnikum, which is why it's called the Polybahn! Cornell University in Ithaca, NY built a tech graduate campus on Roosevelt Island in NYC in 2017, built right next to the Roosevelt Island Tramway! The tramway wasn't built for the university as the tramway opened in 1976. Roosevelt Island was once used by hospitals and prisons (like a hospital made famous by Nellie Bly; The Octagon from that hospital has been incorporated into an apartment complex with limited access. A bridge was built to Astoria in 1955 and people once took an elevator from the Queensboro Bridge after riding a streetcar that stopped at the elevator, but it ended service in 1957. So the unique circumstance of the island gave the NY government a blank slate to redevelop the island as a mostly car-free transit-oriented residential community. A subway station was being built, but it was delayed, so they needed a form of transit to connect the island to Manhattan, thus they selected an aerial tramway! The island has a pneumatic trash collection system which was the second AVAC system in the US after Magic Kingdom's Utilidors. Their AVAC system is one of the largest in the world, and trash is collected from each tower to the Central Collections and Compaction Plant at up to 60 miles per hour.

[pppphillip]

It's worth noticing that there are extention plans for the H-Bahn to connect it with line U42, so that there are more opportunities to connect the university with other districts of the city. As well as to be a good alternative when trains of the S1 doesn't show up, which happens fairly often

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

While Wuppertal is the oldest one, it is worth mentioning that the concept was first patented in 1821 by British engineer Henry Robinson Palmer as a horse-drawn suspended single-rail system and demonstrated it at Woolwich Arsenal. Before Eugen Lagen, German Friedrich Harkort built a demonstration track of Palmer's system in 1826, in Elberfeld, at the time commercial center of the Wupper Valley. The steelmill owner had the vision of a coal-carrier railway between Wupper Valley and the nearby coal-mining region of Ruhr, which would connect his own factories in Elberfeld and Deilbachtal. Due to protests from mill owners that were not integrated along the line and from the transporting branch, this idea could not be executed. There was also the Enos Electric Railway demonstrated in Greenville in what's now Jersey City in 1886. An electric-powered monorail with wagons suspended from an elevated frame of open steelwork. This rail-frame design influenced Eugen, as the Wuppertal framing bears a likeness to it. And at one point, many department stores in the US used suspended monorails, letting kids see a bird's eye view of the aisles of toys, the naughty ones threw pennies and aimed squirt guns at people below. These were known as the Christmas monorails as they were especially popular during Christmas season. In the 1960s also in the United States, besides department stores, a large number of suspended monorails systems were opened but none were for transit. These included 1962 at the LA County Fair (closed late 1990s), 1964–1965 at the New York World's Fair, in 1964 at Houston International Airport (closed 1966), and in 1966 at two Busch Gardens parks at Van Nuys in California (closed with the park in 1979) and Tampa in Florida (closed 1999).

The Shonan Monorail and Chiba Urban Monorail are two Japanese systems still in operation. The Shonan Monorail first opened in 1970 and runs in the cities of Kamakura and Fujisawa in Kanagawa Prefecture, the prefecture famous for Yokohama. Trains run on a 6.6 km line called the Enoshima Line. It is used by commuters that work in Tokyo or Yokohama, tourists visiting Enoshima, and, in summer months, city dwellers who are visiting the parks or baths of Enoshima. It was developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, who built the former Higashiyama monorail in Nagoya that ran between 1964 and 1974, and later the Chiba Urban Monorail. Based on the success of that line, Mitsubishi then constructed a 7 km single-lane line between Ōfuna and Nishi-Kamakura. The alignment was ideal for SAFEGE, with a narrow corridor and hills to negotiate. The rest of the line opened in July 1971. The Chiba Urban Monorail opened in 1988 with its first segment (Line 2 from Sports Center Station to Chishirodai Station), while the rest opened in March 1999. The system has a length of 15.2 km, making it even longer than the Wuppertal Schwebebahn! Chiba City decided to introduce this suspended monorail in 1977 as a response to the worsening traffic condition and noise pollution due to the rapid population increase in 1960s.

[JanWeckwerth]

Das ist meine Uni! 😀 Toll, dass du dir die angesehen hast. Und gut, dass du nicht zur Mensa-Zeit da warst. Da ist es so voll in dem Wagen, dass man sich nicht festhalten muss. Und die Bremsen muss man dann auch mal erlebt haben. War eine tolle Zeit.😊😊

[pet_ti]

Student from TU Dortmund here. I use the H-Bahn twice a week and like how fast and reliable it is to get from one campus to the other. Recently there was "H-Bahn-Ersatzverkehr" (Bus instead of H-Bahn) in the daytime. I waited for the Bus almost 10 Minutes and then it took 15 Minutes to get to Campus-Nord because the circled only in one direction and stopped at every station and i got off at the last one. Therefore I wouldnt change it with a Bus ;-)
There are new plans to enlargen the H-Bahn network.

[DavidMeggers]

Tom Scott doesn’t like monorails, so I am pleased you are putting positive spin on these transport systems 😊

[Kwpolska]

The Wrocław University of Science and Technology has a gondola lift. It covers a distance of 373 meters. That might sound pointless, except for the fact that it goes over a river, and going between the two ends of the campus on foot is about 1.3 km.

[PaulMcElligott]

“We’re not here to study any of that.” 🤣🤣

[eekee]

1:30 The mechanical noises on scrolling cracked me up! 🤣

"You could go all-in and just become a student." Because why wouldn't a monorail fan do just that? 😂

[eddiehimself]

Don't tell me there's _another_ suspended monorail system in North-Rhine Westphalia that I have to visit!?

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

Doing "Oops!...I Did It Again" was one thing, but then doing "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac...your music selection for these is always stellar! Glad you briefly mentioned the Morgantown PRT system in West Virginia, it's quite the interesting system! A key reason why Morgantown wanted the PRT was its geography! As West Virginia University expanded in the 1960s, geographic constraints, as the city is in a valley along the Monongahela River, forced WVU to build a second campus over 3 km away in Evansdale. While free busing was offered for students so they can move between the campuses, all the roads led through the city center, creating gridlock more typical of a megacity, so Morgantown needed something more efficient to move its students than buses. And the PRT was cheaper to build than mass transit. The Morgantown PRT has three modes, demand, schedule, and circulation. Demand mode is true PRT and acts like an elevator. In schedule mode, this is activated during periods of well-known demand patterns, and operates the cars on fixed routes of known demand, lowering wait times. And then there's circulation mode, and in this mode during off-peak periods, it acts like a bus route with a small number of vehicles stopping at every station. While the construction for it ran far over budget, it still resulted in an efficient way that unified the campuses despite the terrain, offered on-time service rates better than the buses it replaced, eliminated the gridlock in the city center that the buses caused, and no injuries were reported for over four decades until an accident happened in November 2016!

When geography is an obstacle to build transit, you have to think out of the box, and for a place with interesting terrain, a monorail, cable car, or an elevated rapid transit system can work efficiently, like in Chongqing, China! Chongqing is a huge densely populated but mountainous city, with multiple river valleys. So using monorails leverages the ability to negotiate steep grades and tight curves with rapid transit capacity, like Chongqing's Lines 2 and 3. Chongqing Line 2's Liziba station is such a neat station because it goes through a 19-story residential building! Contrary to some misreporting, the station and building were constructed together as one whole structure, the monorail was not retrofitted! People may think living in those apartments is constantly noisy because of the monorail, but the station uses specialized noise reduction equipment to isolate station noise from the surrounding residences! Another example of a monorail that goes through a building with a station inside is at Disney's Contemporary Resort in Florida! While Liziba station opened in June 2005, the Contemporary Resort opened with Magic Kingdom on October 1st, 1971! The resort's main tower was built as an A-frame with outer walls which slope inwards around an inner atrium. This design was a collaboration by Disney, United States Steel, and Capitol Records architect Welton Becket. To construct it, steel frames were erected on-site and modular pre-constructed rooms, designed by California architect Donald Wexler, were lifted into place by crane. If that's not interesting enough, the monorail station is part of the Grand Canyon Concourse which features a huge Grand Canyon-themed mosaic (that has a five-legged goat; this was done on purpose to reflect human error) by Mary Blair, who also created character designs for It's a Small World and also worked on Alice in Wonderland! The resort is also the location of the infamous Nixon "I am not a crook" speech in November 1973.

Another example of a system tackling a geographic challenge is the North Hudson County Railway which originated in the 1860s and lasted until the 1940s. The North Hudson County Railway was a complex streetcar network that connected Journal Square in Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, and Union City. To overcome the formidable obstacle of ascending the lower Hudson Palisades, or Bergen Hill, it devised numerous innovative engineering solutions including funicular wagon lifts, an inclined elevated railway, an elevator and viaducts. The system included 20.52 km of at-grade and 2.01 km of elevated trackage!