Why Wuppertal's Suspended Monorail Wasn't The Future Of Travel

In Wuppertal, Germany, there's the Schwebebahn: a suspended monorail that carries 80,000 people a day above the streets of the city, and above the river Wupper. It's a wonderful thing: but it wasn't the future of travel, and here's why.

INSTAGRAM: tomscottgo

[tomwoolrych]

You kinda missed the original point of the Schwebebahn. The Wupper Valley was full the tracks follow the river which is also the shallowest gradient. A “suspended train” was the only viable option to cram in more infrastructure in a booming late 19th century industrial town built in a narrow valley.

[Dark__Thoughts]

It's a good transport system in Wuppertal because of its geographical location within the valley. The majority of the main city parts go right through it, following a portion of the Wupper (the river). That means there's basically just one main road through it too and side roads are often a nightmarish maze to get through, the Schwebebahn however can just drive along over the Wupper. It's not just faster than taking the bus but also more reliable because buses usually have a schedule of ~20 minutes during daytime while another Schwebebahn usually comes in every 2-5 minutes.
Sometimes I dream if we could go full apeshit and come up with a hanging magnetic variant that drives more or less silently.

[Naglfar]

Hi, I'm from Wuppertal. And what I can say is, the Schwebebahn doesn't only look cool (the old orange wagons have also been replaced with newer, blue ones in the last few years) - it is also the fastest and most reliable way to get through the city (or at least through the valley part). Surely, we also have regular trains and buses, but buses get always stuck in the traffic and trains, while being faster in theory, don't depart as often as the Schwebebahn does and also connect parts of the city which are many kilometres apart (like all trains do). So in the end, if you want to reach a certain point, you often end up using the Schwebebahn after the train ride anyway and it would've been sometimes faster and always easier to just use it solely.
Since Wuppertal is sometimes called the "San Francisco of Germany" because of being surrounded by lots of hills, mountains and elevated areas in general, the city unfortunately also highly depends on buses to get to these areas, which is highly unpleasant in general in Germany (i.a. because buses normally don't have AC in the summer). There have been plans for a ropeway to get from the valley to one of Wuppertal's highest points - which would've been nice - but unfortunately those plans were scrapped because many inhabitants didn't like the idea.

[jack_elliott]

Busses are a much less pleasant experience than trains or trams though.

[mr.boomguy]

"Why munorail failed"
*Shows us a wildly succesful one*

[DiffuseSachverhalte]

As the name says, it's located in a valley, in which the Wupper flows. We have A LOT of hills and not much flat space to build things. That's why they came up with this idea: the space above a river is always flat, naturally. Also, we are the city with the most staircases in whole Germany. I hate the hills, but the Schwebebahn pays it off I guess :)

[Badmuthaa]

I miss the old Sydney monorail. Impractical? Yes. Fun to ride on? Hell yeah!

[salvodippolito]

I thought the main advantage was that it wouldn't interfere with traffic, same concept as the underground system but maybe easier and quicker to build..

[QemeH]

That story about the circus elephant falling from the _Schwebebahn_ because it freaked out isn't only true - up until a very tragic day in April 1999 the story also always carried the "and that is the only serious accident it had ever" tag with it. A claw left by an unattentive maintenance worker sadly changed this, but the "floating train" (which is the literal translation of "Schwebebahn") is still considered the safest means of travel both in death per passengermile and accidents per mile.

[gargoyleex]

Being a german guy, the first one who ever tells me about the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn is a Brit. That's certainly... _interesting_.
Anyway, as you're currently in Germany I was wondering if you're planing to visit Hamburg. I would love to hear you talking about my hometown!

[Sony_]

Well, sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car Monorail!

[linchenbienchen]

I live in Wuppertal and use the monorail a lot and it is brilliant because there are no traffic jams and you can take it every 10 minutes. A few months ago it was, ,renovated" and the monorail is much more comfortable now and it also is very safe to take it!

[kamii]

Kind of a weird feel knowing Tom Scott was just a 15 minute train drive away from me. awesome

[timwells]

*“Hello, and welcome to the Black Mesa transit system. The time is **8:47** AM”*

[JohnyJ]

Wuppertal is my favorite city in all of Germany! It's a legendary place!

[WhatATypicalTime]

Tom, Monorails sure, but not all trains. Building ordinary rails rather than suspended/on a bridge (elevated) isn't always cheaper. Sometimes it is the other way around. For example: In the country side in Sweden a big thing is not to disturb the wildlife and make sure fallen trees don't get on the railroad. Solution? Elevated. Also it can surprise you that it's cheaper to build levated railroads when you soil isn't the best and have to be paved in preventing it from sinking. You come around that isue somewhat when you either share the load and make it lighter when it's elevated or have to pave much less ground rather than putting all weight directly on the ground as you do with ordinary railways. The chinese are using this technique really well.

[thany]

Hm, the monorail in Naha (Okinawa, Japan) works pretty well... And it doesn't hinder (and doesn't get hindered by) other traffic, and provides some healthy competition for buses. In Japan, only a few of the big cities have trams or light rails, and for such a densely populated country, metros are the go-to solution for intra-city railways. But every-so-often a metro system doesn't work for one reason or another, and they build monorails instead. Although I must say the one in Naha it's not a suspended monorail, but a straight-up one. Does that still count?

[andrebartels]

Thank you for pronouncing Wuppertal right! 😊
P.s.: That elephants name was Tuffi. Really.

[KuruGDI]

On crowded streets a flyover monorail has one huuuuge benifit. Unlike bus or trams it doesn't have to _share_ it's space. And unlike 'ordinary' trains it doesn't use up that much space in urban areas.
I would like to see a cost comparison between such a monorail system and a subway. The monorail still has an advantage where you have a complicated underground structure.

[Tracomaster]

Hey look at that! The most uneventful city where I happened to grow up in, featured in the video of one of my favorite youtubers