I will never forget when I saw this the first time.
I woke up early in the morning on a sleeper train to Düsseldorf. The train had stopped so I looked out the window: at A-frames straddling a river.
My first thought was: "That's a weird-looking roller coaster".
Stratoscope · 3h ago
Here is a wonderful video, riding the Wuppertal Schwebebahn in 1902 and 2015 side by side:
As noted in the description, the 1902 video plays in real time, and the 2015 video has some cuts and framerate adjustments to keep them in sync.
somat · 4h ago
Dangle-trains are one of those things that appeal to me for unknown reasons, they just look so cool. But I am unable to really quantify the appeal, so here is my attempt.
Advantages:
keeps your electrical plant out of the weather
allows the track to be out of the road while allowing street level access to train. This one is a bit iffy as the dangle train will usually be put above street traffic.
Disadvantages:
look at how much steel it takes to make that box beam.
Every thing is in tension, leading to complicated structure to contain it, joints can be much simpler in compression.
Any how as a dangle-train connoisseur I leave you with two additional videos.
For those travelling to Tokyo, go to Kamakura, take the famous Enoden to Enoshima, then take Shonan-Monorail to Ofuna and return to Tokyo.
sva_ · 36m ago
When I first saw this thing while riding my bike by that river, it seemed like the most grotesque industrial thing you could ruin a nice river with.
But I know, people on here like trains (lol), so I'll probably get down voted for stating my opinion.
Gare · 4m ago
You might consider it an eyesore, but the river is hardly ruined by it.
pomian · 23m ago
Wasn't there a hanging tram under the train going over the Berlin wall? (For workers at Checkpoint Charlie i believe.)
tormeh · 4h ago
This does seem like a superior way to build elevated rail. Less noise in particular, as turning doesn't induce slippage like on a normal train. Wonder why it's so rare.
frosted-flakes · 3h ago
Lots of unnecessary complexity. In this case it makes sense because the majority of the line is directly over a river due to space constraints, but it's a lot simpler to build a concrete viaduct and run normal trains ovwr it. This also allows the train to transition to run underground or at-grade.
Gigachad · 1h ago
Not an engineer, but just looking at the photos, this takes an enormous amount of steel. While most elevated rail is just a concrete bridge with a small amount of structural steel.
Most rails lines continue far enough to leave dense urban areas where this makes sense so they have to transition between elevated and ground level tracks which this can't do.
gHA5 · 3h ago
Here is a German article about migration and integration in the immigrant city of Wuppertal. The Schwebebahn is also mentioned.
Five human dead in 125 years is a record to envy for most transit systems. (Light rail likes to run into pedestrians, almost as much as buses.) And it was a maintenance failure, not an operator or structural one.
Not to count the baby elephant that fell out of one car back in 1950.
Wuppertal is a wonderful ride for many thousands daily, millions for decades, and is a wonderful model of visual, sane, safe engineered public transport.
spankibalt · 1h ago
> Not to count the baby elephant that fell out of one car back in 1950.
Heavens to Betsy! And the elephant lived... till 1989! :)
> Wuppertal is a wonderful ride for many thousands daily, millions for decades, and is a wonderful model of visual, sane, safe engineered public transport.
I woke up early in the morning on a sleeper train to Düsseldorf. The train had stopped so I looked out the window: at A-frames straddling a river. My first thought was: "That's a weird-looking roller coaster".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TqqdOcX4dc
As noted in the description, the 1902 video plays in real time, and the 2015 video has some cuts and framerate adjustments to keep them in sync.
Advantages:
keeps your electrical plant out of the weather
allows the track to be out of the road while allowing street level access to train. This one is a bit iffy as the dangle train will usually be put above street traffic.
Disadvantages:
look at how much steel it takes to make that box beam.
Every thing is in tension, leading to complicated structure to contain it, joints can be much simpler in compression.
Any how as a dangle-train connoisseur I leave you with two additional videos.
A dangle train in japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGLrP5eawdY
The Tim Traveler (perhaps the best all around esoteric travel channel) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kwpj1UOrhs
For those travelling to Tokyo, go to Kamakura, take the famous Enoden to Enoshima, then take Shonan-Monorail to Ofuna and return to Tokyo.
But I know, people on here like trains (lol), so I'll probably get down voted for stating my opinion.
Most rails lines continue far enough to leave dense urban areas where this makes sense so they have to transition between elevated and ground level tracks which this can't do.
https://www.zeit.de/2025/11/migration-neue-alte-einwanderung... https://archive.ph/mzM0P
Ja, ja, all fun and games... until your danglies drop. :( [1]
1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Wuppertal_Schwebebahn_acc...]
Not to count the baby elephant that fell out of one car back in 1950.
Wuppertal is a wonderful ride for many thousands daily, millions for decades, and is a wonderful model of visual, sane, safe engineered public transport.
Heavens to Betsy! And the elephant lived... till 1989! :)
> Wuppertal is a wonderful ride for many thousands daily, millions for decades, and is a wonderful model of visual, sane, safe engineered public transport.
Is ja jut, ich kauf' den Tagespass.