Schwebebahn Wuppertal - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Current modernisation

The Wuppertal Schwebebahn nowadays carries up to 82,000 passengers a day through the city. Since 1997, the supporting frame has been largely modernised, and a lot of stations have been reconstructed and brought technically up to date. The “Kluse” station, at the theatre in Elberfeld, had been destroyed during the Second World War; this too was reconstructed during the modernisation. Work was planned to be completed in 2001; however a serious accident took place in 1999 which left five people dead and 47 injured. This, along with delivery problems, meant that the completion date was delayed. In recent years (2004), the cost of the reconstruction work has increased from €380 million to €480 million.

Since 2004, many of the railway stations have been fitted with CCTV

Closed-circuit television

Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....

cameras.

The renovation is projected to be completed by 2011. On 15 December 2009 the Schwebebahn temporarily suspended its operations for safety concerns; several of the older support structures needed to be renewed, - a process that was completed on 19 April 2010.

Stations

Oberbarmen - eastern terminus
Wupperfeld
Werther Brücke
Alter Markt
Adlerbrücke
Loher Brücke
Völklinger Street
Landgericht
Kluse
Hauptbahnhof
Ohligsmühle
Robert-Daum-Platz
Pestalozzistr
Westende
Varresbecker Street
Zoo/Stadion
Sonnborner Straße
Hammerstein
Bruch
Vohwinkel - western terminus

Technology

The tram wagons are suspended from a single rail built underneath a supporting steel frame. The cars hang on wheels which are driven by an electric motor operating at 600 volts DC, fed from an extra rail.

The supporting frame and tracks are made out of 486 pillars and bridgework sections. The termini at each end of the line also serve as train depots and reversers.

The current fleet consists of twenty-seven two-car trains built in the 1970s. The cars are 24 metres long and have 4 doors. One carriage can seat 48 with approximately 130 standing passengers. The top speed is 60 km/h and the average speed is 27 km/h.

The Kaiserwagen (Emperor's car), the original train used by Emperor Wilhelm II during a test ride on 24 October 1900, is still operated on scheduled excursion services, special occasions and for charter events.

Accidents

15 January 1917

A train rear-ended another train that had stopped unexpectedly in front of it between Oberbarmen and Wupperfeld, causing the trailing car of the stopped train to fall off of the track. There were two minor injuries. Subsequently, a safety device was developed to make derailments nearly impossible.

21 July 1950

The Althoff Circus organised a publicity stunt by putting a baby elephant on the floating train at Alter Markt station. As the elephant started to bump around during the ride, she was pushed out the wagon and she fell into the river Wupper. The elephant, two journalists, and one passenger received minor injuries. After this jump, the elephant got the name of Tuffi

Tuffi

Tuffi was a female circus elephant that became famous in Germany in 1950 when she jumped from the suspended monorail in Wuppertal into the river below....

, meaning 'waterdive' in italian. Both operator and circus director were fined after the incident.

11 September 1968

A truck crashed into a pillar and caused a section of track to fall. There were no trains in the area at the time. This incident led to the use of concrete walls in pillar anchors.

25 March 1997

A technical malfunction caused a rear-end collision in Oberbarmen station between a structure train and the Kaiserwagen. There were 14 injuries, but no derailment.

12 April 1999

The only fatal accident of the Schwebebahn Wuppertal occurred close to the Robert-Daum-Platz station during maintenance work in the early morning hours of 12 April 1999. Workers forgot to remove a metal claw from the track on completion of scheduled night work. The first train of the day heading east hit the claw at a speed of around 50 km/h, then derailed and crashed down about 10 metres into the river Wupper, killing 5 passengers and leaving 49 injured. The salvage operation took 3 days and nights to complete. 8 weeks after the accident the Schwebebahn went back into operation. The financial damage from the accident was in the vicinity of 8 million Deutsche Mark.

The judicial proceedings following the accident highlighted that the disaster was not caused through technical defects or system failure, but through negligence by workers having fallen behind in their work schedule during the preceding night, and abandoning the work site hastily only 10 minutes before the train departed from the depot. Contributing to the circumstances was a lack of control of their activities by site supervisors.

The Works Manager in charge of safety and the workers dealing with the steel claw at the time were acquitted of all charges by the District Court of Wuppertal. The site supervision personnel, having neglected their duties of control, were sentenced for involuntary manslaughter in 5 cases and bodily injury caused by negligence in 37 cases, but let off on probation with verdict 4 StR 289/01 dated 31 January 2002.

5 August 2008

The Schwebebahn collided with a crane truck making deliveries under the track, causing a 10-metre long tear in the floor of one of the cars. The truck driver was seriously injured, and the train driver and some passengers were treated for shock.

In literature

The Schwebebahn is alluded to in Theodore Herzl's utopian novel Altneuland. (The Old New Land

The Old New Land

The Old New Land is a utopian novel published by Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, in 1902. Outlining Herzl’s vision for a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, Altneuland became one of Zionism's establishing texts. It was translated into Yiddish by Israel Isidor Elyashev...

) For Herzl, the Schwebebahn was the ideal form of urban transport, and he imagined a large monorail built in its style in Haifa

Haifa

Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...

In film

Rüdiger Vogler

Rüdiger Vogler is a German film and stage actor.-Biography:Rüdiger Vogler attended acting school in Heidelberg from 1963 to 1965...

and Yella Rottländer

Yella Rottländer

Yella Rottländer is a German television and film actress as well as costume designer.Rottländer first appeared in the Wim Wenders film Der scharlachrote Buchstabe in a supporting role...

use images of the Schwebebahn in Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders

Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...

’ 1974 movie Alice in the Cities
Alice in the Cities
Alice in the Cities is a 1974 German road movie directed by Wim Wenders. This was the first part of Wenders' "Road Movie Trilogy" which included The Wrong Move and Kings of the Road...

(Alice in den Städten). It also appears in Tom Tykwer

Tom Tykwer

Tom Tykwer is a German film director, screenwriter, and composer. He is best known internationally for directing Run Lola Run , Heaven , Perfume: The Story of a Murderer , and The International ....

’s 2000 film The Princess and the Warrior
The Princess and the Warrior
The Princess and the Warrior is a 2000 German drama film written and directed by Tom Tykwer with Franka Potente, star of his previous movie Run Lola Run , in a leading role...

(Der Krieger und die Kaiserin) and as a background to a number of outdoor dance choreographies in another Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders

film - 2011's Pina
Pina (film)
Pina is a 2011 German 3D dance film directed by Wim Wenders. The film premiered Out of Competition at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival. The trailer features the song "Lilies in the Valley" by Jun Miyake...

.

The Schwebebahn is both subject and title to video work by the Turner Prize

Turner Prize

The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...

-nominated artist Darren Almond

Darren Almond

Darren James Almond is an artist based in London. He graduated from Winchester School of Arts in 1993, with a BA degree in Fine Arts.-Life and career:...

. Produced in 1995, Schwebebahn is the first of three videos that constitute his Train Trilogy.

In other fiction

Some of the events in Le Feu de Wotan

Le Feu de Wotan

Le Feu de Wotan is the fourteenth book from Yoko Tsuno comic book series written by Roger Leloup and published in 1984. -Story:...

, a Belgian bande dessinée in the Yoko Tsuno
Yoko Tsuno
Yoko Tsuno is a comic book series created by the Belgian writer Roger Leloup published by Dupuis and in Spirou since its debut in 1970. Through twenty-five volumes, the series tell the adventures of Yoko Tsuno, a female electrical engineer of Japanese origin surrounded by her close friends, Vic...

series, take place in the Schwebebahn. The T.V. series Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...

never mentions the name Wuppertal, but often features high-speed trains travelling using suspended rails in a similar style to the Schwebebahn.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.