Riding the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn (Using Overhead Suspension Railways on Business Trips, Part I)

William Gibson’s idea that the future has already arrived, but it’s just not evenly distributed, skips over the reality that some of the future tried to arrive a hundred years ago, and it never quite made itself at home.

A fine example is the overhead suspension railway - the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn - in the German town of Wuppertal. It dates back to 1901, and is still running now, with departures as often as every four minutes.

It runs mostly along the course of the river Wupper, with its supporting legs straddling the river itself, creating no ownership-of-air-rights issues and requiring no disruption to buildings on either side.

Look, no tracks in the stations...

I first saw the?Schwebebahn?in Wim Wenders’ 2011 documentary featuring Pina Bausch wending her way on a whim to Wuppertal. Sorry for that.?

I first read about it, I recently realized, in Peter Tinniswood’s 1974 grim comic novel Except You’re a Bird, the sequel to I Didn’t Know You Cared, in the context of northern English towns losing their trams and gaining buses in supposed exchange.?

If only the replacement had been an aerial monorail - that would have transformed the river Calder, for instance, providing thrill rides from Halifax to Dewsbury, conveying pub goers along the way, and drawing the tourist dollars of self-styled business travelers.

Meanwhile, back in Wuppertal, you sit in the rear of the last carriage with a big picture window that's ideal for photography as you pass through the line’s stations.

If the pictures look a bit grey you can blame the February drizzle on my arrival and the cloud cover the next morning, but what a treat to see these things zooming through the air.?

Best of all was seeing a glowing oblong appear in space out of nowhere - the inside of the train going in the opposite direction ?- as daylight faded.

It’s only a half hour from Koln, if you’re going to a convention at the Messe, but the Postboutique Hotel in Wuppertal…

... is more than fit for purpose and dinner at Laurenz, nearby, need not cost more than 20 Euros. With no extra charge for the groovy tables.

Other restaurants are available, including an example of Germanic burger humor:

You do need cash for dinner at Laurenz, but the hotel gives you a free pass for the monorail.?

They’d do that in Yorkshire, wouldn’t they??

Surely they would.

#travelBusiness #Travel #slowtravel #business #railways #monorails #williamgibson