12/14/2023 0 Comments Upside down train rails![]() ![]() The Schwebebahn, for non-elephant users, remains an extremely safe way to travel. “A ride in the Schwebebahn allows the passenger an extraordinary insight into the life of the local residents and really looks like a fairground attraction from days gone by.” Althoff had, apparently, wanted to jump after her, but instead continued to the next stop from where he ran back to the dazed elephant and led it back to the circus camp.Ī statue made from basalt created in 2020 by artist Bernd Bergkemper sits in the exact spot where Tuffi landed in 1950. ![]() The river was only 50 centimeters (20 inches) deep at that location but the ground was muddy, so Tuffi suffered only a few scrapes. First she trampled a row of seats and then jumped through a window into the river 10 meters (33 feet) below. She boarded the train at Wuppertal-Barmen station (where Althoff had to purchase four tickets for Tuffi and one for himself).īut the carriage was crowded with journalists and officials, so when Tuffi tried to turn after a few minutes, she couldn’t and panicked. She’d already ridden on trams, drunk from a holy water fountain, delivered crates of beer to construction workers and, somewhat less heroically, eaten a bouquet of flowers and urinated on a Persian carpet.įirst her Schwebebahn trip seemed to go just fine. Tuffi was typically fearless around people, so circus owner Franz Althoff regularly used her to advertise his show. The Althoff Circus was in town and had arranged a promotional trip for the young pachyderm, who was a minor celebrity in West Germany at the time. In 1950, the Schwebebahn had its most famous passenger to date, even more high-profile than the Kaiser: Tuffi the elephant. Tim Oelbermann/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images Construction began in 1898 and the line was ceremoniously opened in 1901, with Emperor Wilhelm II taking a test ride with wife Auguste Viktoria.Ī statue of Tuffi sits in the spot where he landed. In 1893, he offered his suspension railway system to the city, which leapt at the proposal. A booming local textile industry had seen the area grow from a small collection of settlements along the Wupper river to an urban sprawl of 40,000 inhabitants who now needed to get around.īecause the long and winding river valley made traditional rail or tramways impossible, city officials invited proposals to solve the problem – and up popped Langen. Meanwhile, the nearby city of Wuppertal had a problem. Entrepreneur and engineer Eugen Langen had been experimenting with a suspension railway for moving goods at his sugar factory in Cologne. It all began in the 1880s, in the afterglow of imperial Germany’s so-called Gründerzeit era of rapid industrial expansion. And it’s in Germany that the original, and still very much the best, can still be found still going strong in all its steampunk glory – the Wuppertal Schwebebahn. Today, the only suspension railways in operation are to be found in Japan and Germany. The idea, ironically, never really got off the ground despite a few successful if short-lived ventures like the Braniff Jetrail Fastpark System that whisked passengers from parking lot to terminal at Dallas Love Field for four years before the airport closed in 1974. Their carriages swoosh over roads, rivers and other obstructions, while passengers get to enjoy the view. Unlike boring ordinary train lines that stay determinedly fixed to terra firma, suspension railways dangle beneath a track suspended from pylons. By the year 2022, surely we would all be commuting to work on upside down railways! Suspension railways today seem like an anachronism – a 19th-century vision of what the future of transport would look like. ![]()
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