Posted on 09/29/2026 12:09:49 PM PDT by rexthecat
The Wuppertal Suspension Railway, which opened on 1 March 1901 has glided above the Wupper River for 125 years and now carries over 80,000 passengers every day, according to Mayor Miriam Scherff. She says its suspended technology offers a fast, environmentally friendly link between districts along a 13-kilometre stretch of narrow valley.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesofindia.indiatimes.com ...
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Thanks for adding the Gif! Hard to believe this technology was developed 125 years ago.
I’ve been in Wuppertal and ridden on the Schwebebahn.
Newscum, if he were to refer to the 1901 German train, would likely criticize it by pointing out that the sound is not muffled enough to keep from disturbing the nap time of some insignificant form of aquatic life.
Many parts of Europe remind me of a toy train layout where every square inch, including overhead, is used for something and most things already there are preserved and incorporated.
We too seem bent to pave over every square inch of our domain but much less tastefully and less well maintained.
“Newsome the fool” couldn’t put together and operate a Lionel train set. He’s one polition who managed to stumble on a truth when he said he said that he had a low IQ. He forgot to add that he also had low morals, trustability, and creativity.
“Many parts of Europe remind me of a toy train layout where every square inch, including overhead, is used for something and most things already there are preserved and incorporated.”
Islam will take care to make sure and ruin everything that is useful, modern, and required actual thought.
Thanks for posting this. I’m sure my oldest son (almost 60), already knows about this train, but I forwarded the article link to him anyway. He’s been a train fanatic most of his life. He worked as a dispatcher for Conrail for almost 10 years, and my father worked on the NY Central for 50 years. That’s where he got his love of trains from. He still takes day trips on the weekend to find old train stations, museums and abandoned rail lines. An old Conrail co-worker volunteers on the Adirondack Railway, and he recently spent a day up there with him riding the train. This son is headed to Germany on 10/6. He’s going to Nuremberg again. He was just in Munich in April. He speaks the language fluently.
We just returned from a 20 day trip through the Rhineland, Bavaria and Austria. I always marvel at how neat and tidy the towns, villages, and countryside are. They’ve completely avoided all the horrible sprawl you have in the USA. Towns end and farm fields begin.
This would be GREAT for a unique model railroad setup...
“He speaks the language fluently.”
I’m 75 and wish I’d stuck with a foreign language. I studied (aka, struggled mightily) with German in 7th and 8th grades in upstate New York. Got Bs and Cs. We moved and the new school didn’t have German, so dad enrolled me in Russian! Got my first-ever F in 9th grade. I still suffer from that.
We just got back from a 20 day trip to Germany and Austria and did not run into a single other American! Knowing German would have helped immensely. On our last two days, we toured the Porsche Museum and Factory, then, the next day, the Mercedes Museum and Factory. We missed the English tour at the Mercedes factory and the ticket sales person was disinclined to let us on the tour. He asked if I knew German and I replied “ein bisschen”; he said “good enough” and sold us our tickets. They were mainly worried about safety on the factory floor, but we heard “Achtung” and knew to get out of the way. LOL.
I’m jealous of your son!
When he decided he wanted to start traveling overseas again, he went to the community college in Albany for refresher German courses.
He's been over there so many times, I've lost count. He goes twice a year if he can get the time off and afford it. He particularly likes the Czech Republic, and visits Bratislava when he's there, but Berlin is his go-to place. He's so knowledgeable about the rail service, and bus lines there, that one time he was standing at a bus stop in Berlin, and an old German man stopped to ask him if he knew which bus he needed to take to get to a specific place. My son pulled out the bus line guide and gave him directions.
The biggest overseas trip I took was in 2006. Signed up for a three-week bus tour of the British Isles. I'd never been overseas before, and hadn't flown in 20 years. Since my son was so used to flying to Germany, I asked him if he wanted to go with me for the first part of the trip. I wanted to do as many things as I could on that trip, so we flew into Brussels, and took the train to Bruges, stayed overnight there. Rented a car which he drove into Holland, so we could visit the small village my father was born in. We stayed overnight there, headed back to Belgium, dropped the car back off, and took the train to Paris. I had plans to stay there for a few days because I wanted to take a day tour of the D-Day Landing Beaches. I also spent a couple of days at the Louvre.
When we got to Paris, he was booked on an overnight train to Berlin, so we parted at Gare du Nord station, and I headed to my hotel. It was quite the trip. I was gone for a total of 33 days. After Paris, I took the Eurostar to London, and had a week to myself to do my bucket list before my bus tour left from the same hotel. I'm glad I had a chance to go. I got to see a lot of the British Isles, which I later discovered ancestors of mine had lived in when I worked on my family tree. I discovered that 28% of my DNA comes from Northwestern Germany. My parents never knew of any German connection. My mother was born in Canada, and as I previously said, my father in Holland. So in a way, my son is probably walking in the footsteps of some of his ancestors during the trips he takes.
Looks pretty cool
Not true, he just finished one last night. His mom bought it for him in 1977 when he was ten. It was tough for him, but he did it>
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