A few months ago I posted a video about a ride on a suspended monorail in Germany. It's one of the most unusual rides I've been on. Today I want to talk more about the actual ride itself and the areas that we passed by.
Wuppertal Suspension Railway
The Wuppertal Suspension Railway or Wuppertaler Schwebebahn as it is known in German, is located in the city of Wuppertal, roughly half an hour away from Dusseldorf by train. Surprisingly train tickets in Germany are quite affordable. I was travelling in a group of four and we could get a group ticket for the whole day. That included travel on this monorail. It was drizzling on and off that day, we didn't have much to do and were attracted by the novelty of the monorail that we rode it 2 and half times up and down. Yes, sometimes when you go on holiday, you tend to do silly things. This was one of them and it was fun!!
There are 20 stations on the line and we started at Oberbarmen, the most eastern end terminus. The building ahead is the depot, that's where the trains train around to come back to the station to pickup passengers.
Train carriages
This is the rear of the train carriage. If you ever go on this ride, make sure you try to bag these four seats. They give you the best view of the journey. We were very lucky as it wasn't very busy when we were on it and managed to sit here most of the time.
There are only two carriages per train and not that many seats inside. The trains run very frequently and were never too crowded even with many locals using it. Yes, this isn't a novelty tourist attraction, the locals actually use it as part of their daily travels.
The train ride
The best thing about sitting at the rear of the train is the thrill of the oncoming train suddenly swooshing by. As you're sitting, relaxing and admiring the scenery, suddenly you hear this whooooom!!! And the train speeding out like a bullet right in front of your eyes. This photo will give you an idea of how close and fast the other train is traveling the opposite direction
The whole monorail route lasts for over 13 km and takes about half an hour end to end. It connects various communities along the Wupper valley and the river, and we get to see a varied landscape, all above air. I think that's really neat, getting a birds eye view of things. For example, this area is near Vohwinkel the other terminus on the west end of the track. It's pretty crazy because we're dangling 8m above ground with all the traffic beneath us.
For most of the journey, we're travelling above the River Wuppal. Here we're elevated 10m above the river and follow the flow of the river including the bend. I remember there was a very very slight swing sometimes, accentuated by the fact I could see the curve of the track. I don't know if I could really feel the carriage swing or I only felt it because of the track. Nevertheless, the scenery was very pleasant.
There was one part of the journey that I found particularly interesting. Bayer, the global pharmaceutical company was founded in Wuppertal in 1863. Today, they still have a large factory and R&D center here. That's all those industrial buildings alongside the river. Their footprint here is pretty vast and I think it must have covered 2 or maybe even 3 stops. Looking at the time stamps of my photos, their buildings lasted at least 3 minutes of my ride.
Some other parts of the ride covered the urban areas including some very busy roads. This was a very different vibe from the river scenery and the local traffic. I find it just fascinating how much variation there is along the route, so much so that we did the journey two and a half times end to end ss we can see things from a different perspective each way.
And finally, the half journey was from one end back to Wuppertal central, where we finally got off, had quick wander around.
There wasn't much to do or see, to be honest. The Christmas market was very small, especially when we've been to the other larger and more popular ones in Cologne and Dusseldorf, this one was very disappointing. The suspended monorail was however, an excellent experience. If you missed my previous video, check it out here for your virtual ride.
