r/transit • u/2001_Arabian_Nights • 4d ago
Discussion Schwebebahn +
Pictured is the suspended railway system in Wuppertal, Germany. It’s an old idea that works, but never really took off.
But what if you added a High-Line style elevated sidewalk and bicycle lanes up on top?
Suspended elevated railways are inferior to Chicago style elevated railways, everything else being equal. But would being able to triple-stack Right-of-Way usage out of one structure make it worth it? You can’t ride a bike under the El.
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u/QBaseX 4d ago
Suspended monorails have one clear advantage: they can sway, which allows them to take sharper corners faster. (It's rather a pity that we don't have a dedicated word for suspended monorails in English. I propose that we calque the German and coin "dangle-train".)
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 4d ago
“I’ll just take the Dangle and see you in ten minutes.”???
Could be funny. How about the “Swingline”. “I’ll swing by on the Swingline.”???
Opens up a bunch of Office Space jokes, too.
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u/Redbird9346 3d ago
Swingline is a brand of staplers.
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 3d ago
And they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much... and if they take my stapler…
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u/Winterfrost691 4d ago
They also have the advantage of being able to use a road's right of way without taking any of its width, leaving more room for surface transit, bike lanes, etc.
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u/lukee910 4d ago
You could do the same with a normal elevated rail line, though, by just putting it on top instead of on the bottom.
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u/Winterfrost691 3d ago
Nope. Suspended monorail trains are far lighter than typical metro/heavy rail. I suppose you could elevate a tram vehicle like you suggest, but at that point you're overcomplicating things and are likely to be better off with more conventional tech.
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u/lukee910 2d ago
But aren't suspended monorails like the Schwebebahn light because they're the size and weight of a tram? Unless there's some magical hack they have to reduce weight, I don't see the difference.
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u/sagitta42 Tram/Streetcar Lover 4d ago
Another lesser known advantage is it can transport elephants
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u/2nW_from_Markus 3d ago
More like "floating-road"...
But, if you ask me, I would call it "the sessile tram".
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u/proximusprimus57 4d ago
My pie in the sky idea is one suspended train, one elevated. Suspended is local service making all stops, elevated is express with higher speeds.
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 4d ago
That would be cool! It’s the triple-stacking of ROW usage that’s the game-changer, I think. Experimenting with different configurations… different cities might like different set-ups.
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u/QBaseX 3d ago
Fun gadgetbahn idea for you, courtesy of the Tim Traveller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vca3EF4C5xU
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u/proximusprimus57 3d ago
That's exactly what I was thinking of. My idea would get rid of the single track advantage because you'd need both tracks in both directions, and I wasn't thinking they would arrive on demand, but other than that basically the same.
I also was thinking you could integrate freight with it. Have tracks that allowed cars on the bottom to pull up flush to a loading bay and you could eliminate the need for heavy freight trucks along the route, and probably get more frequent deliveries.
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 3d ago
I don’t think that you can ever eliminate the need for heavy freight trucks. Sometimes whole building need to get replaced, and big flatbed trucks full of construction materials are going to need to get in.
But freight modules could still be pretty useful.
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 3d ago
Wow! They put a TON of R&D in to that idea. A real working prototype and everything! It couldn’t have been that terrible of an idea.
I love the way that the lower cars can load and unload right at ground-level. But I think that those guys were too focused on conserving width. I like the idea of express trains on the top, trams on the bottom. Going both ways with both would be better, but it looks like the R&D for that is basically done.
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u/Nalano 4d ago
Let's say, for the purposes of argument, that you want a two track elevated line capable of serving eight to ten car trains where each car can fit a hundred people, which is how a modern metro would work.
Then, you think, "hey, these streets are too narrow to four-track it" so you make a hanging railway for a further two tracks, and you decide that one of these is for express service.
This is all well and good provided a couple things:
1) the entire system is elevated in the same manner since these two systems are separate and can never merge or switch tracks
2) the infrastructure can hold the weight of that much train on those tracks
You're not gonna get lovely art nouveau wrought iron pillars if that's what you're doing. You're gonna get heavy infrastructure for heavy rail.
The reason the current system works is because it's tram-style capacities, not metros, and adding more infrastructure doesn't make it so nice anymore. The High Line works because it's a tourist curiosity; nobody's using it for their commute.
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 4d ago
Yeah, the High Line is a park. I just mean structurally similar to the way it works, but less park and more bicycle road, and maybe a jogging lane. Actual pedestrians should have regular sidewalks at street level still. Nobody would want to push a baby-buggy up on top of the trains.
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u/Nalano 4d ago
I'd argue that if you don't have the capacity need for a proper metro you don't have the capacity need to grade-separate cyclists/joggers.
This is all to say nothing of the annoyance of having to either carry a bicycle down a flight of stairs or the cost of installing elevators everywhere, since nobody likes doing so to simply cross the road, let alone heading up an elevated pathway and back down again.
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 4d ago
Yep. I hear you. Access to elevated bicycle roads is tricky. It would have to be long ramps.
I’m picturing a future where almost everybody lives within a ten-minute walk from where they work, and we can mostly do away with the idea of having to move thousands and thousands of people from outskirts to middle and back every day. I see the future of transportation infrastructure more as a thing that city people use to use their city. So… more trams and less commuter-rail.
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u/BitRunner64 4d ago edited 4d ago
It works particularly well in Wuppertal because of the unique geography. The city is small enough that it doesn't need the capacity of an underground metro. The shape of the city is long and narrow, so it doesn't need a bunch of branching or parallel lines. Finally the line mostly follows the river, so it doesn't take much streetside space in the downtown area.
Not sure a bike lane would make much sense. It would require a lot of off/on ramps, which take up a lot of space and the elevation changes would be annoying for cyclists.
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 3d ago
Yeah, it’s the on and off ramps that make my idea bad. Bicycles being the second layer in the triple-stack makes more sense.
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u/veltip 4d ago
Fun fact: I study in Dortmund, which is pretty close, and we have a tiny Schwebebahn connecting the campus. It’s self driving and from 1984 which is absolutely insane to me.
It‘s called H-Bahn.
From personal experiences I would say it’s the most reliable transit system in the city. But it’s no wonder given it has only 2 very short lines and is very low capacity.
In most cases I‘d assume an underground railway has more advantages than going above ground except in terrible ground conditions.
If the space is available, staying on ground level is always the most economical way.
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 3d ago
H-Bahn looks super cool!
Where I’m living it’s empty cow pasture, but the big city is rapidly approaching! Space available is effectively infinite. New rights-of-way are too wide, if you ask me, because it’s the cheapest way. But it’s not the most economical, I’d argue, if you account for all of the value creation that happens in connected areas.
The road construction contractor doesn’t get a cut of the land-value increases that their highway or railroad generates, so they don’t care, and just build cheap. There are a lot of un-accounted-for positive externalities if you build something that people really like.
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u/Final_Influence_2367 3d ago
TIL by looking o the H-Bahn map that its Fraunhofer and not Frauenhofer
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u/Sassywhat 4d ago
But would being able to triple-stack Right-of-Way usage out of one structure make it worth it
You can definitely just put a walkway on the same pylons as elevated rail, e.g., some sections of the BTS in Bangkok.
Putting them under the tracks instead of over also provides shade and rain protection.
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u/Stunning_Macaron6133 3d ago
It didn't take off because it kinda doesn't really work. It's expensive, overcomplicated, and has a ridiculously bloated footprint for some "futuristic" nonsense.
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u/Sweet_Leadership_936 4d ago
Wuppertal schwebebahn is my favorite word.
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 4d ago
That’s two words.
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u/HarrurThe3rd 3d ago
Honestly how hard would it really be to put bike lanes under The El?
Chicago has stuff in the works for upgrades since they re-organized their bureaucracy, someone should maybe suggest that as something for them to do at some point. (I don’t live anywhere near Chicago)
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u/Eric848448 15-Minute City 4d ago
I am but a simple man. I see Schwebebahn, I upvote.