September 2023 and I’ve headed to the German city of Wuppertal to Exploring this unique city, both for it’s creation and it’s public transport – home to the Schwebebahn hanging railway
Aussichtspunkt über Elberfeld
Bismarckturm (http://www.wuppertals-gruene-anlagen.de)
Botanischer Garten (http://www.botanischer-garten-wuppertal.de)
Hardt (http://www.elisenhoehe.de)
Nordbahntrasse (https://nordbahntrasse.de)
Schwarzbachtrasse (https://nordbahntrasse.de)
Schwebebahn (https://schwebebahn.de)
Visiodrom (https://visiodrom.de)
Von der Heydt-Museum (https://von-der-heydt-museum.de)
Wuppertal Tourismus – http://www.wuppertal.de/tourismus-freizeit
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:33 Background
3:09 Von der Heydt-Museum
4:07 Visiodrom
8:12 Botanischer Garten
10:11 Hardt
11:21 Bismarckturm
11:45 Nordbahntrasse
17:37 Schwarzbachtrasse
18:15 Schwebebahn
21:55 Getting There
22:22 Outro
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♫ Title Music ♫ It’s September 2023 and I’ve headed to Wuppertal a perfectly normal city in Western Germany… …Apart from it’s DangleBahn. ♫ Title Music ♫ Wuppertal can trace it’s history all the way back to July 29th 1929 when it was created by
The merger of the, at the time, independent cities of Barman and Elberfeld along with the communities of Vohwinkel, Ronsdorf, Cronenberg, Langerfeld and Beyenburg. Initially called Barmen-Elberfeld the name was changed the following year to Wuppertal, literally Wupper Valley. Both Elberfeld and Barmen can trace their histories back to the 7th century when the
Predominantly forested banks of the Wupper River started to be settled. Part of the reason for the merger of the cities into a single identity was due to their explosive growth during Germany’s industrialisation in the latter part of the 18th century. By the middle of the 19th century Elberfeld and Barmen were the most
Industrialized cities in Germany and, if it wasn’t for the constraints of their geography including the shallow Wuppper, and the difficulty of navigating a valley, they might have held off the rise of the Rhein cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf as
Well as the Rhur conglomeration of cities from Dortmund to Duisburg via Bochum and Essen. In the 100 years Between 1780 and 1880 the populations of the two cities closely tracked each other remaining broadly similar as they boomed from barely 10,000 each to over 100,000 each.
By the time the two city’s merged the combined population was over 400,000, though with the slow industrial decline of the region since the 1970s the population now stands around 350,000 The new city became unique in Germany for being a linear city, stretching for over 17Km South
West to North East, predominantly along the course of the River Wupper hemmed in by the steep hillsides of the Wupper on either side – which is also one of the reasons for the city ending up with it’s unique transportation solution of an elevated railway running above the river.
Today the centre of the city, the Hauptbahnhof and the main shopping district are located in Elberfeld, with the main administrative headquarters in Barmen. Barmen is also the location of the childhood home of Fredrich Engles, good friend of Karl Marx, who he authored the Communist Manifesto
With and Adolph Coors who went on to found the American brewery that still bears his name. Following the second world war Wuppertal became a part of the British Zone of Occupation which is why, bizarrely, the list of other famous Wuppertaler include Gyles Brandreth.
Elberfeld was also the home town of the baronial banking family the Von der Heydt’s who, thanks to their donations and support, have had the former Städtisches Museum Elberfeld renamed the Von der Heydt Museum in their name since 1961.
The museum is famous for being the first gallery to display a work by Pablo Picasso in public. The gallery had a number of works by Picasso and his contemporary Max Beckmann which the Nazi’s declared to be degenerate art and a large part of the museums
Collection was confiscated by the Nazi’s with significant parts sold or destroyed. Today the gallery houses a small permanent collection as well as space for temporary exhibitions – at the time of visiting an exhibit on Picasso and Beckmann was taking place,
But it was being policed by a very strict personal, non-sharing, photography policy that explicitly excluded taking any photos or videos to put on the internet – so no footage of that. The museum is housed in the old town hall of Elberfeld that was
In use from 1831 until 1902 at which point it was converted into a museum. At the far end of the city, in the Oberbarmen District is another imposing former building that’s been converted into a museum, though it’s uses have been a bit more varied.
The Heckinghausen gasometer was built between 1950 and 1952 to replace gas containers that were destroyed during an air raid on Barmen in May 1943. Designed to house 60,000m3 of gas in a ridged external structure, with an internal disc that moved up and down based on the volume of the gas inside,
The building soon became an icon on the skyline of the city sitting opposite the railway line from the Schwebebahn terminal when arriving from the East. The tank was in use for 45 years before being taken out of service in 1997. Originally planned
To be demolished those plans were quickly thwarted when it was placed under monument protection in 1998, due to it’s position as a landmark and a testimony to the industrial history of the city. The structure sat unused for nearly 20 years until work began on converting it into a museum,
Cinema and viewing gallery called Visiodrom. The cinema screen is the largest in Europe and shows special films that have been created to be displayed in it’s very specific layout. The films are accompanied on the ground floor by an exhibition in the museum space.
At the time of visiting the exhibition and film was on Leonardo Da Vinci. A five story concrete structure which houses a gym, restaurant, a second small museum as well as the seating for the cinema has been built
In the middle of the gasometer, and only when you walk round the outside of the building, inside the shell of the gasometer do you truly get an understanding of the scale of the building. Above the 5th floor seating area the screen of the cinema rises, wrapped around the full circumference of the building
Made all the more impressive once the projection starts. [MUSIC] On the first floor, above the main exhibition space, and open to the screen high above it, is a second small museum space that houses a display on the history of
The gasometer, from the original structures on the site that were destroyed in the war through to it’s closure in 1997 and a very interesting timelapse video of the conversion of the site from disused industrial storage unit to unique tourist attraction. [MUSIC FROM THE FILM ABOVE]
And. of course, if you own the tallest structure in the city, you’re going to want to put a viewing platform on the roof which the Visiodrom has done and from up here there are good views over
This upper end of the city – Oberbarmen, Barmen and the hills either side of the Wupper river. ♫ Music ♫ Back down the river in the hills overlooking Elberfeld is another of the city’s attractions – the Hardt, a large park that covers this partly wooded hill and includes the city’s botanical gardens.
Textile manufacturer and city councillor Engelbert Eller founded a country estate with a villa and orangery on a part of the Hardt in 1820, in 1838 he added the Elisenturm as an observatory on the site of a former windmill.
Following his death his widow bequeathed the tower and grounds to the German Red Cross who then transferred them to the city of Elberfeld in 1907. In 1910 the city’s botanical gardens, which had originally been a school garden elsewhere on the Hardt were relocated here to create more space.
In 2006 three new greenhouses were added to the site. The largest has an exhibition space as well as being used for overwintering plants, whilst the two smaller houses have specialist collections of tubers and cacti respectively. The Botanical gardens gently cascade down the slope of the Hardt, including multiple ponds
And specialist planting. At the top of the gardens there is a cold water pond that includes fish and was being swarmed by massive dragonflies that the camera totally failed to pick up when I visited. Behind is a warm water pond that is home to large lily pads
At the centre of the garden is a large rock garden that you can walk through on the different levels. Outside of the botanical gardens the Hardt provides a large open space complete with flowerbeds ♫ Music ♫ And views down on the old centre of Elberfeld. ♫ Music ♫
Further up the Hardt the 1907 built Bismarckturm or Bismarck Tower is located at the northern limit of the park and marks the former boundary between Elberfeld and Barmen. The tower is one of 47 that were built to the same design across Germany
At the beginning of the 20th century, though since 2015 the viewing platform at the top of the tower has been closed so the panoramic views are less visible. Something else that has also been closed for a while is the Nordbahn. The Düsseldorf-Derendorf-Dortmund Süd railway, also known as the Wuppertaler Nordbahn,
Was built from 1873 as a competitor to the main Elberfeld to Dortmund line that still to today forms the main railway line through the city running along the Wupper valley. Because the mainline had taken the only really usable route through the valley
Floor the Nordbahn was forced to build along a far more complex route creating a terrace along the hills to the north of the city, requiring multiple tunnels, bridges and viaducts. Parts of the line between Düsseldorf and Vohwinkel and Schwelm and Dortmund at either end
Of Wuppertal are still in use, but the section in the middle, the bit with the tight curves, viaducts, bridges and tunnels, was closed to passengers on September 27th 1991, and the alignment abandoned after the last freight train ran through on December 17th 1999.
Starting in 2005 plans were made to transform the abandoned lines into a leisure path for cycling and walking. Over 30 million euros and nearly a decade later the route was inaugurated on December 19th 2014 making the Nordbahntrasse or Northern Railway Route the longest inter-city
Former railway route in the world – about 10 times the length of the High Line in New York. The route runs for 22Km and includes not only the track bed of the former Northern Railway but also the bed of the former Wuppertal-Wichlinghausen to Hattingen railway line.
Along the way much of the former infrastructure including stations and even the lineside kilometre markers have been retained, along with refurbished tunnels and bridges. The most interesting section of the path starts at the site of the former Wuppertal-Dorp station
Which is where the line starts to wind its way along the hillside through a series of tunnels and bridges past the sites of Ottenbruch, Mirke and Ostersbaum stations. Just after Osersbaum station one of the former bridges over the road has been renovated and
Given a paint job to make it look like the bridge has been constructed out of LEGO, being given the imaginatively titled name the LEGO Brücke. Wuppertal-Loh station was a junction with the short 4.5km branch line to Hatzfeld, which closed even earlier than the Nordbahn with the last passenger train departing in
1963 and the line limping on with decreasing freight until the last train ran at the end of 1979 and the line officially closing on February 1st 1980. Not that you’d necessarily know from the station as it’s been completely restored to how it would have
Looked when the trains were running, it’s central island platform, canopy and even the tracks of the old Hatzfeld line looking like they’re just waiting for the next departure. More than 32 years after the last train departed the clock is still working at Loh,
And even with the trees growing out of the platform further down, it’s only the lack of tracks on the Nordbahn that really show the station is closed – I’ve been at more rundown existing Deutsche Bahn stations that still have trains. The traditional yellow departures posters – ubiquitous to every
German railway station – have even been retained, though today they show details about what you can see along the route, split out by distance along the line. At places the trees that have grown up along the route occasionally part to offer views out over the Wupper Valley.
Just after the Rott tunnel and Wuppertal-Rott station is the first of three impressive viaducts on this part of the line – the Kuhler Viadukt which is over 200m long crossing the streets below about the same level as a four-storey building, made all
The more impressive by the gentle curve towards the end of the bridge as the line continues on. At 85m, Fatloh tunnel is the shortest and straightest on the line with the whole length visible at once. Stepping a short distance away from the line the Belvedere Park has been built on the top
Of one of the many cuttings on the line and from here you can look down on the Nordbahntrasse as well as take in the views out across the valley including over to Oberbarmen and the Visiodrom. Wuppertal-Wichlinghausen station marks the end of the Northern Railway part of the route
And the junction with the Wuppertal-Hattingen railway, from here the Nordbahntrasse takes up the route of the Hattingen railway, but much like Loh, the station has been retained and refurbished. But it’s not just the Nordbahn and Hattingen railways that meet here. Coming up from Wuppertal
Is the Oberbarmen-Wichlinghausen line which takes two sweeping curves to climb up from the still running mainline in the valley up to here. The line closed in 1998 and following further works by the same team that built the Nordbahntrasse the Schwarzbachtrasse, named for the large viaduct just before Wichlinghausen, opened in September 2020.
The line includes the 290m long Wichlinghauser tunnel which curves its way through the hill. As well as the very imaginatively titled LEGO Brücke 2.0 But for all the abandoned railway lines, the city of Wuppertal is most famous for a railway line that is still hanging around, quite literally.
[SOUND OF A SCHWEBEBAHN TRAIN PASSING OVERHEAD] Opened on March 1st 1901 when it was running between the independent communities and cities of the Wupper Valley, 28 years before they merged into a single city around it, the Schwebebahn is the backbone of the city’s public transport, and credited in part
To helping to grow the area so much that merger into a single city of Wuppertal became possible. Originally called the Einschienige Hängebahn System Eugen Langen or the Eugen Langen Monorail Overhead Conveyor System after the inventor Eugen Langen. Thankfully he also invented the neologism Schwebebahn.
Langen had tried to sell his system to Berlin, Munich and Breslau who had all turned it down before Barmen-Elberfeld decided it was right for them in 1894. Sadly, Langen died in 1895, two years before construction work on the line commenced between Oberbarmen and Vohwinkel.
The line runs for 10.6km at a hight of about 12m above the River Wupper before it turns inland and runs for the final 2.7km about 8m above the roads below. For all it’s peculiarities the actual design is a pretty standard railway with a steel
Wheel running along a steel rail, it’s just the cars of the Schwebebahn hang below the wheels, rather than being positioned above them as they would be on a standard railway, also because they hang it only needs a single wheel in the middle above the car rather than two wheels either side.
Whilst it’s a tourist attraction and a bit of an oddity it is also a vital part of the city’s public transport with the entire system having been renovated by 2014 and new trains being delivered in 2016 and a daily ridership of around 82,000
Due to the geography of the city East-West communication is mostly funnelled into a single main road and railway line that follow the route of the river. The river itself is too shallow to be of any use for transport and the land doesn’t lend itself to the easy construction of a metro system,
Which left the space above the river as the only convenient space to position a transport solution, and so Langen’s system became the logical choice – the coming together of technology and geography. The trains operate more like a tramline, turning round a loop at the end and heading back,
Therefore there’s only a drivers cab at one end which means you can sit at the back of the train and look out the big end window for some stunning views as the train floats high above the Wupper River and roads of Vohwinkel. ♫ Music ♫
Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof has regular trains to Düsseldorf where you can connect through to Düsseldorf Airport. The airport is the 4th busiest in Germany behind Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin and has connections across much of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The Hauptbahnhof also has hourly high speed ICE trains to Berlin,
Hannover and Cologne and irregular ICE services direct to Frankfurt Airport, Munich and Vienna. ♫ Title Music ♫