North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany | Inspired Inventions
The Schwebebahn Wuppertal or literally translated the “Floating Railway of Wuppertal” has a storied past. First off, it is the worlds oldest monorail and as a “suspended” monorail it runs by hanging onto a single rail above it. Secondly, while it is one of the world’s safest transport systems with an astonishing safety run of ninety six years without a serious accident, it recently had its first fatal crash. And of course, there was that incident with the elephant.
The Schwebebahn Wuppertal (pronounced Woopertal) is the most important public transport system in Wuppertal. Mounted on a 13.3 kilometres long, and seven to thirteen meter tall high iron bridge, it provides a nice view to all those who ride on it. Despite looking like something out of the future, the suspended monorail is quiet old. Originally proposed in 1824, the cars were originally to be pulled by horse teams on the ground. While a prototype was built the full system was never constructed for political reasons. But in 1898 the idea of a suspended monorail was dusted off, this time powered by electricity. Building of the monorail started in 1901 and by 1903, at a cost of 16 million Goldmark the monorail was open. Emperor Wilhelm II took the inaugural ride.
The Emperor had nothing to worry about, the Schwebebahn Wuppertal was, and is, remarkably safe. The cars tilt gently with the curves, and the monorail has almost no chance of falling off the track — it happened once in 1917 with minor injuries and a system was installed to make it nearly impossible for it to happen again — nor, like the subway, is there any chance of hitting people who have fallen or jumped onto the tracks.
From its opening in 1903 it ran with a nearly perfect safety record — a truck crashed into the rail collapsing it in 1968 but there were no trains around — until in 1999 when workers failed to remove a metal claw from the track. A train hit the claw at 50km/h and derailed into the Wupper river below, killing 5 and injuring 49 others, the worst and only fatal accident in the monorails history. Recently in 2008 there was a minor crash when a crane truck moved into the way of the oncoming train, and tore a 10 meter rip in the train floor. However excluding the driver of the truck who broke his leg, the injuries were all minor.
Perhaps the most bizarre of the accidents (there have only been five and the monorail is still considered incredibly safe) to ever occur on the Schwebebahn Wuppertal was that involving a three year old circus elephant named Tuffi.
On July 21st, 1950, in an attempt to promote its upcoming show, Althoff Circus loaded Tuffi, a three year old multi ton elephant onto the monorail. This was a mistake. Along the ride Tuffi panicked and burst through the side of the train falling some 9 meters. Lucky for her, the train was above the Wupper river at the time, and she went splashing into the water. Happily the elephant (along with two journalists, and one passenger who were hit by Tuffi on the way out) received only minor injuries. Tuffi went on to live another 39 years.
The spot where Tuffi fell is now marked by a painting of an elephant on a nearby building and there is Children’s picture book about the incident, “Tuffi und die Schwebebahn,” as well as a local milk brand which still uses the name Tuffi.
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