A suspension railway is a form of elevatedmonorail in which the vehicle is suspended from a fixed track, which is built above streets, waterways, or existing railway track.
The British engineer Henry Robinson Palmer filed a patent application for a horse-drawn suspended single-rail system in 1821, and constructed a demonstration at Woolwich Arsenal, in England, United Kingdom soon afterwards. German industrial pioneer, thinker and politician Friedrich Harkort built a demonstration track of Palmers' system in 1826, in Elberfeld, Germany, at the time commercial centre of the early industrial area Wupper Valley. The steelmill owner had the vision of a coal-carrier railway between Wupper Valley and the nearby coal-mining region of Ruhr, which would connect his own factories in Elberfeld and Deilbachtal. Due to protests from mill owners that were not integrated along the line and from the transporting branch, this idea could not be executed. The first suspended railway was opened at Cheshunt, England, United Kingdom on June 25, 1825, using Palmer's patent. It was built to carry bricks, but as an opening stunt it carried passengers. A work, Description of the suspension railway invented by Maxwell Dick: with engravings By Maxwell Dick, published in Irvine, Scotland, in 1830, refers to an aerial tramway/cable car system.
The Enos Electric Railway, an electric-powered monorail with wagons suspended from an elevated frame of open steelwork, was demonstrated in the grounds of the DaftElectric Company in Greenville, New Jersey, in 1886. It was built out of lightweight steel construction and worked well, but was never expanded. The design of the rail-frame appears to have influenced Eugen Langen, as his Wuppertal Schwebebahn framing bears a remarkable likeness to the Enos construction.
Introduction of operational lines (1900s)
Wuppertal's Electrical Elevated Railway or "floating tram"
During the 1880s the German businessman and engineer Eugen Langen experimented in his Cologne sugar factory with a low one-track suspension railway system for the transportation of raw materials. He was a business partner of Nicolaus Otto, the inventor of the internal-combustion engine, and probably knew the Palmer Railway. In the nearby expanding industrial zone of Wupper Valley, entrepreneurs and governors were looking for a modern urban transportation system. A cooperation between politicians and businessmen from the Barmen-Elberfeld industrial area around 1890 led to the implementation of an electric powered elevated railway system from the factory of Otto and Langen, now Deutz. The official name was Anlage einer elektrischen Hochbahn, System Eugen Langen Köln or Electrical Elevated Railroad Installation, System Eugen Langen Cologne. The installation and stations were built by three companies, among them the company of Friedrich Harkort. In 1901 the first track of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn opened, and still runs today. In 1903 it was extended to the final length of. This system is still in operation as a means of public transport, moving over 20 million passengers each year.
Langen also designed the Dresden Suspension Railway, a short funicular railway using the same suspended monorail technology, which opened in 1901 and is still in operation.
1930s
A unique demonstration electrically powered suspension line was built by the Scottish engineer George Bennie near Glasgow. Two propellers delivered in a short burst for acceleration to the cruise speed of 160 km/h. It was not a true monorail as it used an overhead running rail and a guide rail below.
1950s
In 1947, Lucien Chadenson became interested in the Bennie Railplane experimental line, and the Paris MetroRoute 11, which uses rubber tyres. A test track operated in Chateauneuf, south of Paris from 1958, but attracted no further interest in France. However, the Japanese have built two successful SAFEGE lines, the Siemens Company of Germany has developed a smaller scale system similar to the SAFEGE Monorail. and Aerorail of Texas and Sky Train of Florida are promoting steel-wheel versions of SAFEGE as well. Japan would later adopt the Alweg and Safege monorail systems and build more transit monorails than any other country in the world. The Ueno Zoo Monorail is a long suspended monorail operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation. It is similar to the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, but has rubber tires rather than steel wheels. The line began operating on December 17, 1958.
The Skybus Metro was a prototype suspended railway in Goa, India. The system consisted of an elevated track with the cars suspended below the track, like the Wuppertal Schwebebahn or H-Bahn systems in Germany. A test track in Margao, Goa started trials in 2004, but on September 25, one employee was killed and three injured in an accident. No progress was made after the accident. In 2013, the metro was dismantled.
