Appears in Newsflare picks
02:15

This German city is home to one of the world's most unusual upside-down "flying" train lines

Content Partner Cover Image
Content Partner Profile Image
Uploaded by a Newsflare content partner

Buy video

The German city of Wuppertal is home to one of the world's most unusual transport systems - an upside-down "flying" train line. Carriages hang upside-down from the tracks and drive over the streets and river of the city. These videos show the trains running on massive suspended tracks over the buildings and roads of the city, even over the Wupper river during some portions of their journey. The Wuppertal Schwebebahn, as it’s called, is 13.3 kilometres long, and is a regular means of getting from A to B and carries 82,000 people daily. The characteristic railway system is one of the landmarks of the city and is one of only six functional suspended railway systems in the world, with four of those being in Germany. The Schwebebahn is an incredibly safe transportation system, with only one fatal accident since it came into operation in 1901. The line’s only incident happened in 1999, and resulted in five deaths and 45 injuries. It was caused by a metal claw used in maintenance, which was forgotten by a worker on the tracks, resulting in a derailment, with the car falling into the river Wupper. There have, of course, been more injuries in the 123 year history of the trains, but only four of these have led to passengers being injured. The most strange among those being an elephant which escaped from one of the cars in 1950, and fell into the river beneath. The elephant was riding in the train as part of a publicity stunt by the Althoff Circus, and was thankfully rescued from the river alive. The elephant, a pair of journalists, and a passenger sustained only minor injuries.

Categories

Tags

From the blog

Stories not Stock: 3 Reasons Why You Should Use UGC Instead of Stock Video

Video content is an essential part of a brand’s marketing strategy, and while stock footage has been a reliable go-to in the past, forward-thinking companies are looking to user-generated content for their video needs.

View post
Content Partner Cover Image
Content Partner Profile Image
Uploaded by a Newsflare content partner

Buy video