Suspension railway facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

A suspension railway is a special type of elevated railway where the train hangs below a fixed track. Imagine a train that floats above the streets, rivers, or other railway lines! Unlike a cable car that uses a moving cable, a suspension railway has a solid track that the vehicle is attached to from above. These unique railways offer a different way to travel and transport goods.

The Memphis Suspension Railway

The History of Suspension Railways
List of Suspension Railways Around the World
Other Uses for Suspension Railways
See also

The History of Suspension Railways

Early Ideas and Experiments

Palmer's Horse-Drawn System

In 1821, a British engineer named Henry Robinson Palmer came up with an idea for a single-rail system where vehicles would hang underneath. He even built a small demonstration track in England.

A few years later, in 1826, Friedrich Harkort in Germany built a similar demonstration. He dreamed of using this system to carry coal between factories in the Wupper Valley. However, his plan for a full railway wasn't built at that time.

The very first suspended railway opened in Cheshunt, England, in 1825. It was designed to carry bricks, but for its opening, it even carried passengers!

Early Electric Monorails

In 1886, the Enos Electric Railway showed off an electric monorail in New Jersey, USA. Its cars hung from a strong steel frame. It worked well, but a larger version was never built. Its design later inspired other engineers.

A Russian engineer, Ippolit Romanov, also created an electric monorail prototype in Odessa in 1895. By 1899, a working experimental track was built. In 1900, a short 0.2 kilometer (about 0.12 miles) electric monorail was tested in Gatchina, Russia. It could carry up to 25 kilograms (about 55 pounds) at 15 kilometers per hour (about 9 miles per hour).

Ippolit Romanov's monorail design.

The First Working Lines (Early 1900s)

Wuppertal's "Floating Tram"

In the 1880s, German engineer Eugen Langen experimented with a suspended railway for moving materials in his factory. He partnered with others to develop an electric elevated railway system.

This led to the famous Wuppertal Schwebebahn (meaning "Wuppertal Suspension Railway") in Germany. The first part of this railway opened in 1901 and it is still running today! It was extended to 13.3 kilometers (about 8.3 miles) in 1903. This "floating tram" carries over 20 million passengers every year, making it a very successful public transport system.

A section of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn in Germany.

Dresden's Unique Railway

Langen also designed the Dresden Suspension Railway, which opened in 1901. It's a shorter railway that uses the same suspended technology and is also still in operation.

Mid-20th Century Developments (1930s-1960s)

The Bennie Railplane

In the 1930s, Scottish engineer George Bennie built a unique demonstration suspension line near Glasgow. It used propellers to reach speeds of 160 kilometers per hour (about 100 miles per hour)! It wasn't a true monorail because it had both an overhead rail and a lower guide rail.

New Designs and Zoo Monorails

After World War II, new ideas for suspended railways emerged. In the 1950s, a French design called SAFEGE became popular. Japan later built two successful SAFEGE lines.

In 1956, "Monorail, Incorporated" built a test track in Houston, Texas, for a system they called "Trailblazer." It had a single car that could seat 55 people. They hoped it could reach 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour), but no full systems were ever built.

The Ueno Zoo Monorail in Tokyo, Japan, started operating in 1958. It was 0.3 kilometers (about 0.18 miles) long and used rubber tires instead of steel wheels. After 60 years of service, it stopped running on October 31, 2019, and was officially closed in 2024.

The Ueno Zoo Monorail.

Suspension Railways for Fairs and Parks

During the 1960s, many suspended monorail systems opened in the United States. However, most of these were for fun at places like the LA County Fair (1962), the New York World's Fair (1964-1965), and Busch Gardens parks. They were not used for daily public transportation.

Modern Suspension Railways (1970s to Today)

Airport and City Connections

In 1970, the Jetrail system opened at Dallas Love Field Airport in the US. It carried passengers from a parking lot to the airport terminal. It closed in 1974.

The Shonan Monorail in Japan opened in 1970 and is still operating today. It uses the SAFEGE design.

Japan also has the Chiba Urban Monorail, which started service in 1988. It is the world's largest suspension railway system!

Germany built two more H-Bahn suspension railways in 1975, one at Dortmund University and another at Düsseldorf Airport. The Memphis Suspension Railway in the United States opened in 1982, but it has not been in service since 2018.

New Technologies and Recent Projects

In the 1990s and 2000s, there were continued efforts to develop new systems. The Skybus Metro was a test railway in Goa, India. Trials began in 2004, but an accident occurred during testing, and the project was later dismantled in 2013.

The Skybus Metro test track in India.

Since 2010, several new SAFEGE-style suspended railway prototypes have been developed, especially in China. For example, the Optics Valley Suspended Monorail in Wuhan, China, was completed in 2023 and is now operating. Another short line began construction in Enshi City, China, in 2020. There are also other projects being considered in China and Russia.

List of Suspension Railways Around the World

List of suspension railways
Name	Location	Country	Service	Started operations	Status	Technology	Track length
Schwebebahn	Wuppertal	Germany	Public	1901	Operating	Eugen Langen design	13.3 km (8.3 mi)
Schwebebahn	Dresden	Germany	Public	1901	Operating	Eugen Langen design	0.274 km (0.170 mi)
H-Bahn	TU Dortmund	Germany	Public	1984	Operating	SAFEGE-derivative Siemens SIPEM	3.16 km (1.96 mi)
Sky train	Düsseldorf Airport	Germany	Public	2002	Operating	SAFEGE-derivative Siemens SIPEM	2.5 km (1.6 mi)
Strela Monorail	Glukhovo near Krasnogorsk	Russia	Test track	2016	Abandoned	SAFEGE-derivative, STRELA	0.9 km (0.56 mi)
Ueno Zoo Monorail	Ueno Zoo, Taitō, Tokyo	Japan	Public	1957	Not in service since 2019 Officially closed in 2024, currently being dismantled	Eugen Langen design	0.3 km (0.19 mi)
Shonan Monorail	Kanagawa Prefecture	Japan	Public	1970	Operating	SAFEGE	6.6 km (4.1 mi)
Chiba Urban Monorail	Chiba	Japan	Public	1988	Operating	SAFEGE	15.2 km (9.4 mi)
SkyTrain	Chengdu	China	Test track	2021	Operating	SAFEGE-derivative Zhongtang Air Rail Technology	1.2 km (0.75 mi)
Optics Valley Suspended Monorail	Wuhan	China	Public	2023	Operating	SAFEGE-derivative	10.5 km (6.5 mi)
Qingyunya Sightseeing Little Train Project	Xiajiaba near Enshi	China	Public	?	Under construction	SAFEGE-derivative	2.1 km (1.3 mi)
Red Rail	Xingguo	China	Test track	2022	Operating	SAFEGE-derivative	0.8 km (0.50 mi)
Skybus Metro	Margao, Goa	India	Public¹	Never	Dismantled in 2013	Rajaram/KRCL design	1.6 km (0.99 mi)
Higashiyama Park Monorail [ja]	Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya	Japan	Public	1964	Dismantled in 1975	SAFEGE	0.5 km (0.31 mi)
Memphis Suspension Railway	Mud Island, Memphis	United States	Public	1982	Not in service since 2018	Eugen Langen-derivative	1,700 feet (520 m)

Note 1: Skybus Metro used the track as a test track, but it was planned to become part of the public line.

Other Uses for Suspension Railways

A monorail used in mining.

Suspension railways aren't just for carrying people! They are also used for many other tasks, especially in factories and outdoors.

In the 1920s, the Port of Hamburg in Germany used a petrol-powered suspended monorail to move luggage and cargo from ships to a passenger station.

Very small and light systems have been widely used on farms to transport crops like bananas.

In the mining industry, suspended monorails are very useful. They can go up and down steep tunnels using a special gear system. This helps reduce the cost and length of tunnels, sometimes by as much as 60%, because tunnels don't need to be as flat for regular vehicles or trains.

Since 2020, a suspended monorail has been under construction at the Port of Qingdao in China. It's designed to carry large shipping containers. The first part of this system started working in 2021.