Schwebebahn Wuppertal

August 23, 2007 5:29 AM

The Wuppertal Schwebebahn. In Wuppertal, birthplace of Aspirin and Heroin, they've been enjoying monorail travel since 1901. The line runs for 8 miles, most of it above the river Wupper, and has seen one collapse, one crash and one baby elephant jump.
posted by cillit bang (18 comments total)

Wonderful translation on that last link - 'over such rubble mountains to trotten' - and spectacular pre-Photoshop speculation as to what a baby elephant leaping out of a monorail might look like.
posted by jonathanbell at 5:36 AM on August 23, 2007

Way cool. I never saw a suspension monorail before.

Apu: Is there a chance the track could bend?
Lyle Lanley: Not on your life, my Hindu friend.

posted by MtDewd at 6:00 AM on August 23, 2007

Also the hometown of writer/director Tom Tykwer. He featured beautiful Wuppertal in his film, Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (“The Princess and the Warrior”). The monorail seems pretty cool, though to my memory he didn't film any scenes on it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:06 AM on August 23, 2007

That last link is a riot!

Commodity the hole really of Tuffi, now, then he would have not only a beautiful hole in all peace into the trailer torn but also still well a meter to high-jump to have, in order to come by the hole. In addition: flying elephants do not walk by air and the Ohrenklappen hang downward, it are, the wind press them.

The wind is evil i tells ya!!!!
posted by ItsaMario at 6:07 AM on August 23, 2007

Is that monorail featured in Alice in the Cities? I saw the film so long ago I can't remember for sure.
posted by mds35 at 6:08 AM on August 23, 2007

also
'Which punishment the elephant got, is not well-known, because it crushed seat with its back still another, gehauen a camera zerschmettert and two reporters with the trunk one into the lip. Pfui.'

what the hell is Pfui?? google image search isnt pretty....
posted by ItsaMario at 6:09 AM on August 23, 2007

EB: ... though to my memory he didn't film any scenes on it.

Au contraire! As I recall, there's a lovely passage with a camera seemingly mounted on the outside of the monorail car, swooping majestically through curves and between the uprights.
posted by lodurr at 6:28 AM on August 23, 2007

"Pfui" is a exclamation of outrage like Faugh! Fie! or maybe more modern Ugh!.

Incidentally it is also what you shout at a dog that e.g. sniffs at roadkill.
posted by mmkhd at 6:43 AM on August 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Diacetylmorphine was first synthesised in the Bayer laboratory in 1897 - by Hoffmann, two weeks after he first synthesised ASA. The work seems to have been initiated by Dreser, who was by then aware of Wright's discovery, even though he subsequently implied that heroin was an original Bayer invention.

By early 1898 was testing it on sticklebacks, frogs and rabbits.

And elephants?
posted by pracowity at 6:44 AM on August 23, 2007

“As I recall, there's a lovely passage with a camera seemingly mounted on the outside of the monorail car, swooping majestically through curves and between the uprights.”

Oh, yes. I was trying to recall something shot in a car or something.

Did you like the film? I liked it quite a bit, though I think many other people find it annoyingly melodramatic.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:56 AM on August 23, 2007

Melodramatic? Hm. I guess. But in a peculiarly detached way. I think it would push a lot of buttons for some people, in that it can be read as offering a highly romanticized depiction of mental illness and obsession. Some of the character actions seem quite random, when looked at in terms of conventional narratives. And there are parts where the pacing suddenly gets just plain weird.

You'll have figured out by now that yes, I liked it a lot. Of his films, I've only seen that and Run, Lola, Run, and while they're nearly opposite in some ways they share a very distinctive sense of style and some common themes, especially with regard to relationships. And while I haven't really spent more than a few cycles going there, I think there's probably tons of stuff to look at in terms of the connection to mediaeval romances and "folk" stories like Rapunzel.
posted by lodurr at 7:13 AM on August 23, 2007

I've got Winter Sleepers and Heaven (which was written by Kieslowski), but I've not watched them yet.

I liked it, too. It's a fable, not realism. The title sort of gives that part of it away. But some people might wrongly criticize it for its unrealistic elements.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:19 AM on August 23, 2007

Wuppertal is also the hometown of not one but three creative musicians quite prominent in the free jazz/improvised music scene: guitarist, luthier and Daxophone inventor Hans Reichel, bassist Peter Kowald (RIP), and saxophone screamer extraordinaire Peter Brötzmann. Something in the water in that town...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:37 AM on August 23, 2007

Nice little city with a cool beer hall. The monorail is cool too, but I didn't get to ride on it. It's not far down the road to Neanderthal.
posted by Goofyy at 8:31 AM on August 23, 2007

Wuppertal Dance Theatre (Tanztheater Wuppertal) is also the home base of Pina Bausch.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:42 AM on August 23, 2007

"Pfui" is a exclamation of outrage like Faugh! Fie! or maybe more modern Ugh!.

Americanized as "phooey" or "fooey", a common expression among the characters in Peanuts.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:12 AM on August 23, 2007

Interesting post, but I chortled at the translations in the last link. Priceless!
posted by Wilder at 12:45 PM on August 23, 2007

Is that monorail featured in Alice in the Cities? I saw the film so long ago I can't remember for sure.

That's what I seem to remember, too... and wikipedia confirms it...
posted by klausness at 4:36 PM on September 4, 2007