Wuppertal Schwebebahn 1902 & 2015 side by side video
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN shares it whenever the Wuppertal suspended railway comes up, as a neat then-and-now comparison.
What it is
A side-by-side edit lining up footage of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn suspended monorail filmed in 1902 and in 2015. It lets you compare how the buildings and surroundings changed over 113 years.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2020 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends Stratoscope · 2025-06 · on “Riding high in Germany on the world's oldest suspended railway”
Here is a wonderful video, riding the Wuppertal Schwebebahn in 1902 and 2015 side by side: [this video] As noted in the description, the 1902 video plays in real time, and the 2015 video has some cuts and framerate adjustments to keep them in sync.
Cites canada_dry · 2020-08 · on “Ride through Wuppertal on ‘the flying train’ in clear footage from 1902”
A side-by-side view of 1902 vs current: [this video] As an aside, I find it interesting that this steel wasn't reclaimed sometime during WWII when the industrial machine was desperate for iron/metal.
Cites ttepasse · 2024-12 · on “Wuppertal's suspended monorail proved its doubters wrong [video]”
There is a semi-famous video from 1902 recording a ride on the then new Schwebebahn. MoMa digitised it and someone on Youtube did a side-by-side-recording of 1902 vs. 2015: [this video] There are two other suspended monorails in the Ruhr are, both driver-less and shorter, built in the 80s and 90s by Siemens, the H-Bahn at Dortmund University and the Skytrain at Düsseldorf Airport. I drove the H-Bahn daily, because computer science back then was distributed all about the campus. Still have fond memories about it. (Less so about the degree.) The Tim Traveller on Youtube recently did a video about it: [LINK]