Technology
The cars are suspended from a single rail built underneath a supporting steel frame. The cars hang on wheels which are driven by an electric motor operating at 600 volts DC, fed from an extra rail.
The supporting frame and tracks are made out of 486 pillars and bridgework sections. The termini at each end of the line also serve as train depots and reversers.
The current fleet consists of twenty-seven two-car trains built in the 1970s. The cars are 24 metres long and have 4 doors. One carriage can seat 48 with approximately 130 standing passengers. The top speed is 60 km/h and the average speed is 27 km/h.
The Kaiserwagen (Emperor's car), the original train used by Emperor Wilhelm II during a test ride on 24 October 1900, is still operated on scheduled excursion services, special occasions and for charter events.
Read more about this topic: Wuppertal Schwebebahn
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“Technology is not an image of the world but a way of operating on reality. The nihilism of technology lies not only in the fact that it is the most perfect expression of the will to power ... but also in the fact that it lacks meaning.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“Our technology forces us to live mythically, but we continue to think fragmentarily, and on single, separate planes.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)