Overseas news From the LRTA – Wuppertal ‘Monorail’ Closed

The following news item shows the problems of not doing proper maintenance on a transit system, especially a ‘grade seperated’ transit system. In the winter, in the least desirable time, the Wuppertal Schwebebahn is closed due to serious safety concerns with the support columns, until they are replaced, sometime near Easter.

The problem with expensive grade separated transit systems is that they need much more expensiveAi??Ai??maintenace than at-grade/on-street light rail. TransLink wants toAi??Ai??spend about $1 billion to retrofit and upgrade the Expo Line and one wonders if this is a smokescreen to hide an expensive maintenace program with the guideway?

Wuppertal ‘monorail’ closed :

After an inspection by an engineering consultant on 14 December the Schwebebahnseparatedmaintenance was declmaintenanceared unsafe to operate from 15 December. The undertaking is predicting that service will resume at Easter 2010. In the meantime a bus replacement service is being provided, and work will start to replace the 110-year old iron supports on those sections where this has not already been done.

15 December 2009