Text, photos and illustrations on this website, unless otherweise noted, copyright Reinhard Krischer/Collection Reinhard Krischer. |
In January 1953 the "Alweg-Forschung, GmbH" (Alweg Research Corporation) evolved out of the "Verkehrsbahn-Studiengesellschaft" ("Transit Railway Study Group") with offices and test facilities in Fuehlingen on the northern outskirts of the city of Cologne in what was then West Germany.
The first demonstration model (1:2.5 scale) of the Alweg monorail was unveiled on October 8, 1952, at the Fuehlingen test site.
The Transit Railway Study Group had been founded in 1951 and had chosen the Cologne area as the home of its offices and test facilities. In 1951 only six years after the end of World War II Germany was trying to recover from the ravages of war and the so-called German economic miracle had not yet gained momentum. Large parts of Cologne still lay in ruins. In this setting where the rebuilding of housing and industry had priority it seemed like a very futuristic - maybe even slightly superfluous - undertaking to research and design a new transportation system that did not rely on the trusted two steel rails of conventional railroads, suburban and city transit systems.
Dr. Wenner-Grens revolutionary monorail system seemed in those days to be a very outlandish idea.
But surprisingly this was not the first time that a monorail concept was invented and tested in Cologne. Because not far from Cologne lies the city of Wuppertal, famous for its suspended monorail, called Schwebebahn, one of the oldest types of monorail - built in 1901 - and in continuous rapid transit service since then. Its success is based on the fact that it was created out of pure necessity. The system itsself was developed and tested by the Cologne engineer Eugen Langen (Source: special reprint commemorating "50 Years of Wuppertaler Schwebebahn" by the VDI newspaper, volume 93, #7, from the year 1951, pages 153-169). He began with his work in 1893 and in 1899 attained patents for his invention. The test site was situated in Cologne-Deutz, - evidently a very productive place because in Deutz the Otto combustion engine was also invented by Nikolaus August Otto together with the above E. Langen. The city of Wuppertal and its suburbs lie within a steep sided and narrow river valley offering minimal space for houses, factories and roads. The regular railroad line does run through the valley as well and a streetcar system was also squeezed in, but there is no space left for an additional, speedy two-rail rapid transit system.
So when the city looked for a rapid transit system Langen's invention looked ideally adaptable to this unique location and this suspended monorail using the space above the valley's river was built, - an ingenious system, for a very special city landscape. But its supporting steel structure is ungainly, takes away daylight and loudly amplifies the noise made by the trains and their steel wheels riding on a steel rail. It is a monorail and it contributed in the public's mind to the myth that monorails are therefore just as ungainly and noisy as conventional elevated railways and transit lines.
In the year 2001 the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn celebrated its 100th anniversary. Its official website is well worth a visit (and is available in several languages). It can be reached from the special Wuppertaler Schwebebahn page of the ALWEG ARCHIVES.
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| Drawing from an early Alweg promotion brochure. |
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With his Alweg concept Dr. Wenner-Gren introduced a monorail that whisks along quietly on rubber tires on a sleek concrete beam supported by concrete columns that need little space and take away a minimum of daylight. In the early Fifties this vision seemed more like a science fiction scheme than a feasible transportation system.
The initial Transit Railway Study Group formed by Dr. Wenner-Gren at first designed his Alweg monorail system as a high speed long distance transportation system. As a compromise toward conventional two-rail-systems the engineers at first deemed it necessary to design a dual-mode vehicle capable of running on a conventional two-rail line as well as on the actual mono-rail. But quickly the impracticalities of such a design became apparent and the idea was abandoned in favor of a genuine monorail.
Hardly anyone knows that parallel to this research work a number of engineers were in Fuehlingen also involved in experiments with what is today known as Maglev-technology (high speed propulsion by magnetic levitation) used for example by the experimental German Transrapid train. On rare photos of Alwegs first test track there appears in front of the beamway something that looks like a railing. This was the track used to run a small model powered by magnetic levitation. Technical limitations of that time evidently put an end to these experiments.
The test facility at Fuehlingen was created to be as self sufficient as possible and included not only design offices, but also well equipped workshops capable of building most everything without outside assistance as well as a power plant to supply the necessary electric energy. The oval test track and the test train were controlled from a specially built control tower.
For the first public demonstration of its test train in October 1952 the Transit Railway Study Group issued a small brochure (in German) entitled "The Alweg-Rail-Machine". With futuristic ink drawings, technical diagrams, photos of the breathtakingly superelevated oval test track and one photo of an almost menacingly looking power bogey the Transit Railway Study Group introduced its test train that looked like a rocket on an oval concrete beamway.
And on the last page a picture of Dr. Wenner-Gren standing in front of the test train that leans dangerously into one of the superelevated curves looks more like something out of Jules Verne's journey to the moon. In a final note, the brochure states that laymen need not fear the fierce superelevation of the curves as these are for test purposes only to demonstrate that the test train can pass through these even at slow speed and still keep its stability and could even stop on such curves and accelerate again. |
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| Alweg's 1:1 test-train on the Cologne-Fuehlingen test-track facility. |
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The Alweg facility was soon an important part of the Cologne area industry infrastructure and on July 23, 1957 the first full scale two car train could be demonstrated on an elevated track as envisioned for rapid transit use (with very normal curvature).
The city of Cologne in those days could be proud to be the home of the revolutionary Alweg Monorail. Even Federal Chancellor Dr. Konrad Adenauer - before the war Lord Mayor of Cologne - came to ride the monorail together with Dr. Wenner-Gren. And visiting heads of state were in those days also visitors of the Alweg Monorail. On illustrated city maps distributed by the Cologne tourist office the Alweg test facility was represented by a small drawing showing the beamway and the test train. Conventional railroad lines were on this map still illustrated with steam locomotive hauled trains.
But the City of Cologne's decision makers were not farsighted enough to allow Alweg to build a actual rapid transit line for the city. The rebuilding of the streetcar network had priority. The city counsellors did not vote for a monorail that could be built much cheaper and faster than new streetcar lines. This was Alwegs first taste of the seemingly insurmountable coalition between city administrators and the two-rail industry.
Since the old centers of European cities were usually already served by well established two-rail transit systems city administrators could always argue that a new system was not feasible. Proposals for monorail lines to new suburbs, industrial centers and airports were however also not accepted. Alweg therefore looked to North and South America where large metropolitan areas were still growing and often not yet developed with modern rapid transit systems. Alweg was the ideal system for what in those days were termed as the cities of the future. But such futuristic plans disappeared in the drawers of conventional city planners and to this day city planning has largely remained a short term patchwork business instead of a long term vision of comfortable city life for those who pay city taxes. North and South America were in these respects - as Alweg was soon to discover - no different than Europe.
Only special events like large exhibitions - when for once city counsellors actually wanted to demonstrate their willingness to think ahead and to showcase their innovative spirit - were a chance for Alweg to demonstrate the technical advantages, the financial feasibility and the aesthetic qualities of their monorail system. The Alweg projects for the Italia 61 exhibition in Turin and the Century 21 Worlds Fair in Seattle were such chances.
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Be sure to visit the illustrated GERMAN APPENDIX of these ALWEG ARCHIVES!
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| Alweg's 1:1 train in front of the station of the Cologne-Fühlingen test-track. |
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Other Alweg Projects
Alweg's main activity apart from technical research was to submit proposals for rapid transit systems for cities in need of new transportation lines.
It is known that Alweg proposals were made for the German cities of Cologne (1955) and Hamburg (1959), but also for an extensive mixed traffic system for British Columbia (1957), and for rapid transit systems in Mexico City (1957 and later) and Los Angeles (1961; the "Wilshire Trunk Line Route") as well as for a freight-only system for a potash carrier in Israel ((1963, usually designated "Beer Sheba - Dead Sea (Potash Refinery)/Beer Sheba - Phosphate Area"; freight-only is not completely correct since passenger units for the people working in the industrial plants to be served by monorail were included in the proposal)). In 1966 attempts were made to participate with a proposal in a planned project in London.
The contract to build the Seattle Monorail was the real breakthrough for Alweg. The construction of a successful line for the "Italia 61" exhibition in Turin, Italy, (celebrating the first 100 years of Italian statehood) previous to the Seattle World's Fair somehow evades most listings of the Alweg chronology.
The Hitachi company of Japan acquired patent licenses for the Alweg system in 1960 and today successful Hitachi monorails based on the original Alweg designs do excellent full scale service at various locations in Japan and have made the Alweg vision come true! For notes on the initial development of the Hitachi-Alweg system please see the Hitachi-Alweg pages of this website.
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The End of the Line The Alweg Monorail's financier Dr. Wenner-Gren died in 1961.
At the time the future of the Alweg Company still looked bright. The Seattle project was well underway and on it rested all hopes for more contracts to build Alweg Monorails worldwide.
Alweg however was first and foremost a technical research organization and the creation of a special public relations and sales promotion department had always been neglected. So as arguments for new proposals for other rapid transit lines the enthusiastic Alweg engineers had to rely solely on the success of their Seattle Monorail. There were no PR or sales experts to assist them in gaining new contracts.
The old adage that excellent technicians are rarely also excellent salesmen unfortunately held true.
The Seattle success alone did not suffice to counter the more experienced and seemingly more convincing proposal efforts of the established two-rail-industry.
Without the impetus and supervision of a man like Dr. Wenner-Gren the Alweg name faded from the field of rapid transit, but the basic design lives on in a number of monorail systems doing successful transportation service today in Japan (Hitachi) and North America (Bombardier).
The main German Alweg Company in Cologne was taken over by the Krupp Company. Without prospects of new Alweg projects Krupp however lost interest in the venture, did however offer employment to the last of the Alweg employees in other departments of their company.
The American Alweg subsidiary Wegematic in the end had unspecified problems with the payment of the salaries of its last loyal employees. In the final years two of the German engineers tried valiantly to keep the Alweg vision and Wegematic alive, but their only reward was to eventually be without a job at an age where new employment is almost impossible to find. At the last moment an old rapid transit expert from the East Coast helped out by generously giving them employment in his own planning firm. But the late Sixties and early Seventies were bad years for gaining public contracts and after only a few years unemployment struck again ...
See transport industry developments paralleling the Alweg Company's history: ALWEG TIME FRAME
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| Cross-section view of the classic Alweg beamway. |
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Afterthoughts
ALWEG was in the 1950s and 1960s a famous name. Nowadays only people who experienced those years themselves still recall the futuristic Alweg-Bahn. People with a special interest in monorails of course still revere the name today. In Japan the name however lives on in the successful Hitachi-Alweg rapid transit systems still in operation and in the modern state-of-the-art systems in service and under construction there. Disneys monorails of course also carry on the Alweg legacy. The last Disney train generations in America were built by Bombardier and led eventually to the development of the Bombardier monorail trains for the new Las Vegas Monorail, going into regular service in summer 2004.
It is sad that most Alweg veterans were not themselves able to witness the late success of their work in Japan. Normal news media hardly ever report about new generations of trains on the Haneda Line or about completely new monorail systems in the 1990s at Osaka (beginning in 1990) and Tama (as of 1998) or the Naha Line on Okinawa (2003).
In Alweg's homeland, Germany, monorails were never taken seriously (except in Wuppertal, home of the famous "Schwebebahn" and in Dortmund, home of the "H-Bahn", - both systems are "suspended monorails"; the H-Bahn now also in service on Düsseldorf's airport). Interestingly enough Alwegs very futile efforts to at least be allowed to build a reference line are today being repeated by the consortium responsible for the German Maglev Transrapid system (not to be confused with monorail technology). Plans for a high-speed intercity line connecting Hamburg and Berlin were scrapped for financial reasons, as were plans for a high-speed interregional system linking various cities in North Rhine Westfalia (to be called Metrorapid).
The fact that Germany will in the year 2006 host the soccer world championship games was seen as an incentive to build such a system just to show off some German hi-tech to the rest of the world. The Transrapid consortium consists of the firms Siemens and Thyssen Krupp (the same Krupp once responsible for the final phase of Alweg Cologne). Regional politicians supported plans for the Metrorapid, but the project was finally (and politically) scrapped for lack of finances.
Alweg in the 1950s never had such support and was of course not backed by a huge and experienced consortium of firms. It would have been a bit ironic if a controversial system (that has nevertheless been tested and operated successfully for years on extensive test tracks both in Germany and the USA) like the Transrapid (MAGLEV technology) had been given the go-ahead after years of costly mismanagement of conventional fast interregional service. Instead a Transrapid line was put into service in Shanghai (so just like Alweg the Transrapid consortium had to go abroad to find acceptance).
An Alweg system for the exact same purpose could already have been built in the 1950s. But in those days regional politicians saw no chances to be able to show off such a system to an international audience. So available funds were sunk in the usual badly coordinated patchwork of regional transport solutions, ensuring endless contracts to the two-rail-industry and bad service to commuters.
Just like Alweg in the early 1950s the Transrapid people tried to decelerate their project and adapted it to high-speed regional transit requirements (and therefore renamed it Metrorapid).
If Alweg still existed it could have entered the proposal process for these new interregional lines as well. It would probably just have had to revitalize some of the old plans from the 1950s and submit them anew.
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| Cover of an Alweg Company promotion brochure. |
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It creates an almost eerie feeling to compare the early reports of Alweg experts and those of todays regional traffic planners. In the 1950s the Alweg experts warned of the coming transport problems of the growing economy. Now the experts describe what the Alweg people warned about as given facts. Traffic congestion on city streets, roads and highways has reached the unmanageable scale predicted by the Alweg studies. (This by the way not only holds true for areas in Germany that once considered building an Alweg monorail system, but also for example for Los Angeles where Alweg was also simply shrugged off.)
It might be an interesting experiment if the Hitachi people were to submit a monorail proposal for an interregional rapid transit system for North Rhine Westfalia. Probably none of the new generation of traffic experts would know that Alweg was once based in Cologne, one of the most important cities of North Rhine Westfalia. They would however wonder why one of the leading Japanese firms would want to offer a proposal for an area within the European Community. An afterall very strange community where each member country insists on developing its own railway rolling stock. Where the French have developed the perfectly excellent TGV high-speed trains, but when Germany wanted such trains as well, it developed its own high-speed IC/ICE trains rather than save taxpayers money and simply buy existing technology from an EC partner.
It would be as utopian as some of the early promotional sketches contained in Alweg brochures from the 1950s to envisage Hitachi-Alweg building a monorail interregional rapid transit system in Alweg's own homeland
The Vision would have come full circle!
The entire Alweg venture is one of those stories that if studied by people who plan transportation systems and cityscapes could teach a lesson about the unfortunate influence regional politics and bureaucracies have on longterm planning for truly livable cities ...
ALWEG, - the Vision!
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For a complete history of the Alweg Monorail Company (including a history of monorails in general) in Germany and the USA (and of course about Hitachi-Alweg) see the richly illustrated German book ALWEG-BAHN by Reinhard Krischer (the author of this ALWEG ARCHIVES website). The book also describes and illustrates Alweg's role in transportation history, showing that the Alweg concept is - despite experts' opinions to the contrary - still very much alive and retains, thanks to its timeless modernity, a very bright future ! As shown today by the numerous Hitachi-built monorails and the Las Vegas Monorail by Bombardier. Click bookcover for more details ! |
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