Experimental demonstrations Palmer System and Cheshunt Railway The British engineer
Henry Robinson Palmer (1795–1844) filed a patent application for a horse-drawn suspended single-rail system in 1821, and constructed a demonstration at
Woolwich Arsenal, in England soon afterwards. German industrial pioneer, thinker and politician
Friedrich Harkort built a demonstration track of Palmer's system in 1826, in Elberfeld, Germany, at the time commercial centre of the early industrial area
Wupper Valley. The steelmill owner had the vision of a coal-carrier railway between Wupper Valley and the nearby coal-mining region of
Ruhr, which would connect his own factories in Elberfeld and Deilbachtal. Due to protests from mill owners that were not integrated along the line and from the transporting branch, this idea could not be executed. The first suspended railway was opened at
Cheshunt, England, United Kingdom on 25 June 1825, using Palmer's patent. It was built to carry bricks, but as an opening stunt it carried passengers. A work,
Description of the suspension railway invented by Maxwell Dick: with engravings By Maxwell Dick, published in
Irvine, Scotland, in 1830, refers to an
aerial tramway/cable car system.
Enos Electric Railway The Enos Electric Railway, an electric-powered monorail with wagons suspended from an elevated frame of open steelwork, was demonstrated in the grounds of the
Daft Electric Company in
Greenville, New Jersey, in 1886. It was built out of lightweight steel construction and worked well, but was never expanded. In July 1888 a 1.2 mi test track made of wood with a maximum incline of 1:14 and a minimum radius of 12 yards was opened in South Park near
Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was planned to build a 25 mi double tracked line from St. Paul to
Minneapolis within two years by costs of 2.9 million USD per mile (current purchasing power). The design of the rail-frame appears to have influenced
Eugen Langen, as his
Wuppertal Schwebebahn framing bears a remarkable likeness to the Enos construction.
Russian Empire experiment In March 1895, Russian engineer Ippolit Romanov (originally from
Tbilisi, Georgia) built a prototype of an electric monorail in
Odessa, modern-day Ukraine. In 1897, he presented a functional model of his monorail at the meeting of Russian technological society. This idea was approved by the society, and an experimental electric monorail was built in 1899. In 1900, Empress Maria Fedorovna approved the building of an long electric monorail in Gatchina. The monorail was tested on 25 June 1900. The monorail carriage could be loaded with up to and moved at a speed of .
Introduction of operational lines (1900s) Wuppertal's Electrical Elevated Railway or "floating tram" installation in
Wuppertal, Germany During the 1880s the German businessman and engineer
Eugen Langen experimented in his Cologne sugar factory with a low one-track suspension railway system for the transportation of raw materials. He was a business partner of
Nicolaus Otto, the inventor of the
internal-combustion engine, and probably knew the Palmer Railway. In the nearby expanding industrial zone of Wupper Valley, entrepreneurs and governors were looking for a modern urban transportation system. A cooperation between politicians and businessmen from the Barmen-Elberfeld industrial area around 1890 led to the implementation of an electric powered elevated railway system from the factory of Otto and Langen, now
Deutz. The official name was
Anlage einer elektrischen Hochbahn (Schwebebahn), System Eugen Langen Köln or
Electrical Elevated Railroad ("Floating tram") Installation, System Eugen Langen Cologne. The installation and stations were built by three companies, among them the company of Friedrich Harkort. In 1901 the first track of the
Wuppertal Schwebebahn opened, and still runs today. In 1903 it was extended to the final length of . This system is still in operation as a means of public transport, moving over 20 million passengers each year.
Dresden Suspension Railway Langen also designed the
Dresden Suspension Railway, a short funicular railway using the same suspended monorail technology, which opened in 1901 and is still in operation.
1930s A unique demonstration electrically powered
suspension line was built by the Scottish engineer George Bennie near
Glasgow. Two propellers delivered in a short burst for acceleration to the cruise speed of 160 km/h. The
Ueno Zoo Monorail is a long suspended monorail operated by the
Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation (Toei). It is similar to the
Wuppertal Schwebebahn, but has rubber tires rather than steel wheels. The line began operating on 17 December 1958. After 60 years of operation service was suspended on 31 October 2019, with the operator citing the high costs of replacing the aging trains.
1960s In the 1960s in the United States a large number of suspended monorails systems were opened but none were for transit. These included 1962 at the LA County Fair (closed late 1990s), 1964–1965 at the
New York World's Fair, in 1964 at Houston International Airport (closed 1966) Tampa in Florida (closed 1999). At the end of the decade, in 1969, a prototype test track of track of the Vero
Monocab personal rapid transit was built in Texas. This design was sold to and developed by Rohr, Inc. as the
ROMAG system with a new test track built in California.
1970s and 1980s Based on another new design using small capacity cars, the
Jetrail system opened in 1970 at
Dallas Love Field Airport taking passengers from a carpark to the terminal. It closed in 1974 when
Braniff International Airways moved most of its operations to another airport. Based on the SAFEGE design, the
Shonan Monorail opened in 1970 in
Kamakura, Japan—part of the Greater Tokyo area. It continues in operation today. The
Chiba Urban Monorail, also in Japan, is the world's largest suspension railway; it is owned and operated by Chiba Urban Monorail Co. Ltd, established in 1979, and the monorail began service in 1988. Two further
H-Bahn suspension railways were built in Germany in 1975, at
Dortmund University campus and
Düsseldorf airport. The
Memphis Suspension Railway was opened in the United States in 1982.
1990s and 2000s The
Skybus Metro was a prototype suspended railway in
Goa, India. The system consisted of an elevated track with the cars suspended below the track, like the Wuppertal Schwebebahn or H-Bahn systems in Germany. A test track in Margao, Goa started trials in 2004, but on 25 September, one employee was killed and three injured in an accident. No progress was made after the accident. In 2013, the metro was dismantled.
2010s and 2020s Four new SAFEGE style suspended railway prototypes, with test tracks and vehicles, have been developed since 2010. In China three have been created, by
CRRC Qingdao Sifang in Qingdao, by
China Railway Science and Industry Group in Wuhan and by Zhongtang Air Rail Technology in Chengdu. A SAFEGE based test line was also constructed in Glukhovo in the
Krasnogorsk District, Russia in 2016. As of 2025 just one new system in
Wuhan has been completed in 2023, another short one began construction in 2020 in
Enshi City China. There are a number of other projects have been considered in both China and Russia. ==List of suspension railways==