A BERLIN MONSTROSITY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 76, 28 March 1908, Page 11

A BERLIN MONSTROSITY.

A TERRIBLE STREET RAILWAY. Is Berlin to have a "Sch\vebebahn"l The question is still—as the railway will be should the query be answered in the affirmative—in the air. The- German capital is already provided with aids to locomotion, but it is thought that there is yet room for an overhead suspended railway through its streets. Before the authorities will give their decision in the matter they have required the pro-1 moters to erect a section of their line ' and supports in order that they may be able to see the effect produced. This : initial stage "has been carried out in the Brunnen Strasse, and our readers may, too, have an opportunity of judging of the effect from the above photograph. The idea of the railway is evidently borrowed from the Wupper Valley line opened in Rhenish Prussia in 1900. For a great part of its length that line run-s over the river Wupper, the cars being suspended from a single overhead line by two pairs of wheels, and being propelled by electric motor a-ttacirments. Where the Wupper line runs over the roadwals it is supported by trestles of an inverted U shape, but a T-shaped support seems to have been adopted for Berlin. The most enthusiastic supporter of the proposed "Schwebebahn" will hardly claim that if it is carried out it. will fldd to the beauties cf the city, and f.ho general opinion will be that when to the rumblings of the underground railway, the rattle and clangiEg of electric trams, the noise and confusion caused by motor cars and omnibuses, is added the unsightly and none too silent overhead railway, the streets of Berlin will be splendid places to keep away. from.