2024-08-08 51 7

Location

Along the route of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn.

That is, on the Wupper river in Wuppertal. Between the Pestalozzistraße and Westende stations, near a pipeline crossing the river and even closer to a track support.

Google's imagery shows the tracks crossing the point, but it's clearly taken from a southward angle. OSM and Bing imagery show the tracks a few meters south of the point.

shotgun shows only one other point along the Schwebebahn route: 1957-02-13 is only about 150m upstream from this one.

Participants

Plans

coyotebush

I already wanted to visit Wuppertal and ride the Schwebebahn sometime this week. So I'll go do that, ride on the north side, and hope to get close enough.

GeorgDerReisende

I have no internet on the run and cannot communicate though. But I hope I am at the Vohwinkel station at 11:00. On the platform for arriving Schwebebahnen.

OK, I will try to catch the RB train that arrives shortly after 10:30, then either walk from the Vohwinkel rail station or take Schwebebahn back from the Hbf. But I may be 30 minutes later than that. Coyotebush (talk) 05:55, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Expedition

coyotebush

Caught that train, so on track (heh) for 11:00. -- Coyotebush (talk) @50.9583,7.0138 09:59, 8 August 2024 (GMT+02:00)

I walked from Wuppertal-Vohwinkel to the Schwebebahn end station and waited for a while, thinking this would give me the best chance of meeting Georg. I enjoyed seeing the large track switch operate to direct one train into the maintenance facility instead of around the turning loop.

On the Vohwinkel arrival platform. I see now that westbound Schwebebahnen would use the northern rail, which is closer to the point. -- Coyotebush (talk) @51.2304,7.0680 10:45, 8 August 2024 (GMT+02:00)

Watched 8 or so trains arrive but unfortunately never spotted Georg. Going to start riding one. -- Coyotebush (talk) @51.2302,7.0679 11:42, 8 August 2024 (GMT+02:00)

Found a restroom and then a train. I figured I would ride Vohwinkel->Pestalozzistraße->Westende->Pestalozzistraße->Westende->Hauptbahnhof in order to pass the point westbound twice. I started recording a track using the Strava app (in addition to my Garmin watch), which as a bonus maintained a good GPS fix for photo geotagging and Geohash Droid. Then once close, I started a screen recording of Geohash Droid.

On the first pass, I saw a 4 meter distance displayed, which matches the closest recorded point in the Strava track. The second time I exited at Pestalozzistraße, there was Georg! We chatted briefly and continued with my plan. Didn't get as close a distance on the second westbound pass. We saw some vehicles on treads driving in the shallow river - only in retrospect did I realize that wading to the point might have been an option.

From the Hauptbahnhof station, we walked a bit in the old town (formerly Elberfeld). By this point I was hungry, and Georg noticed a market in the square, so we ate at a sausage stand there. Georg also introduced me to stolpersteine; I followed him to look for several of these by foot, Schwebebahn, and bus until eventually we returned to the Hauptbahnhof and I decided to depart.

Tracklogs

coyotebush's phone:

coyotebush's watch:

Using Viking's ruler tool, it looks like these came close to the hashpoint, especially accepting the watch's questionable accuracy and interpolating straight lines between its every-2-seconds recorded points.