The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn ("Wuppertal Suspension Railway") is a suspension railway in Wuppertal, Germany. Its original name was ("Eugen Langen Monorail Overhead Conveyor System"). It is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world and is a unique system in Germany. Designed by Eugen Langen and offered first to the cities of Berlin, Munich, and Breslau who all turned it down, the installation with elevated stations was built in Barmen, Elberfeld, and Vohwinkel between 1897 and 1903; the first track opened in 1901. The railway line is credited with growth of the original cities and their eventual merger into Wuppertal. The is still in use as a normal means of local public transport, moving 25 million passengers annually, per the 2008 annual report. New rail cars were ordered in 2015, called Generation 15, and the first new car went into service in December 2016. The Schwebebahn runs along a route of , at a height of about above the River Wupper between and () and about above the valley road between and (). At one point the railway crosses the A46 motorway. The entire trip takes about 30 minutes. The Schwebebahn operates within the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) and accepts tickets issued by the VRR companies. History The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn had a forerunner: in 1824, Henry Robinson Palmer of Britain presented a railway system which differed from all previous constructions. It was a low single-rail suspension railway on which the carriages were drawn by horses. Friedrich Harkort, a Prussian industrial entrepreneur and politician, loved the idea. He saw big advantages for the transportation of coal to the early industrialised region in and around the Wupper valley. Harkort had his own steel mill in Elberfeld; he built a demonstration segment of the Palmer system and set it up in 1826 on the grounds of what is today the Wuppertal tax office. He tried to attract public attention to his railway plans. On 9 September 1826, the town councillors of Elberfeld met to discuss the use of a "Palmer's Railway" from the Ruhr region, Hinsbeck, or Langenberg, to the Wupper valley, Elberfeld, connecting Harkort's factories. Friedrich Harkort inspected the projected route with a surveyor and a member of the town council. The plans never went ahead because of protests from the transport branch and owners of mills that were not on the routes. In 1887 the cities of Elberfeld and Barmen