Gadgetbahn is a neologism that refers to a public transport concept or implementation that is touted by its developers and supporters as futuristic or innovative, but in practice is less feasible, reliable, and more expensive than traditional modes such as buses, trams and trains. It is a portmanteau of the English word “gadget” and the German word Bahn, meaning “train” or “railway”.[2][3]
No, it really isn’t. TSB has actual advantages. In a sense it’s roughly Transrapid technology scaled down to ~150km/h, city and regional operation. IIRC they said the tech scales to max. 200km/h.
One advantage is how cheap elevated ways are with the thing: Ordinary train wheels are point loads which need quite sturdy reinforcement to properly distribute the forces. Of course that won’t matter if you build the thing on the ground or dig tunnels.
Also Berlin’s old maglev was quite successful (given the circumstances) and beloved. The reason it didn’t survive is because it was made redundant when east and west subway infrastructure was connected up again after reunification, the track was simply in the wrong place.
Another only apparent Gadgetbahn is Wuppertal’s hanging monorail: It makes perfect sense in Wuppertal – and probably also only there. It’s a very narrow valley and over long stretches the only sensible place to build rail public transit was over the river.
The term is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadgetbahn
makes me wonder what they call Monorails…
Monorails are often considered a gadgetbahn.
Gadgetbahn is less about being new, and more about being gimmicky with few real advantages.
No, it really isn’t. TSB has actual advantages. In a sense it’s roughly Transrapid technology scaled down to ~150km/h, city and regional operation. IIRC they said the tech scales to max. 200km/h.
One advantage is how cheap elevated ways are with the thing: Ordinary train wheels are point loads which need quite sturdy reinforcement to properly distribute the forces. Of course that won’t matter if you build the thing on the ground or dig tunnels.
Also Berlin’s old maglev was quite successful (given the circumstances) and beloved. The reason it didn’t survive is because it was made redundant when east and west subway infrastructure was connected up again after reunification, the track was simply in the wrong place.
Another only apparent Gadgetbahn is Wuppertal’s hanging monorail: It makes perfect sense in Wuppertal – and probably also only there. It’s a very narrow valley and over long stretches the only sensible place to build rail public transit was over the river.
Thanks for your nuanced contrapoints in this thread. I cannot judge wether it’s true, but I appreciate a different perspective.
We allready had the M-Bahn in 1990. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Bahn
At this time it would have been new and modern…