Elevated railway

Rapid transit railway with the tracks above street level

"Elevated" redirects here. For the film, see Elevated (film).

Liverpool Overhead Railway, May 1951 NS 93 train on an elevated portion of the line 5 of the Santiago Metro Two Wuppertal Schwebebahn trains meet above the street

An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short) is a railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concrete, or bricks). The railway may be broad-gauge, standard-gauge or narrow-gauge railway, light rail, monorail, or a suspension railway. Elevated railways are normally found in urban areas where there would otherwise be multiple level crossings. Usually, the tracks of elevated railways that run on steel viaducts can be seen from street level.

## History

[edit]

Chicago "L" elevated tracks

The earliest elevated railway was the London and Greenwich Railway on a brick viaduct of 878 arches, built between 1836 and 1838. The first 2.5 miles (4.0 km) of the London and Blackwall Railway (1840) was also built on a viaduct. During the 1840s there were other plans for elevated railways in London that never came to fruition.[1]

From the late 1860s onward, elevated railways became popular in US cities. New York's West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway opened in 1868 as a cable-hauled elevated railway[2] and was operated using locomotives after 1871, when it was renamed the New York Elevated Railroad.[3][4] This was followed in 1875 by the Manhattan Railway Company, which took over the New York Elevated Railroad.[5] Other early elevated systems in the US included the Chicago "L", which was built by multiple competing companies beginning in 1892,[6] as well as the Boston Elevated Railway in 1901 and the Market–Frankford Line in Philadelphia in 1907.[7] Globally, the Berlin Stadtbahn (1882) and the Vienna Stadtbahn (1898) are also mainly elevated.

The first electric elevated railway was the Liverpool Overhead Railway, which operated through Liverpool docks from 1893 until 1956.

In London, the Docklands Light Railway is a modern elevated railway that opened in 1987[8] and has since expanded.[9] The trains are driverless and automatic.[10] Another modern elevated railway is Tokyo's driverless Yurikamome line, opened in 1995.[11]

## Systems

[edit]

### Monorail systems

[edit]

Most monorails are elevated railways, such as the Disneyland Monorail System (1959), the Tokyo Monorail (1964), the Sydney Monorail (1988–2013), the KL Monorail, the Las Vegas Monorail, the Seattle Center Monorail and the São Paulo Monorail. Many maglev railways are also elevated.

### Suspension railways

[edit]

H-Bahn Dortmund, a monorail suspension people mover

During the 1890s there was some interest in suspension railways, particularly in Germany, with the Schwebebahn Dresden, (1891–) and the Wuppertal Schwebebahn (1901). H-Bahn suspension railways were built in Dortmund and Düsseldorf airport, 1975. The Memphis Suspension Railway opened in 1982.

Suspension railways are usually monorail; Shonan Monorail and Chiba Urban Monorail in Japan, despite their names, are suspension railways.

### People mover systems

[edit]

People mover or automated people mover (APM) is a type of driverless grade-separated, mass-transit system. The term is generally used only to describe systems that serve as loops or feeder systems, but is sometimes applied to considerably more complex automated systems. Similar to monorails, Bombardier Innovia APM technology uses only one rail to guide the vehicle along the guideway. APMs are common at airports and effective at helping passengers quickly reach their gates. Several elevated APM systems at airports including the PHX Sky Train at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport; AeroTrain at Kuala Lumpur International Airport; and the Tracked Shuttle System at London Gatwick Airport, United Kingdom.

## Modern systems

[edit]

### Metro or commuter rail systems

[edit]

#### Africa

[edit]

* Addis Ababa Light Rail
* Cairo Metro (Line 3)
* Lagos Metro

Traffic on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, New York City, under the elevated IRT Flushing Line (used by the 7 and <7>​ trains) in the 1980s Chinatown station in Los Angeles, California Line 15 monorail, Sao Paulo, Brazil

#### Americas

[edit]

* Baltimore Metro (west of Mondawmin)
* BART (partial)
* Chicago "L" (except for small parts of the Red Line, Blue Line and Brown Line)
* Cleveland Red Line (partial)
* Réseau express métropolitain (partial, not fully)
* Guadalajara light rail system Line 3 (partial under construction)
* MARTA (partial)
* Medellín Metro
* Mexico City Metro (partial)
* Miami Metrorail
* New York City Subway (partial, 40% of tracks)
* Market–Frankford Line (underground in downtown Philadelphia and West Philadelphia up to 40th Street Station but elevated elsewhere)
* Medellin Metro
* Panama City Metro
* PATCO (partial)
* PATH (partial)
* Skyline
* SkyTrain, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Partial)
* Tren Urbano
* Washington Metro (partial)
* Santiago Metro (partial)
* Lima Metro (partial)
* DART Green Line (north branch)
* Metrorrey (partial)

#### Asia

[edit]

* Bangalore metro
* Chennai Metro
* Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System
* Chongqing Rail Transit (Line 3)
* Daegu Metro (Line 3)
* Danhai Light Rail
* Delhi Metro (Yellow Line, Green Line, Red Line)
* Dhaka Metro Rail
* Dubai Metro
* Hanoi Metro
* Hong Kong MTR (Kwun Tong Line, Tsuen Wan Line, Tuen Ma Line, East Rail Line, South Island Line and Tung Chung Line) (all partial)
* Hyderabad Metro
* Jabodebek LRT
* Jakarta LRT
* Jakarta MRT (North-South Line, partial)

Kochi Metro train at Aluva station

* Kochi Metro

* Kolkata Metro (future line 5 and 6, later is under construction)
* Lahore Metro (Orange Line)
* Manila Light Rail Transit System
* Navi Mumbai Metro
* Mumbai Metro
* Mumbai Monorail
* Nagpur Metro
* Rapid Metro Gurgaon
* Rapid Rail, the operator of the rapid transit (metro) system serving Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley area in Malaysia.
* BTS Skytrain, two elevated rapid transit lines in Bangkok, Thailand
* New Taipei Metro (Circular line, north branch of Tamsui–Xinyi line, and Wenhu line)

#### Europe

[edit]

Frankfurt:U1 on elevated part near Ginnheim

* Amsterdam Metro (except Line 52)
* Berlin S-Bahn (Berlin Stadtbahn and Siemensbahn)
* Berlin U-Bahn (U1 and U2 lines)
* Charleroi Metro
* Copenhagen Metro
* Devon Metro (partial)
* Docklands Light Railway (partial)
* Frankfurt U-Bahn (U1) (partial)
* Hamburg U-Bahn (U3 line)
* London Overground (Windrush line) (partial)
* Moscow Metro (Butovskaya line)
* Paris Metro (Line 1, Line 2, Line 5, Line 6, Line 8 and Line 13) (all partial)
* Rhine-Main S-Bahn (S3, S4, S5, S6) (partial)
* Vienna S-Bahn (Vienna Stadtbahn)
* Vienna U-Bahn (U6 line)
* Wuppertal Suspension Railway

#### Oceania

[edit]

* Metro Trains Melbourne, mainly built by the Level Crossing Removal Project[12]
* Sydney Metro Northwest Line in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (between Bella Vista and Tallawong)

#### Disused

[edit]

Forest Hills station on Boston's Washington Street Elevated in 1910. The rail line was rebuilt in a cutting by 1987.

* Boston Elevated Railways: Atlantic Avenue Elevated, Charlestown Elevated, Washington Street Elevated, Causeway Street Elevated
* Elevated railways operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company in New York City
* Liverpool Overhead Railway
* The elevated Airport line of Kolkata Suburban Railway, closed in 2016 for reconstruction relating Kolkata Metro line 4
* Line 3 Scarborough, a medium capacity metro rail line in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (ceased running in July 2023 due to derailment.)

### People mover

[edit]

* Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, a people mover at and around Tomorrowland, Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World Resort, Orlando, Florida, United States
* AirTrain JFK, a people mover at and around John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, New York, United States
* ATL Skytrain, a people mover at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia, United States
* Changi Airport Skytrain, an inter-terminal people mover at Changi International Airport in Singapore
* Detroit People Mover, an urban transit people mover in Detroit, Michigan, United States
* H-Bahn, an inter-terminal automated people mover in Dortmund and Düsseldorf, Germany
* Jacksonville Skyway, an automated people mover in Jacksonville, Florida, United States
* Metromover, a people mover at Miami, Florida, United States
* PHX Sky Train, a people mover at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix, Arizona, United States

## Proposed designs

[edit]

* Phnom Penh SkyTrain (Cambodia)
* Ho Chi Minh City Metro (Vietnam) will be partially elevated
* Managua Metro (Nicaragua)
* San Salvador Metro (El Salvador)
* Ljubljana Metro (Slovenia)
* Transperth's Armadale line will be partially elevated by the Victoria Park-Canning Level Crossing Removal Project[13]

## See also

[edit]

* Bombardier Innovia family of automated rapid transit systems (elevated technologies - Monorail, APM, Metro)
* Elevator
* Embankment (transportation)
* Grade separation
* Monorail
* Railway
* Rapid transit
* People mover

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Jack Simmons and Gordon Biddle, The Oxford Companion to British Railway History, Oxford University Press, (1997), p.360.
2. ^ Brimner, L.D.; Waldman, N. (2004). Subway: The Story of Tunnels, Tubes, and Tracks. Boyds Mills Press. p. 23\. ISBN 978-1-59078-176-0.
3. ^ Harvey, Charles (8 April 2006). "New York Elevated". Mid-Continent Railway Museum. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
4. ^ Court of Appeals: New York: No.426. 1891. pp. 61–62.
5. ^ Sansone, G. (2004). New York Subways: An Illustrated History of New York City's Transit Cars. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 11\. ISBN 978-0-8018-7922-7.
6. ^ Sadowski, David (2021). Chicago's Lost "L"s. Images of America. Arcadia Publishing. p. 7\. ISBN 978-1-4671-0602-3.
7. ^ Cheney, F.; Sammarco, A.M. (2000). When Boston Rode the EL. Images of America. Arcadia Publishing Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-4396-2741-9.
8. ^ American Public Transit Association (1995). Seventh National Conference on Light Rail Transit: Baltimore, Maryland, November 12-15, 1995. Conference proceedings (National Research Council (U.S.). Transportation Research Board)). National Academy Press. p. 38\. ISBN 978-0-309-06152-0.
9. ^ "DLR History Timeline". Archived 22 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine Transport for London.
10. ^ "Where are the drivers?" Transport for London.
11. ^ The Japan Architect. Shinkenchiku-Sha. 1996. p. 106\. ISBN 978-4-7869-0129-4.
12. ^ Whitelaw, Anna; Choahan, Neelima (7 February 2016). "$1.6 billion elevated rail project to replace level crossings on Dandenong line". The Age. Retrieved 27 July 2023.
13. ^ "Victoria Park-Canning Level Crossing Removal". Building for Tomorrow. Retrieved 27 July 2023.

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