hazel page

-- Transporter Bridge --

The Vizcaya Bridge in Bilbao, Spain is by far the busiest Transporter Bridge that still operates, and is also the oldest.It was designed by Alberto Palacio, who was taught by the guy who designed the Eiffel Tower.They built this freak of nature so people could get across the Nervion River, and that ships could still pass. It's so weird to see this boat-looking carriage thing literally just hanging by a thread over the river like how is this safe. Not only this but it carries cars on this little - I don't even know what to call this thing tbh. Wikipedia calls it a gondola so I guess I'll call it that. There's two separate cabins for people and can carry seemingly like 6 cars which really isnt a lot but thats a good thing because I HATE CARS.They have replaced the gondola 5 times since it was first built in order to meet modern safety standards.In 1999, they turned the top of the bridge into a pedestrian walkway but that's really mid I'm gonna be real. Like why would you defeat the whole point of the bridge its such a cool form of transport but like oh you can just walk over the top now yeah. I just think it would be so cool to go on this thing. It takes 1.5 minutes to get from one side to another, and the gondola departs every 8 minutes which is honestly not that frequent for something like this, it's pretty low capacity.

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-- Dresden Schwebebahn Funicular--

Hey chat did you know this is the worlds only suspension monorail funicular. bet you didnt. i bet. that you didnt know that. anyway i just love this one because of how obscure and uselessly complicated it is. They already have a regular funicular in Dresden but they didn't have enough money to build a second one so they had to cut corners. Funiculars are already a pretty obscure mode of transport I'd bet not many people have been on a funicular before (I have!) and monorails are less obscure but still, most people definitely have not been on a monorail (i have.) let alone suspension monorails, of which there are like 3 total in the whole world (i have not been on one ....) 1900s Germany was literally gadgetbahn central like holy shit.

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-- Berlin F24 Rowboat Ferry --

The officially recognized Berlin F24 ferry route has to be one of my favourite obscure forms of transit. I was surprised when I learned that Berlin had 6 entire ferry lines - it really doesn't seem like a place that would have so much water transport. Most of the lines are in the very east of the city which has a lot more rivers and lakes. Most Berlin ferry lines are run by small to medium sized boats as is typical for most cities, but one line,the F24, isw famous for literally just being a guy in a rowboat. There's no engine or motor, it's literally just this one dude paid by the government to row back and forth across the river. This route has its own official timetable and place on the official website for public transport in the river. It takes 12 strokes of the oar to get to the other side. Most of the information about this thing is in Deutsch so it's kind of annoying for a monolingual beta like me. Somehow this trip takes 5 minutes which honestly seems like a lot for something like this. The ferry is also only seasonal, running between May and October. Why this is the case, I don't know. Surely it doesn't cost that much to run this service year round. There's only supposed to be 40 crossings timetabled per day but usually the guy will just take you across if you arrive.

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-- Mi Teleferico --

La Paz, Bolivia. A city where its entire transit network is based on cable car lines. 11 of them... Is it a good idea? Probably not. But it's definitely one of the coolest things I've ever seen and makes me really want to visit Bolivia. They built this because it was cheaper than a similarly extensive metro system and does make a bit more sense in a city as mountainous as La Paz. No need to worry about frequency when the gondolas arrive every few seconds - although I'm sure there are lines during peak hour. One of the drawbacks of cable car systems is that they're slowwwwww... but that's less of a problem with La Paz's winding roads and bad traffic. The locations and placements of all the lines do seem kind of weird to me... especially the city centre. Imagine this is your morning commute. Ever since I heard about Mi Teleferico this has been my number one most wanted city to visit in South America, like.. I never would have even considered Bolivia an option before this. The whole network was built within 10 years as well. I don't have much else to say honestly.

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-- Adelaide O-Bahn Guided Busway --

Literally the only interesting thing that has ever come out of Adelaide ever. Basically its a regular bus that goes on these weird ass bus tracks and since I've actually been on this one I can say this bus goes like surprisingly fast... it's like freeway speeds and it really doesn't feel like you're supposed to being going that fast on like. a bus. There's quite a lot of buses that use this and they go all the way out to the northern suburbs and some continue as regular local slow buses out to Glenelg. Its honestly really fun and also slightly scary... I feel like it definitely was a stupid idea to build this instead of a train and yeah. it was supposed to be a train but they downgraded. Seriously is there a single BRT project that wasn't supposed to be a train at one point in time... Actually can't think of a single one. Either way I do think this is more interesting than a train even if it's like way lower capacity and this is also the only reason to ever go to Adelaide. Did you know Adelaide built a one way freeway. And they turned an entire train line into single track to save like 2 dollars. This city honestly can NOT be real.

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-- Tibet Railway --

Located in the middle of the Tibetan mountains (do those also counts as part of the Himalayas probably not) is is the highest railway line in the world... it gets as much as 5km above sea level - that's twice as tall as the tallest mountain in all of Australia.. Mount Everest itself is only 8km tall. Literally only China would be crazy enough to build a line like this. Of course the political reasons for it are a bit yikes but it's undeniably a great asset for the people of Tibet and some of the stations literally are so cool... It's just a lone platform surrounded by snowy hills and mountain peaks. If you've seen pictures of Antarctica it looks EXACTLY like that. Because of the high elevation there arises problems with oxygen so every train has to have OXYGEN MASKS ON BOARD LIKE A PLANE and a specialised doctor on board every single train in case someone has breathing difficulties. You have to sign a waiver before buying a ticket. The Chinese government is even in the process of ELECTRIFYING the line right now which is some serious dedication.

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-- Southend Pier Train --

The longest pier in the world, apparently. According to one website this might be wrong I'm too lazy to do the actual research but the existence of this train is so funny to me. It only exists for the people that are too lazy to walk the 2 km down to the end of the pier. The fact that this was considered economically viable even in the 1800s is crazy let alone the fact that it survived into the 21st century (although only barely) (it like closed twice)... The trains also only run every 30 minutes like bitch at that point just walk. At one point this line was double tracked and had FOUR trains running every 8 minutes but it fell off I guess... It also used to be electrified but these days it's run by - and I'm try my best to say this without puking - b-b-b-battery trains... ewwwwwwwwww..... Anyway as far as I'm aware this is the only one of these pier trains that exist. Or at least the only one that still runs today and that's kind of cool. I'd love to ride on this pointless specimen.