This city has an upside-down flying train

By Leo Black via SWNS

The German city of Wuppertal is home to one of the world's most unusual transport systems - an upside-down "flying" train line.

Carriages hang upside-down from the tracks and drive over the streets and river of the city.

These videos show the trains running on massive suspended tracks over the buildings and roads of the city, even over the Wupper river during some portions of their journey.

The Wuppertal Schwebebahn, as it’s called, is 13.3 kilometers (8.26 miles) long, and is a regular means of getting from A to B and carries 82,000 people daily.

The characteristic railway system is one of the landmarks of the city and is one of only six functional suspended railway systems in the world, with four of those being in Germany.

The Schwebebahn is an incredibly safe transportation system, with only one fatal accident since it came into operation in 1901.

The line’s only incident happened in 1999, and resulted in five deaths and 45 injuries.

It was caused by a metal claw used in maintenance, which was forgotten by a worker on the tracks, resulting in a derailment, with the car falling into the river Wupper.

There have, of course, been more injuries in the 123 year history of the trains, but only four of these have led to passengers being injured.

The most strange among those being an elephant which escaped from one of the cars in 1950, and fell into the river beneath.

The elephant was riding in the train as part of a publicity stunt by the Althoff Circus, and was thankfully rescued from the river alive.

The elephant, a pair of journalists, and a passenger sustained only minor injuries.