The idea is still popular today: decades ago, the illustrator Günter Radtke combined a tube train reminiscent of the Hyperloop with a monorail track.
Image: DB Museum/slow motion
Public transport will foreseeably increase in the future, the system has major weaknesses. But nobody talks about openness to technology. An exhibition in Nuremberg shows old and new rail utopias.
Vot these days in climate protection debates there is talk of openness to technology. Most of the time it is about private transport – the combustion car – and the home with its gas boiler, i.e. familiar possessions that are to be preserved through the development of climate-neutral energy sources such as e-fuels or hydrogen. The fact that the already very energy-efficient alternatives e-car and heat pump promise much greater potential through technical progress is often ignored in the discussion.
There is seldom any talk of openness to technology when it comes to public transport – which is astonishing, since it is foreseeable that this will increase in the future. But apparently the existing systems are perceived as largely without alternative, probably also because, like the railways, they are already considered relatively climate-neutral due to advanced electrification. In addition, public transport leaves little room for private competition, which does not exactly encourage innovation. On the other hand, the unpunctuality experienced in Germany and the sluggishness of the extensive railways, which are mostly laid at ground level, with their high level of wear and tear and their susceptibility to failure, should invite people to think about alternative concepts.
