Amazing HD Remastered and Colorized 1902 Footage of a Suspended Railway Ride Through a German Town

Video editor Denis Shiryaev has remastered and colorized “The Flying Train”, amazing vintage footage shot in 1902 of a suspended railway in a German town, into a high definition version at 60 frames per second. Shiryaev achieved this through neural network learning, which smoothed out the rough edges.

Upscaled with neural network footage of “Wuppertal Schwebebahn” shot in 1902. Btw, the train system hasn‘t changed much and still functional. The “Schwebebahn” was built mostly over the river to save space. …Contrary to the text at the beginning, the city “Wuppertal” didn’t yet exist in 1902. Back then, these were a handful of separate cities and towns called “Elberfeld”, “Ronsdorf”, “Cronenberg”, “Vohwinkel” and “Barmen”. These cities were united in 1929 under the name “Barmen-Elberfeld” and were renamed into “Wuppertal” in 1930, according to the fact that the cities are located around the Wupper river.

Here’s the original footage from the Museum of Modern Art.

“The Flying Train” depicts a ride on a suspended railway in Germany in 1902. The footage is almost as impressive as the feat of engineering it captures.

The Wuppertal Schwebebahn is still operational. Here’s some footage of it running in 2018.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.