Unterburg trolleybus turntable

The 'Unterburg' turntable is a former trolleybus - Turntable in the Solinger district Burg an der Wupper. The operator is the Stadtwerke Solingen (SWS). The facility was used until 15 November 2009 by line 683, which ended service by this day as scheduled.

It is the last of the world's only four turntables of this type. Two more were located in Great Britain, one was the Christchurch trolleybus turntable (1936 to 1969), the other was the Longwood trolleybus turntable at Huddersfield (1939 to 1940). The fourth trolleybus Was operated in the Guadalajara from 1982 to 1983 and from 1985 to 1988.

The turning process lasts 45 seconds and is remote controlled by the driver from the outside. It is always carried out without passengers. The drive of the disc is placed in the neighbouring house. In the trolley, the pantograph rods are removed by hand before starting the rotation. The application of the rods after the rotation again takes place manually with the aid of so-called threading tufts.

Until 1959, the independent municipality of Burg an der Wupper was connected to the neighbouring cities of Solingen and Remscheid by the tram lines 3 and 4. A separate bridge over the Wupper connected the two tram lines. This was destroyed in the Second World War and not rebuilt. Instead, a dome terminal was placed on the Solinger side. The tram was shut down in 1959 and replaced by a trolley bus line.

The narrow valley of the Wupper did not leave the space for a loop on the 40 metres (130 ft) long, but only 8 metres (26 ft) wide transfer stop of the streetcar. The confined area between the river and a steep slope proved particularly problematic. Therefore, according to the two above-mentioned models from the UK, an automatically operated rotary disc with a diameter of 7.5 metres (25 ft) was alternatively installed for the trolley line 3 at that time. This was sufficient for the trolley type ÜHIIIs, which was then exclusively used. Originally the system was manually operated by the driver by means of a hand crank.

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Wikipedia