Qualla: Trolleybuses in Solingen https://qualla.com/trolleybuses-in-solingen en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:34 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/5/trolleybuses-in-solingen-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Trolleybuses in Solingen https://qualla.com/trolleybuses-in-solingen Trolleybuses in Solingen: Introduction https://qualla.com/trolleybuses-in-solingen/ Photo credit Felix O, CC BY-SA 2.0. Solingen calls them Stangentaxis - 'pole taxis' - because of the twin trolley poles sliding along the overhead wires above the city. Watch a Solingen bus pull away from a stop on the steep approach to Graf-Wilhelm-Platz: no diesel growl, no clatter, just the quiet swell of electric torque as a forty-foot articulated vehicle pulls a full passenger load up a Bergisches hill. Germany once had trolleybus systems in dozens of cities. Three remain. Solingen runs the largest of them, and at the southern end of route 683, in a hairpin village above the river Wupper, the world's last surviving trolleybus turntable still spins buses around to face the way they came.

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Image: Felix O | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/5/trolleybuses-in-solingen-wp/u1j5-trolleybuses-in-solingen-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Trolleybuses in Solingen: Why the Wires Stayed https://qualla.com/trolleybuses-in-solingen/ Photo credit Nicola, CC BY-SA 4.0. The trolley wires went up on 19 June 1952, replacing a tram network that the city decided was not worth rebuilding after the war. Conversion finished in 1959, and ever since the buses have hummed through Solingen's steep streets and into the western suburbs around Ohligs, where t...

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Image: Nicola | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/5/trolleybuses-in-solingen-wp/u1j5-trolleybuses-in-solingen-why-the-wires-stayed.mp3 0:06 2 full Trolleybuses in Solingen: The Turntable at Unterburg https://qualla.com/trolleybuses-in-solingen/ Photo credit User:Christian Lindecke, CC BY-SA 2.0 de. Route 683 is the network's giant - 14.5 kilometres from Wuppertal-Vohwinkel in the north to Burg an der Wupper in the south, where Schloss Burg crowns its hill above the river. Burg's village of Unterburg is reached by a narrow lane that ends in a yard barely wider than a bus. To...

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Image: User:Christian Lindecke | CC BY-SA 2.0 de

]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/5/trolleybuses-in-solingen-wp/u1j5-trolleybuses-in-solingen-the-turntable-at-unterburg.mp3 0:06 3 full Trolleybuses in Solingen: Batteries Under the Poles https://qualla.com/trolleybuses-in-solingen/ Photo credit Nicola, CC BY-SA 4.0. The future of Solingen's wires turned out to involve battery packs. Stadtwerke Solingen, the city utility, began developing the Batterie-Oberleitungs-Bus - the 'BOB' - in the late 2010s: a trolleybus that recharges itself on electrified routes and then runs free of the wires acro...

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Image: Nicola | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/5/trolleybuses-in-solingen-wp/u1j5-trolleybuses-in-solingen-batteries-under-the-poles.mp3 0:06 4 full Trolleybuses in Solingen: Seven Routes, One Square https://qualla.com/trolleybuses-in-solingen/ Photo credit A.Savin, FAL. Today seven trolleybus routes radiate from Graf-Wilhelm-Platz in the heart of Solingen, threading the city's neighbourhoods and reaching into Wuppertal along the way. Routes 681 and 682 connect to Solingen Hauptbahnhof out in Ohligs. The long 683 still meets the Wuppertal Schwebe...

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Image: A.Savin | FAL

]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/5/trolleybuses-in-solingen-wp/u1j5-trolleybuses-in-solingen-seven-routes-one-square.mp3 0:06 5 full