Qualla: Unterburg trolleybus turntable

Unterburg trolleybus turntable: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smiley.toerist, CC BY-SA 4.0. Four trolleybus turntables were ever built. Two were in England — Christchurch (1936 to 1969) and Longwood near Huddersfield (1939 to 1940). One was in Guadalajara, Mexico, in operation from 1982 to 1988. And one is in Germany, tucked into the gorge of the Wupper river beneath the medieval mass of Burg Castle, in a district of Solingen called Unterburg. It is twelve meters across, takes forty-five seconds to spin a bus a full half-turn, and as of 2009 is officially out of service. It is also the only one of the four still in existence. If you want to see a trolleybus turntable in working condition anywhere on Earth, you come here.

Image: Smiley.toerist | CC BY-SA 4.0

Unterburg trolleybus turntable: Why a Disc Instead of a Loop

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nicola, CC BY-SA 4.0. Trolleybuses are not magnetically reversible. They run forward off two overhead wires, with a pair of poles reaching up from the roof. To send a bus back the way it came, you need either a turning loop — a curve of road and overhead wire wide enough for the vehicle to swing aroun...

Image: Nicola | CC BY-SA 4.0

Unterburg trolleybus turntable: Forty-Five Seconds

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SK180380 at German Wikipedia (Original text: Stefan Kissing), CC BY-SA 3.0. The turning process is precise and not particularly dramatic. The driver pulls the trolleybus onto the disc. The trolley poles, still in contact with the overhead wires, get lowered manually. The driver steps out and into an adjoining control house, presses the remote operator, a...

Image: SK180380 at German Wikipedia (Original text: Stefan Kissing) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Unterburg trolleybus turntable: The ÜHIIIs and What Came After

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa), CC BY-SA 2.0. When the turntable was installed in 1959 — replacing the prewar tram lines that had connected Burg to Solingen and Remscheid before the bridge over the Wupper was destroyed in the war — the disc was seven and a half meters across. That accommodated the ÜHIIIs trolleybus, the only...

Image: Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) | CC BY-SA 2.0

Unterburg trolleybus turntable: The Last Day of Spinning

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A.Savin, FAL. On November 15, 2009, the line converted entirely to modern Swisstrolley articulated buses built by Carrosserie Hess in Switzerland. These vehicles have small auxiliary diesel motors, so they can drive the short distance from the Seilbahn Burg ropeway terminal — where a new bus s...

Image: A.Savin | FAL

Unterburg trolleybus turntable: An Industrial Footnote

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Vincentz, CC BY-SA 3.0. It is easy to drive through Unterburg today and miss the turntable entirely. The disc lies flush with the road surface, ringed by curbs, in a small square at the foot of the chairlift that climbs to Burg Castle above. There are no passengers waiting; no buses spinning; no driver ...

Image: Frank Vincentz | CC BY-SA 3.0