Elevated railway. An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short) is a railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concrete, or bricks). The railway may be broad-gauge, standard-gauge or narrow-gauge railway, light rail, monorail, or a suspension railway. Elevated railways are normally found in urban areas where there would otherwise be multiple level crossings. Usually, the tracks of elevated railways that run on steel viaducts can be seen from street level.

History

The earliest elevated railway was the London and Greenwich Railway on a brick viaduct of 878 arches, built between 1836 and 1838. The first  of the London and Blackwall Railway (1840) was also built on a viaduct. During the 1840s there were other plans for elevated railways in London that never came to fruition.

From the late 1860s onward, elevated railways became popular in US cities. New York's West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway opened in 1868 as a cable-hauled elevated railway and was operated using locomotives after 1871, when it was renamed the New York Elevated Railroad. This was followed in 1875 by the Manhattan Railway Company, which took over the New York Elevated Railroad. Other early elevated systems in the US included the Chicago "L", which was built by multiple competing companies beginning in 1892, as well as the Boston Elevated Railway in 1901 and the Market–Frankford Line in Philadelphia in 1907. Globally, the Berlin Stadtbahn (1882) and the Vienna Stadtbahn (1898) are also mainly elevated.

The first electric elevated railway was the Liverpool Overhead Railway, which operated through Liverpool docks from 1893 until 1956.

In London, the Docklands Light Railway is a modern elevated railway that opened in 1987 and has since expanded. The trains are driverless and automatic. Another modern elevated railway is Tokyo's driverless Yurikamome line, opened in 1995.

Systems

Monorail systems
Most monorails are elevated railways, such as the Disneyland Monorail System (1959), the Tokyo Monorail (1964), the Sydney Monorail (1988–2013), the KL Monorail, the Las Vegas Monorail, the Seattle Center Monorail and the São Paulo Monorail. Most maglev railways are also elevated.

Suspension railways

During the 1890s there was some interest in suspension railways, particularly in Germany, with the Schwebebahn Dresden, (1891–) and the Wuppertal Schwebebahn (1901). H-Bahn suspension railways were built in Dortmund and Düsseldorf airport, 1975. The Memphis Suspension Railway opened in 1982.

Suspension railways are usually monorail; Shonan Monorail and Chiba Urban Monorail in Japan, despite their names, are suspension railways.

People mover systems
People mover or automated people mover (APM) is a type of driverless grade-separated, mass-transit system. The term is generally used only to describe systems that serve as loops or feeder systems, but is sometimes applied to considerably more complex automated systems. Similar to monorails, Bombardier Innovia APM technology uses only one rail to guide the vehicle along the guideway. APMs are common at airports and effective at helping passengers quickly reach their gates. Several elevated APM systems at airports including the PHX Sky Train at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport; AeroTrain at Kuala Lumpur International Airport; and the Tracked Shuttle System at London Gatwick Airport, United Kingdom.

Modern systems

Metro or commuter rail systems

Africa 
 Addis Ababa Light Rail
 Cairo Metro (Line 3)
 Lagos Metro

Americas
 Baltimore Metro (west of Mondawmin)
 BART (partial)
 Chicago "L" (except for underground sections of the Red Line and Blue Line and at-grade sections of the Brown Line, Purple Line, Pink Line, and Yellow Line)
 Cleveland Red Line (partial)
 DART Green Line (north branch)
 Guadalajara light rail system Line 3 (partial under construction)
 Lima Metro (partial)
 Market–Frankford Line (underground in downtown Philadelphia and West Philadelphia up to 40th Street Station but elevated elsewhere)
 Medellín Metro
 MARTA (partial)
 Montreal REM (partial, not fully)
 Metrorrey (partial)
 Mexico City Metro (partial)
 Miami Metrorail
 New York City Subway (partial, 40% of tracks)
 Panama City Metro
 PATCO (partial)
 PATH (partial)
 Santiago Metro (partial)
 Skyline
 SkyTrain, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (partial)
 Tren Urbano
 Washington Metro (partial)
 UP Express (partial), an airport express train connecting Lester B. Pearson International Airport to Toronto Union Station in Toronto, Ontario

Asia
 Bangalore metro
 BTS Skytrain, two elevated rapid transit lines in Bangkok
 Chennai Metro 
 Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System
 Chongqing Rail Transit (Line 3)
 Daegu Metro (Line 3)
 Danhai Light Rail
 Delhi Metro (Yellow Line, Green Line, Red Line)
 Dhaka Metro Rail
 Dubai Metro
Hanoi Metro
 Hong Kong MTR (Kwun Tong Line, Tsuen Wan Line, Tuen Ma Line, East Rail Line, South Island Line and Tung Chung Line) (all partial)
 Hyderabad Metro
 Jabodebek LRT
 Jakarta LRT
 Jakarta MRT (North-South Line, partial)

 Kochi Metro
 Kolkata Metro (future line 5 and 6, later is under construction)
 Lahore Metro (Orange Line)
 Manila Light Rail Transit System
 Navi Mumbai Metro
 Mumbai Metro
 Mumbai Monorail
 Nagpur Metro
 Rapid Metro Gurgaon
 Rapid Rail, the operator of the rapid transit (metro) system serving Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley area in Malaysia.
 Singapore MRT (North–South Line and East–West Line) (all partial)
 Singapore LRT (automated people mover (APM))
 New Taipei Metro (Circular line, north branch of Tamsui–Xinyi line, and Wenhu line)
 Doha Metro (all partial except Gold Line which is fully underground.)
 Riyadh Metro (except Green Line which is fully underground.)

Europe

 Amsterdam Metro (except Line 52)
 Berlin S-Bahn (Berlin Stadtbahn and Siemensbahn)
 Berlin U-Bahn (U1 and U2 lines)
 Charleroi light rail (partial)
 Copenhagen Metro (partial)
 Devon Metro (partial)
 Docklands Light Railway (partial)
 Frankfurt U-Bahn (U1) (partial)
 Hamburg U-Bahn (U3 line)
 London Overground (Windrush line) (partial)
 Moscow Metro (Butovskaya line)
 Paris Metro  (Line 1, Line 2, Line 5, Line 6, Line 8 and Line 13) (all partial)
 Rhine-Main S-Bahn (S3, S4, S5, S6) (partial)
 Rotterdam Metro (partial)
 Vienna S-Bahn (Vienna Stadtbahn)
 Vienna U-Bahn (U6 line)
 Wuppertal Suspension Railway

Oceania
 Metro Trains Melbourne, mainly built by the Level Crossing Removal Project
 Sydney Metro Northwest Line in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (between Bella Vista and Tallawong)

Disused

 Boston Elevated Railways: Atlantic Avenue Elevated, Charlestown Elevated, Washington Street Elevated, Causeway Street Elevated
 Elevated railways operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company in New York City
 Liverpool Overhead Railway
 The elevated Airport line of Kolkata Suburban Railway, closed in 2016 for reconstruction relating Kolkata Metro line 4
 Line 3 Scarborough, a medium capacity metro rail line in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (ceased operation in July 2023 due to derailment and age, currently undergoing replacement by an extension of TTC Line 2)

People mover
 Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, a people mover at and around Tomorrowland, Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World Resort, Orlando, Florida, United States
 AirTrain JFK, a people mover at and around John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, New York, United States
 ATL Skytrain, a people mover at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia, United States
 Changi Airport Skytrain, an inter-terminal people mover at Changi International Airport in Singapore
 Detroit People Mover, an urban transit people mover in Detroit, Michigan, United States
 H-Bahn, an inter-terminal automated people mover in Dortmund and Düsseldorf, Germany
 Jacksonville Skyway, an automated people mover in Jacksonville, Florida, United States
 Metromover, a people mover at Miami, Florida, United States
 PHX Sky Train, a people mover at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix, Arizona, United States

Proposed designs
 Phnom Penh SkyTrain (Cambodia)
Ho Chi Minh City Metro (Vietnam) will be partially elevated
 Managua Metro (Nicaragua)
 San Salvador Metro (El Salvador)
 Ljubljana Metro (Slovenia)
 Transperth's Armadale line will be partially elevated by the Victoria Park-Canning Level Crossing Removal Project

See also

 Bombardier Innovia family of automated rapid transit systems (elevated technologies - Monorail, APM, Metro)
 Elevator
 Embankment (transportation)
 Grade separation
 Monorail
 Railway
 Rapid transit
 People mover

References

Railways by type