A Line of Grave Importance

Our Final Stuttgart Visit.

UK readers will be familiar with the London Necropolis Railway which ferried mourners and their accompanying "boxes" between Waterloo ...

... (where there was a private station) ...

... and Brookwood Cemetery (near Woking) where two stations were available according to denominational loyalty.

The sites at each end of the line can still be found ...

... but devoid of any obvious bits of railway.

As inner London cemeteries filled up, the whole Brookwood project was an excellent money spinner ...

... with mourners paying their fare, as did the departed!

Sydney (Australia) had something similar.

Rookwood Cemetery as served by a rail spur from the main line from 1867 until 1948. Mortuary stations served each of the three sections of the necropolis, with a fourth at the main junction and a fifth on Regent Street adjacent to Central station. The railway line construction began in November 1864 and from 1 January 1865, trains began their run into the cemetery. It stopped at prearranged stations on the journey from central Sydney in order to pick up mourners and coffins. Trains ran at 9.30am and 3pm.

The curved line from top left marks the original route.

The station shown above was rebuilt as a church in Canberra ...

... but otherwise nothing tangible remains.

And so to Stuttgart's line 20. Alight from Stadtbahn U1 at Südheimer Platz ...

... walk along the road for a few yards and you can make connection with ...

... a funicular railway built solely to give easy access to Stuittgart's "Brookwood equivalent", the Waldfriedhof Cemetery.

The upper terminus is bottom left in the aerial view.

It is "line 20" in Stuttgart's "U" network ...

... and it serves no other purpose.

To accommodate a new link road, it was necessary to rebuild a viaduct ...

... after which the railway crosses the No 14 road which is in tunnel.

The cars are the originals, dating from opening in 1929, but brought up to modern standards. They are made of teak ...

 ... as pictured here at the upper terminus. The interiors are kept in beautiful condition.

Departures are every 20 minutes.

And please remember ...

... to comply with all notices!

SSB produce an attractive leaflet for the rack railway (see yesterday's blog) and the funicular ...

... with a selection of walks in the Degerloch and Waldfriedhof areas.

There is road access to the cemetery.

In summer ...

... Stuttgart's City Sightseeing green tour ...

... calls there.

Looks like a nice ride, but a tad more expensive than a SSB day ticket!

Enjoy the gorgeous compound noun "Schwerbehindertenauweis" = "severe handicap".

 Next weekend Miscellany blog : Saturday 3rd November