Planes, trains, and automobiles are by no means the only way of getting from one spot to the next. Some forms of transportation are born of necessity — like the Colombian schoolchildren who brave a ride across a river valley every day by zipline. Others are more about pure pleasure, like the commuters in Ottawa who choose to ice skate to work in winter. From bamboo trains to windsleds, these lesser-known modes of transportation may “drive” you (sorry) to reconsider how you get around.
Suspension Railway (Wuppertal, Germany)
To get a sense of the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn, the world’s oldest suspension railway, watch this two-minute-long film taken from inside the train in 1902. A journey in itself, the film shows the path this futuristic mode of transportation takes through a small German city, where men in bowler hats and women in long skirts walk down unpaved streets alongside horse wagons. Fortunately, the unique train still exists today — with updated cars but the same gorgeous old stations — and carries 85,000 daily passengers. Much of its eight-mile route follows the path of the Wupper River, which the suspended train carriages float 39 feet above.
Autonomous Personal Pods (London, England)
Since their 2011 debut, 21 of these driverless pods have zipped back and forth along the trackless 2.5-mile guideway between Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and its parking lot. The lightweight personal rapid transit pods, which collectively carry 800 passengers each day on average, run on electricity and require very little infrastructure, which has reduced emissions and traffic congestion. After parking their cars, passengers walk to one of the two stations and summon their own pods by pressing a button. One of the small vehicles pulls forward to whisk each passenger and his or her luggage directly to Terminal 5 without stopping for other riders. A similar system of autonomous rapid transit, but one that carries multiple passengers at a time, runs between the three campuses of Morgantown’s West Virginia University.
Yellowstone Snowcoach (Wyoming)
If you think that Yellowstone National Park is stunning in summer, wait until you arrive in the park in deep winter to find it blanketed in snow. Unlike summer, when the park’s roads are congested with cars and buses, visitors cannot drive their own car in the park during the winter, except for the road between the north and northeast entrances. How then to witness the glory of the quiet season? Arrive on a snowcoach, or what the National Park Service refers to as a modern sleigh. Some of the vehicles look like monster trucks crossed with SUVs and fitted with immense snow tires. Others, like the Bombardier snowcoach, have skis instead of front wheels and tank treads in back. You won’t be able to sneak up on any wildlife in these big vehicles, but you won’t get stuck in the snow, either.
Bamboo Train (Battambang, Cambodia)
In Cambodia’s countryside, roads used to be either nonexistent or badly maintained. There was a single set of train tracks built for a national train line that was inconsistent during peaceful times and disrupted by frequent unrest. In search of a reliable way to transport supplies and passengers, a group of ingenious locals used the country’s plentiful bamboo to build platforms that could be mounted on steel wheels and then propelled by pole along the existing tracks through the encroaching tropical foliage, like gondolas through the jungle. In the 1990s, boat engines were added to these bamboo trains or (known locally as “noories”) so that they could move quickly (and noisily) between stops, carrying goods and passengers. The Cambodian government has recently invested in better roads and more train tracks, mostly rendering the noories obsolete, but a stretch still operates mostly for tourists from the Battambang station.
Windsleds (Madeline Island, Wisconsin)
In addition to being the largest and deepest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior is also the coldest. The small town of La Pointe — located on Madeline Island in the picturesque Apostle Islands of Lake Superior — finds itself stranded by icy waters several months a year. The town harbor often freezes over, so the ferry that usually runs to Bayfield, on the mainland in Wisconsin, can’t operate. When the water freezes to a consistent 11 inches deep the entire way from Madeline Island to Bayfield, cars and vans can drive on the ice road that forms on the lake. But before that happens, there are a couple of long months without transportation. A pair of brothers who own a construction company on the island designed a vehicle to bridge those cold but not solid days before midwinter: a windsled. With two large fans mounted on the back, this 9,000-pound boat on skis stoutly sleds across the thin ice at 18 miles per hour, ferrying the island’s schoolchildren over to the mainland.
High-Speed Maglev Train (Shanghai, China)
In July 2021, the world’s fastest train made its debut in Qingdao, China, reaching speeds of 373 mph — before it was stashed back in the train shed to await a full network of tracks that could accommodate its maglev (magnetic levitation) technology. The technology works by using the opposing forces of magnets, similar to when you try to push opposites together and they resist coming close. Using that force to elevate the streamlined train cars above the tracks eliminates any friction between track and wheel, which may slow its forward motion. Until enough tracks are built in China for viable commercial service, only one high-speed maglev train is currently operational, a train that connects downtown Shanghai with Pudong International Airport, 19 miles away. Japan and South Korea operate limited maglev service in some areas, and multiple other countries have plans in place to construct their own systems.
Road-Rail Vehicles (Various Locations)
The passengers who can board road-rail vehicles are typically limited to railroad employees, but the unique design of these trucks and construction vehicles harken back to more public forms of transportation, like rail buses. In the modern era, road-rail vehicles are used for track maintenance. Train riders can sometimes spot the hybrid vehicles parked in rail yards outside stations or on railroad sidings alongside their route. They have regular rubber tires so that they can run on roadways, but also have retractable steel wheels that run on the rails. The most common form of these vehicles is a large truck, but more specialized versions of forklifts and backhoes have also been fitted with the dual-function undercarriage.
Central Mid-Levels Escalator (Hong Kong)
A covered and connected network of 20 escalators and inclined moving sidewalks travel the half-mile distance between Hong Kong’s Central and Mid-Level districts (hence the seemingly redundant name). The world’s longest outdoor escalator system, it climbs nearly 445 feet in altitude along the route. The 20-minute motorized journey travels only one direction at a time, moving downhill from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. (to cater to commuters) and then uphill from 10:30 a.m. to midnight (primarily for tourists). Passengers can exit the covered escalator at cross-streets along the way up and down. The escalators were opened in 1993 as a solution to the traffic that blocked the steep streets that zigzag between these two Hong Kong neighborhoods. While street traffic is still an issue, 78,000 people a day take the moving stairs.