00:00:00: “Your Majesty, we are just crossing into Elberfeld.”

00:00:07: „Ah, very good. Auguste, put your hat on. We’re entering the city!”

00:00:12: This popular anecdote angers the inhabitants of Barmen down to this very day, especially since Barmen was really the more prosperous of the two original towns. So it comes as no surprise that people are still aware of the boundary line between two towns, which had been independent for centuries. That boundary is coming up shortly before the next station.

00:00:34: Incidentally, due to the fact that Wuppertal has grown together from two large autonomous towns you will still find that many things are duplicated: two state tax offices, two large pedestrian shopping precincts and two town halls.

00:00:49: And we used to have two district courts and two civic theatres. However, all of us Wuppertalers are in the same predicament when it comes to the weather. Clouds coming in from the west tend to build up along our hills.

00:01:04: The result: Statistically speaking it rains more frequently here than elsewhere. But that doesn’t matter: An old saying claims that babies are born in Wuppertal with umbrellas in their hands…