General

Roy Stone Roy Stone (October 16, 1836 – August 5, 1905) was an American soldier, civil engineer, and inventor. He served in the American Civil War, distinguishing himself during the Battle of Gettysburg, and took part in the Spanish–American War. He ...

's Centennial Monorail was demonstrated at the

Centennial International Exhibition The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair to be held in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the ...

of 1876, the first official

World's Fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

in the U.S., which was held in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

(

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the ...

Technology

The track was approx 155 m (170 yards) long and joined the Horticultural Hall and the Agricultural Hall in

Fairmount Park Fairmount Park is the largest municipal park in Philadelphia and the historic name for a group of parks located throughout the city. Fairmount Park consists of two park sections named East Park and West Park, divided by the Schuylkill River, with ...

. It was used by one elaborately decorated double-decker railcar in Victorian

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style. It had two load-bearing double-flange wheels, of which one was driven by a rotary steam engine of the "La France" type. The concept was similar to that of the

Lartigue Monorail The Lartigue Monorail system was developed by the French engineer Charles Lartigue (1834–1907). He further developed a horse drawn monorail system, which had been invented by Henry Robinson Palmer in 1821. Lartigue had seen camels in Algeri ...

: The load-bearing rail was installed on top of wooden A-frames. 1,346 mm (4 feet 5-inch) below there were two guide-rails for balancing the vehicle. The load-bearing wheels had a diameter of 711 mm (28-inch). The boiler was similar to that of conventional steam engines: it was 6,400 mm (21 feet) long with a diameter of 863 mm (34 inch). The driver's cabin was at the rear end, and just below there were two water tanks with coal heaped behind them.Mark Reinsberg. General Stone's Elevated Railroad: Portrait of an Inventor, ''The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine'', 1966, Vol. 49, No. 3. A modified version of this demonstrator was exploited in 1878 on the Bradford & Foster Brook Railway in Pennsylvania.

References

{{Authority control Monorails Defunct monorails Monorails in the United States 19th century in Philadelphia 1876 establishments in Pennsylvania 1876 in the United States 1876 disestablishments in Pennsylvania 1876 in Pennsylvania Defunct Pennsylvania railroads Centennial Exposition West Fairmount Park