Monorail subway from Capitol to Senate. Construction work (cropped).jpg
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A monorail (from "
mono Mono may refer to: Common meanings * Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease" * Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono * Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single Music Performers * Mono (Japanese b ...
", meaning "one", and " rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, the term refers to the style of
track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...
.The term "track" is used here for simplicity. Technically the monorail sits on or is suspended from a guideway containing a singular structure. There is an additional generally accepted rule that the support for the car be narrower than the car.


Etymology

The term possibly comes from 1897, from German engineer Eugen Langen, who called an elevated railway system with wagons suspended the '' Eugen Langen One-railed Suspension Tramway'' (Einschieniges Hängebahnsystem Eugen Langen).


Differentiation from other transport systems

Monorails have found applications in airport transfer and medium capacity metros. To differentiate monorails from other transport modes, the Monorail Society defines a monorail as a "single rail serving as a track for passenger or freight vehicles. In most cases rail is elevated, but monorails can also run at grade, below grade or in subway tunnels. Vehicles either are suspended from or straddle a narrow guide way. Monorail vehicles are wider than the guide way that supports them.”


Similarities

Monorails are often elevated, sometimes leading to confusion with other elevated systems such as the Docklands Light Railway, Vancouver SkyTrain, the AirTrain JFK and cable propelled systems like the Cable Liner people mover which run on two rails. Monorail vehicles often appear similar to light rail vehicles, and can be staffed or unstaffed. They can be individual rigid vehicles, articulated single units, or multiple units coupled into trains. Like other advanced rapid transit systems, monorails can be driven by linear induction motors; like conventional railways, vehicle bodies can be connected to the beam via
bogie A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...
s, allowing curves to be negotiated. Monorails are in use urban areas alongside conventional parallel railed metro systems. Mumbai Monorail serves alongside Mumbai Metro, while monorail lines are integrated with conventional rail lines in Bangkok's
BTS Skytrain The Bangkok Mass Transit System, commonly known as the BTS Skytrain ( th, รถไฟฟ้าบีทีเอส '' TS'), is an elevated rapid transit system in Bangkok, Thailand. It is operated by Bangkok Mass Transit System PCL (BTSC), a ...
network.


Differences

Unlike some trams and light rail systems, modern monorails are always separated from other traffic and pedestrians due to the geometry of the rail. They are both guided and supported via interaction with the same single beam, in contrast to other guided systems like
rubber-tyred metro A rubber-tyred metro or rubber-tired metro is a form of rapid transit system that uses a mix of road and rail technology. The vehicles have wheels with rubber tires that run on rolling pads inside guide bars for traction, as well as traditional ...
s, the Sapporo Municipal Subway; or
guided bus Guided buses are buses capable of being steered by external means, usually on a dedicated track or roll way that excludes other traffic, permitting the maintenance of schedules even during rush hours. Unlike trolleybuses or rubber-tired tra ...
es or trams, such as
Translohr Translohr is a rubber-tired tramway (or guided bus) system, originally developed by Lohr Industrie of France and now run by a consortium of Alstom Transport and Fonds stratégique d'investissement (FSI) as '' newTL,'' which took over from Lo ...
. Monorails do not use
pantographs A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...
. From the passenger's perspective, monorails can have some advantages over trains, buses, and automobiles. As with other grade-separated transit systems, monorails avoid red lights, intersection turns, and traffic jams. Surface-level trains, buses, automobiles, and pedestrians can collide each one with the other, while vehicles on dedicated, grade-separated rights-of-way such as monorails can collide only with other vehicles on the same system, with much fewer opportunities for collision. As with other elevated transit systems, monorail passengers enjoy sunlight and views and by watching for familiar landmarks, they can know better when to get off to reach their destinations. Monorails can be quieter than diesel buses and trains. They obtain electricity from the track structure, eliminating costly and, to many people, unsightly overhead power lines and poles. Compared to the elevated train systems of New York, Chicago and elsewhere, a monorail beamway casts a narrow shadow. (''See '
Chicago "L" The Chicago "L" (short for "elevated") is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs in the U.S. state of Illinois. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), it is the fourth-largest rapid tr ...
' '')


Maglev

Under the Monorail Society's beam-width criterion, some, but not all, maglev systems are considered monorails, such as the Transrapid and
Linimo , formally the is a magnetic levitation train line in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, near the city of Nagoya. While primarily built to serve the Expo 2005 fair site, the line now operates to serve the local community. Linimo is owned and operated by ...
. Maglevs differ from other monorails in that they do not physically contact the beam while moving.


History


Early years

The first monorail prototype was made in Russia in 1820 by
Ivan Elmanov Ivan Kirillovich Elmanov (russian: Иван Кириллович Эльманов) was a Russian inventor. During 1820 in Myachkovo, near Moscow, he built a type of monorail described as a road on pillars. The single rail was made of timber balks r ...
. Attempts at creating monorail alternatives to conventional railways have been made since the early part of the 19th century. The
Centennial Monorail General Roy Stone's Centennial Monorail was demonstrated at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the U.S., which was held in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Dec ...
was featured at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Based on its design the Bradford and Foster Brook Railway was built in 1877 and ran for one year from January 1878 until January 1879. Around 1879 a "one-rail" system was proposed independently by Haddon and by Stringfellow, which used an inverted "V" rail (and thus shaped like "Λ" in cross-section). It was intended for military use, but was also seen to have civilian use as a "cheap railway." Similarly, one of the first systems put into practical use was that of French engineer Charles Lartigue, who built a line between Ballybunion and Listowel in Ireland, opened in 1888 and lasting 36 years, being closed in 1924 (due to damage from Ireland's Civil War). It used a load-bearing single rail and two lower, external rails for balance, the three carried on triangular supports. It was cheap to construct but tricky to operate. Possibly the first monorail locomotive was a
0-3-0 0-3-0 is a type of wheel arrangement for a monorail steam locomotive. History This most unusual wheel arrangement was only used for specialised monorails. Listowel and Ballybunion Railway The Lartigue Monorail locomotives used on the Listowel ...
steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
on this line. A high-speed monorail using the Lartigue system was proposed in 1901 between Liverpool and Manchester. The
Boynton Bicycle Railroad The Boynton Bicycle Railroad was a monorail in Brooklyn on Long Island, New York. It ran on a single load-bearing rail at ground level, but with a wooden overhead stabilising rail engaged by a pair of horizontally opposed wheels. The railway ...
was a steam-powered monorail in Brooklyn on
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
,
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
. It ran on a single load-bearing rail at ground level, but with a wooden overhead stabilising rail engaged by a pair of horizontally opposed wheels. The railway operated for only two years beginning in 1890. The
Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad The Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad was a purpose-built monorail on which a matching bicycle could be ridden. It was invented by Arthur Hotchkiss, and the first example was built between Smithville and Mount Holly, New Jersey, in 1892. It closed in ...
was a monorail on which a matching pedal
bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bic ...
could be ridden. The first example was built between Smithville and Mount Holly, New Jersey, in 1892. It closed in 1897. Other examples were built in Norfolk from 1895 to 1909,
Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...
, and
Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the North West England, northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the Borough of Blackpool, borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, betw ...
, UK from 1896.


1900s–1950s

Early designs used a double- flanged single metal rail alternative to the double rail of conventional railways, both guiding and supporting the monorail car. A surviving suspended version is the oldest still in service system: the Wuppertal monorail in Germany. Also in the early 1900s, Gyro monorails with cars gyroscopically balanced on top of a single rail were tested, but never developed beyond the prototype stage. The Ewing System, used in the
Patiala State Monorail Trainways Patiala State Monorail Trainways (PSMT) was a unique rail-guided, partially road-borne railway system running in Patiala from 1907 to 1927. PSMT was the second monorail system in India, after the Kundala Valley Railway, near Munnar in Kerala, an ...
in Punjab, India, relies on a hybrid model with a load-bearing single rail and an external wheel for balance. A highspeed monorail using the Lartigue system was proposed in 1901 between Liverpool and Manchester. In 1910, the
Brennan Brennan may refer to: People * Brennan (surname) * Brennan (given name) * Bishop Brennan (disambiguation) Places * Brennan, Idlib, a village located in Sinjar Nahiyah in Maarrat al-Nu'man District, Idlib, Syria * Rabeeah Brennan, a village located ...
gyroscopic monorail was considered for use to a coal mine in Alaska. In June 1920, the French Patent Office published FR 503782, by Henri Coanda, on a 'Transporteur Aérien' -Air Carrier. The first half of the 20th century saw many further proposed designs that either never left the drawing board or remained short-lived prototypes. One of the first monorails planned in the United States was in New York City in the early 1930s, scrubbed for an elevated train system.


1950s–1980s

In the latter half of the 20th century, monorails had settled on using larger beam- or girder-based track, with vehicles supported by one set of wheels and guided by another. In the 1950s, a 40% scale prototype of a system designed for speed of on straight stretches and on curves was built in Germany. There were designs with vehicles supported, suspended or cantilevered from the beams. In the 1950s the
ALWEG Alweg was a transportation company based in Germany known for pioneering straddle-beam monorails. History Alweg was founded by Swedish industrial magnate Dr. Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren in January 1953 as Alweg-Forschung, GmbH (Alweg Research Cor ...
straddle design emerged, followed by an updated suspended type, the SAFEGE system. Versions of ALWEG's technology are used by the two largest monorail manufacturers, Hitachi Monorail and Bombardier. In 1956, the first monorail to operate in the US began test operations in Houston, Texas. Disneyland in
Anaheim Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...
, California, opened the United States' first daily operating monorail system in 1959. Later during this period, additional
monorails A monorail (from "mono", meaning "one", and "rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, ...
were installed at Walt Disney World in Florida, Seattle, and in
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. Monorails were promoted as futuristic technology with exhibition installations and amusement park purchases, as seen by the legacy systems in use today. However, monorails gained little foothold compared to conventional transport systems. In March 1972, Alejandro Goicoechea-Omar had patent DE1755198 published, on a 'Vertebrate Train', build as experimental track in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. Niche private enterprise uses for monorails emerged, with the emergence of air travel and shopping malls, with shuttle-type systems being built.


Perceptions of monorail as public transport

From 1950 to 1980, the monorail concept may have suffered, as with all public transport systems, from competition with the automobile. At the time, the post-World War II optimism in America was riding high and people were buying automobiles in large numbers due to suburbanization and the Interstate Highway System. Monorails in particular may have suffered from the reluctance of public transit authorities to invest in the perceived high cost of un-proven technology when faced with cheaper mature alternatives. There were also many competing monorail technologies, splitting their case further. One notable example of a public monorail is the AMF Monorail that was used as transportation around the
1964-1965 World's Fair The 1964–1965 New York World's Fair was a world's fair that held over 140 pavilions and 110 restaurants, representing 80 nations (hosted by 37), 24 US states, and over 45 corporations with the goal and the final result of building exhibits or ...
. This high-cost perception was challenged most notably in 1963 when the ALWEG consortium proposed to finance the construction of a major system in
Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...
in return for the right of operation. This was turned down by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors under pressure from
Standard Oil of California Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...
and
General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
(which were strong advocates for
automobile dependency Car dependency is the concept that some city layouts cause cars to be favoured over alternate forms of transportation, such as bicycles, public transit, and walking. Overview In many modern cities, automobiles are convenient and sometimes nec ...
), and the later
subway Subway, Subways, The Subway, or The Subways may refer to: Transportation * Subway, a term for underground rapid transit rail systems * Subway (underpass), a type of walkway that passes underneath an obstacle * Subway (George Bush Interconti ...
system faced criticism by famed author Ray Bradbury as it had yet to reach the scale of the proposed monorail. Several monorails initially conceived as transport systems survive on revenues generated from tourism, benefiting from the unique views offered from the largely elevated installations.


Recent history

From the 1980s, most monorail mass transit systems are in
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, with a few exceptions. Tokyo Monorail, is one of the world's busiest, averages 127,000 passengers per day and has served over 1.5 billion passengers since 1964. China recently started development of monorails in the late 2000s, already home to the world's largest and busiest monorail system and has a number of mass transit monorails under construction in several of cities. A
Bombardier Innovia Monorail Innovia Monorail is a fully automated and driverless monorail system currently manufactured and marketed by Alstom as part of its Innovia series of fully automated transportation systems. Its straddle-beam design is based on the ALWEG monorail ...
-based system is under construction in
Wuhu Wuhu () is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Anhui province, China. Sitting on the southeast bank of the Yangtze River, Wuhu borders Xuancheng to the southeast, Chizhou and Tongling to the southwest, Hefei city to the northwest, Ma'anshan ...
and several "Cloudrail" systems developed by BYD under construction a number of cities such as
Guang'an Guang'an () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Sichuan province. It is most famous as the birthplace of China's former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. Guang'an lies between the hills of central Sichuan and the gorges area of the east.Guang'an ...
, Liuzhou, Bengbu and Guilin. Monorails have seen continuing use in niche shuttle markets and amusement parks. Modern mass transit monorail systems use developments of the ALWEG beam and tire approach, with only two suspended types in large use. Monorail configurations have also been adopted by
maglev train Maglev (derived from ''magnetic levitation''), is a system of train transportation that uses two sets of electromagnets: one set to repel and push the train up off the track, and another set to move the elevated train ahead, taking advantage ...
s. Since the 2000s, with the rise of traffic congestion and urbanization, there has been a resurgence of interest in the technology for public transport with a number of cities, such as Malta and Istanbul, today investigating monorails as a possible mass transit solution. In 2004,
Chongqing Rail Transit The Chongqing Rail Transit (branded as CRT; also known as Chongqing Metro) is the rapid transit system in the city of Chongqing, China. In operation since 2005, it serves the transportation needs of the city's main business and entertainment ...
in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
adopted a unique ALWEG-based design with rolling stock that is much wider than most monorails, with capacity comparable to
heavy rail Various terms are used for passenger railway lines and equipment; the usage of these terms differs substantially between areas: Rapid transit A rapid transit system is an electric railway characterized by high speed (~) and rapid accelerati ...
. This is because
Chongqing Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Romanization, alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a Direct-administered municipalities of China, municipality in Southwes ...
is criss-crossed by numerous hills, mountains and rivers, therefore tunneling is not feasible except in some cases (for example, lines 1 and 6) due to the extreme depth involved. Today it is the largest and busiest monorail system in the world. São Paulo, Brazil is building two high capacity monorail lines as part of its public transportation network. Line 15 was partially opened in 2014, will be long when completed in 2022 and has a capacity of 40,000
pphpd Passengers per hour per direction (p/h/d), passengers per hour in peak direction (pphpd) or corridor capacity is a measure of the route capacity of a rapid transit or public transport system. Definition The corridor capacity in the passenger tr ...
using
Bombardier Innovia Monorail Innovia Monorail is a fully automated and driverless monorail system currently manufactured and marketed by Alstom as part of its Innovia series of fully automated transportation systems. Its straddle-beam design is based on the ALWEG monorail ...
trains. Line 17 will be long and is using the BYD SkyRail design. Other significant monorail systems are under construction such as two lines for the
Cairo Monorail The Cairo Monorail ( ar, مونوريل القاهرة) is a two-line monorail rapid transit system currently under construction in Cairo, Egypt, which will be the longest driverless monorail system in the world. The two lines will create the fir ...
, two lines for the MRT (Bangkok) and the
SkyRail Bahia SkyRail Bahia is a proposed monorail system serving Salvador, Bahia in Brazil. Upon completion, Salvador will become the second Brazilian city to be served by a monorail line after São Paulo's Line 15. Background The Salvador Metro opened in 2 ...
in Brazil.


Types and technical aspects

Modern monorails depend on a large solid beam as the vehicles' running surface. There are a number of competing designs divided into two broad classes, ''straddle-beam'' and ''suspended'' monorails. The most common type is the straddle-beam, in which the train straddles a
steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...
or
reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...
beam wide. A rubber- tired carriage contacts the beam on the top and both sides for traction and to stabilize the vehicle. The style was popularized by the
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
company
ALWEG Alweg was a transportation company based in Germany known for pioneering straddle-beam monorails. History Alweg was founded by Swedish industrial magnate Dr. Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren in January 1953 as Alweg-Forschung, GmbH (Alweg Research Cor ...
. There is also a historical type of '' suspension monorail'' developed by German inventors Nicolaus Otto and Eugen Langen in the 1880s. It was built in the twin cities of Barmen and Elberfeld in Wuppertal, Germany, opened in 1901, and is still in operation. The
Chiba Urban Monorail The is a two-line suspended monorail system located in Chiba, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It is owned and operated by , a so-called " third-sector" company established on March 20, 1979. Investors include the city of Chiba. The first segment ...
is the world's largest suspended network.


Power

Almost all modern monorails are powered by electric motors fed by dual third rails, contact wires or electrified channels attached to or enclosed in their guidance beams, but diesel-powered monorail systems also exist. Historically some systems, such as 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 ...
, used steam locomotives.


Magnetic levitation

Magnetic levitation train Maglev (derived from ''magnetic levitation''), is a system of train transportation that uses two sets of electromagnets: one set to repel and push the train up off the track, and another set to move the elevated train ahead, taking advantage ...
(maglev) systems such as the German Transrapid were built as straddle-type monorails. The Shanghai Maglev Train runs in commercial operation at , and there are also slower maglev monorails intended for urban transport in Japan (
Linimo , formally the is a magnetic levitation train line in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, near the city of Nagoya. While primarily built to serve the Expo 2005 fair site, the line now operates to serve the local community. Linimo is owned and operated by ...
), Korea ( Incheon Airport Maglev) and China ( Beijing Subway Line S1 and the
Changsha Maglev Express The Changsha Maglev Express () is a medium-low speed magnetic levitation, or ''maglev'' line in Changsha, China. This is China's second maglev line, after Shanghai Maglev, and the first domestically built maglev line that uses indigenous techno ...
). However, it is argued that the larger width of the guideway for the maglevs makes it not legitimate to be called monorails.


Switching

Some early monorails (notably the suspended monorail at Wuppertal, Germany) have a design that makes it difficult to switch from one line to another. Some other monorails avoid switching as much as possible by operating in a continuous loop or between two fixed stations, as in the Seattle Center Monorail. Current monorails are capable of more efficient switching than in the past. With suspended monorails, switching may be accomplished by moving flanges inside the beamway to shift trains to one line or another. Straddle-beam monorails require that the beam moves for switching, which was an almost prohibitively ponderous procedure. Now the most common way of achieving this is to place a moving apparatus on top of a sturdy platform capable of bearing the weight of vehicles, beams and its own mechanism. Multiple-segmented beams move into place on rollers to smoothly align one beam with another to send the train in its desired direction, with the design originally developed by ALWEG capable of completing a switch in 12 seconds. Some of these beam turnouts are quite elaborate, capable of switching between several beams or simulating a railroad double-crossover. Vehicle specifications are generally not open to the public, as is standard for rolling stock built for public services An alternative to using a wye or other form of switch, is to use a turntable, where a car sits upon a section of track that can be reoriented to several different tracks. For example, this can be used to switch a car from being in a storage location, to being on the main line. The now-closed
Sydney Monorail The Sydney Monorail (originally TNT Harbourlink and later Metro Monorail) was a single-loop monorail in Sydney, Australia, that connected Darling Harbour, Chinatown and the Sydney central business and shopping districts. It opened in July 1988 ...
had a traverser at the depot, which allowed a train on the main line to be exchanged with another from the depot. There were about six lines in the depot, including one for maintenance.


Grades

Rubber-tired monorails are typically designed to cope with a 6% grade. Rubber-tired light rail or metro lines can cope with similar or greater grades - for example, the Lausanne Metro has grades of up to 12% and the
Montreal Metro The Montreal Metro (french: Métro de Montréal) is a rubber-tired underground rapid transit system serving Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The metro, operated by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), was inaugurated on October 14, ...
up to 6.5%, while
VAL Val may refer to: Val-a Film * ''Val'' (film), an American documentary about Val Kilmer, directed by Leo Scott and Ting Poo Military equipment * Aichi D3A, a Japanese World War II dive bomber codenamed "Val" by the Allies * AS Val, a Sov ...
systems can handle 7% grades.


Monorail systems

Manufacturers of monorail rolling stock with operating systems include Hitachi Monorail, BYD,
Bombardier Transportation Bombardier Transportation was a Canadian-German rolling stock and rail transport manufacturer, headquartered in Berlin, Germany. It was one of the world's largest companies in the rail vehicle and equipment manufacturing and servicing industry ...
(now
Alstom Alstom SA is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the AGV, TGV, Eurostar, Avelia ...
), PBTS (a joint venture of CRRC Nanjing Puzhen & Bombardier),
Intamin Intamin Amusement Rides is a design and manufacturing company in Schaan, Liechtenstein. It is best known for creating thrill rides and roller coasters worldwide. The Intamin brand name is a syllabic abbreviation for "international amusement ins ...
and EMTC. Other developers include CRRC Qingdao Sifang, China Railway Science and Industry Group, Zhongtang Air Rail Technology, Woojin and SkyWay Group.


Records

*Busiest line:
Line 3, Chongqing Rail Transit CRT Line 3 (and the branch line branded as Konggang line) runs from north to south, linking the districts separated by Chongqing's two main rivers, the Yangtze (Chang Jiang) and Jialing rivers. Built by Japan's ODA project, it uses Hitachi, ...
, 682,800 passengers per day (2014 Daily Avg.) *Largest system:
Chongqing Rail Transit The Chongqing Rail Transit (branded as CRT; also known as Chongqing Metro) is the rapid transit system in the city of Chongqing, China. In operation since 2005, it serves the transportation needs of the city's main business and entertainment ...
(Lines 2 & 3), *Longest straddle-beam line:
Line 3, Chongqing Rail Transit CRT Line 3 (and the branch line branded as Konggang line) runs from north to south, linking the districts separated by Chongqing's two main rivers, the Yangtze (Chang Jiang) and Jialing rivers. Built by Japan's ODA project, it uses Hitachi, ...
, , or if the Jurenba branch is included *Largest suspended system:
Chiba Urban Monorail The is a two-line suspended monorail system located in Chiba, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It is owned and operated by , a so-called " third-sector" company established on March 20, 1979. Investors include the city of Chiba. The first segment ...
, *Longest maglev line: Shanghai Maglev Train, *Oldest line still in service: Schwebebahn Wuppertal, 1901


In popular culture

François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more tha ...
's 1966 film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's novel '' Fahrenheit 451'' contains suspended monorail exterior scenes filmed at the French SAFEGE test track in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire near Orléans, France (since dismantled). The '' Thunderbirds'' February 1966 episode " Brink of Disaster" is about the financing and building of a high speed driverless cross-country monorail project. Two of the Thunderbirds find themselves trapped on board the a monorail train, and with no possibility of escape, when it is discovered it is speeding towards a stricken bridge. The James Bond film franchise features monorails in three movies, all belonging to the villain. In '' You Only Live Twice'' (1967) there is a working ground level monorail inside the SPECTRE volcano base. The principal actors ride the monorail during the film. In 1973's '' Live and Let Die'' in the villain's lair on the fictional Caribbean island of San Monique a prop monorail is shown and in the 1977 '' The Spy Who Loved Me'' there is another working monorail on the villain's ''supertanker'' (submarine dock). In 1987,
Lego Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...
released a monorail among the ''Futuron'' Space line. Despite being the most expensive Lego set of its time (due to being massive and including electrical elements), it was very popular, with Lego releasing a '' Town'' themed monorail in 1990 and another Space monorail in 1994 among the ''Unitron'' line, as well as additional track. The monorail system was also prominent in the unreleased ''Seatron'' Space line and prototype '' Wild West'' sets. Its popularity has still endured over thirty years later, where Lego has paid homage in promotional sets and fans have manufactured compatible components. The fourth season of the American animated television show '' The Simpsons'' features the episode "
Marge vs. the Monorail "Marge vs. the Monorail" is the twelfth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 14, 1993. The plot revolves around Springfie ...
", in which the town of
Springfield Springfield may refer to: * Springfield (toponym), the place name in general Places and locations Australia * Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast) * Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council) * Springfield, Queenslan ...
impulsively purchases a faulty monorail from a con man at a wildly inflated price. The Monorail Society, an organization with 14,000 members worldwide, has blamed the episode for sullying the reputation of monorails, to which ''Simpsons'' creator Matt Groening responded "That's a by-product of our viciousness...Monorails are great, so it makes me sad, but at the same time if something's going to happen in The Simpsons, it's going to go wrong, right?" The 2005 feature film '' Batman Begins'' features a monorail, constructed by Bruce Wayne's father through Gotham City, that is part of the climax of the film. The monorail is also included in the spin-off video game. Blaine the Mono is a train featured in
Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...
's '' The Dark Tower'' series of books and first appears in '' The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands''. Monorails have also appeared in a number of other video games including
Transport Tycoon ''Transport Tycoon'' is a video game designed and programmed by Chris Sawyer, and published by MicroProse on 15 November 1994 for DOS. It is a business simulation game, presented in an isometric view in 2D with graphics by Simon Foster, in whi ...
(since 1999), ''Japanese Rail Sim 3D: Monorail Trip to Okinawa'' by Sonic Powered,
Cities in Motion 2 ''Cities in Motion 2'' is a 2013 business simulation game that was developed by Colossal Order and published by Paradox Interactive and is the sequel to the popular mass transit simulation game '' Cities in Motion''. As with its predecessor, the ...
, Cities: Skylines in the ''Mass transit'' expansion pack of 2017,
Planet Zoo ''Planet Zoo'' is a construction and management simulation video game developed and published by Frontier Developments for Microsoft Windows. The game is a spiritual successor to ''Zoo Tycoon'' and '' Zoo Tycoon 2'', with gameplay similar to ...
and a non-operating monorail system in the 2020 Cyberpunk 2077


Farm, mining and logistics applications

Monorails have been used for number of applications other than passenger transportation. Small suspended monorail are also widely used in factories either as part of moveable assembly lines.


History

Inspired by the
Centennial Monorail General Roy Stone's Centennial Monorail was demonstrated at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the U.S., which was held in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Dec ...
demonstrated in 1876, in 1877 the Bradford and Foster Brook Railway began construction of a line connecting
Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
and Foster Township, McKean County in Pennsylvania. The line operated from 1878 until 1879 delivering machinery and oil supplies. The first twin-boiler locomotive wore out quickly. It was replaced by a single boiler locomotive which was too heavy and crashed through the track on its third trip. The third locomotive again had twin boilers. On a trial run one of the boilers ran dry and exploded, killing six people. The railway was closed soon after.
Monorails in Central Java Monorails were used to transport timber from the forests of Central Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) located in the mountains to the rivers. History In 1908 and 1909, the forester H. J. L. Beck built a manually operated monorail of lim ...
were used to transport timber from the forests of Central Java located in the mountains to the rivers. In 1908 and 1909, the forester H. J. L. Beck built a manually operated monorail of limited but sufficient capacity for the transport of small timber and firewood in the Northern Surabaya forest district. In later years, this idea was further developed by L. A. van de Ven, who was a forester in the Grobogan forest district around 1908–1910.Ch. S. Lugt: ''Het boschbeheer in Nederlandsch-Indië.'' 1933, S. 75–76. Zitiert in: Rob van de Ven Renardel de Lavalette
''De Monorail van Grobogan.''
Monorails were built by plantation operators and wood processing companies throughout the mountains of Central Java.Augusta de Wit: ''Een bevloeiingswerk''. In: ''Natuur en menschen in Indië'', 1921, page 125. First published in ''Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, Avondblad A,'' 30 November 1911. Referenced in: Rob van de Ven Renardel de Lavalette
''De Monorail van Grobogan.''
In 1919/1920, however, the hand-operated monorails gradually disappeared and were replaced by narrow-gauge railways with steam locomotives as forest utilization changed. In the 1920s the
Port of Hamburg The Port of Hamburg (german: Hamburger Hafen, ) is a seaport on the river Elbe in Hamburg, Germany, from its mouth on the North Sea. Known as Germany's "Gateway to the World" (''Tor zur Welt''), it is the country's largest seaport by volume ...
used a petrol powered, suspended monorail to transport luggage and freight from ocean-going vessels to a passenger depot. In the northern Mojave desert, the
Epsom Salts Monorail The Epsom Salts Monorail or Magnesium Monorail was a short-lived Lartigue Monorail in San Bernardino County, California, in the United States. It was built to carry epsomite from a deposit in the Owlshead Mountains to a siding of the Trona Railway. ...
was built in 1924. It ran for 28 miles from a connection on the Trona Railway, eastward to harvest epsomite deposits in the Owlshead Mountains. This Lartigue type monorail achieved gradients of up to ten percent. It only operated until June 1926, when the mineral deposits become uneconomic, and was dismantled for scrap in the late 1930s. In the Soviet Union the Lyskovsky monorail in the Nizhny Novgorod region was designed by the engineer of the timber industry Ivan Gorodtsov. A Lartigue type line of about long was opened in November 1934 to connect the village of Selskaya Maza with the villages of Bakaldy and Yaloksha to carry timber. Following this example a separate cargo-and-passenger monorail was built from the town of Bor to the village of Zavrazhnoe, where forest and peat were exploited. The Lyskovsky monorail stopped operating in 1949. The British firm ''Road Machines (Drayton) Ltd'' developed a modular-track ground-level monorail system with a high rail segments, long, running between support plates. The first system was sold in 1949 and it was used in industrial, construction and agricultural applications around the world. The company ceased trading in 1967. The system was adapted for the use in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. An example of the system exists at the
Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre Amberley Museum is an open-air industrial heritage museum at Amberley, near Arundel in West Sussex, England. The museum is owned and operated by Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre, a not-for-profit company and registered charity, and has the ...
in Britain.


Recent applications

Very small and light weight systems are used widely on farms to transport crops such as bananas. First developed in Japan, industrial versions of slope cars are used in agriculture in steep sloped areas such as citrus orchards in Japan and vineyards in Italy. One European manufacturer says they have installed 650 systems worldwide. In the mining industry suspended monorails have been used because of their ability to descend and climb steep tunnels using rack and pinion drive. This significantly reduces cost and length of tunnels, by up to 60% in some cases, which otherwise must be at gentle gradients to suit road vehicles or conventional railways. A suspended monorail capable of carrying fully loaded 20' and 40' containers has been under construction since 2020 at the Port of Qingdao, the first phase of which was put into operation in 2021.


See also

* List of monorail systems * Suspension railway * Bennie Railplane *
Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad The Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad was a purpose-built monorail on which a matching bicycle could be ridden. It was invented by Arthur Hotchkiss, and the first example was built between Smithville and Mount Holly, New Jersey, in 1892. It closed in ...
*
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 ...
* Monorail plan for the Los Angeles River, California * Rail transport in Walt Disney Parks and Resorts * Slope car / Monorackbahn *
Bombardier Innovia Monorail Innovia Monorail is a fully automated and driverless monorail system currently manufactured and marketed by Alstom as part of its Innovia series of fully automated transportation systems. Its straddle-beam design is based on the ALWEG monorail ...


Notes


References


External links


Schwebebahn
Monorail in Wuppertal, Germany
Monorail
Monorail in Sydney, Australia
Minirail at the Expo 67Innovative Transportation Technologies
- a website for the Transportation engineering and Urban planning programs at the University of Washington
The Disneyland Monorail
- Article on how a rubber-wheeled monorail works.
The Monorail Society
- home page of a volunteer organization promoting monorails, with over 600 separate pages includin



and

* ttps://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fizmerov.narod.ru%2Fmonor%2F The unknown Russian monorail(; translated to English)
Maglev Monorail - Official site of the International Maglev BoardThe American Monorail Project
- a website dedicated to making the public aware of the benefits of modern monorail systems particularly when compared to other much more expensive forms of mass transit {{Authority control Magnetic propulsion devices Russian inventions Articles containing video clips