Monorail
A monorail is a
Etymology
The term possibly comes from 1897,[2] 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).[3]
Differentiation from other transport systems
Monorails have found applications in airport transfer and
Similarities
Monorails are often elevated, sometimes leading to confusion with other elevated systems such as the
Monorail vehicles often appear similar to
Monorails are sometimes used in urban areas alongside conventional parallel railed metro systems. Mumbai Monorail serves alongside Mumbai Metro,[5][6] while monorail lines are integrated with conventional rail rapid transit lines in Bangkok's MRT network.[citation needed]
Differences
Unlike some
As with other grade-separated transit systems, monorails avoid red lights, intersection turns, and traffic jams.
Maglev
Under the Monorail Society's beam-width criterion, some, but not all,
History
Early years
The first monorail prototype was made in Russia in 1820 by
The Centennial Monorail 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."
The Boynton Bicycle Railroad was a steam-powered 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 operated for only two years beginning in 1890.
The
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 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.[17]
In 1910, the
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 most interesting projects created on the layout was the ball-bearing train by Nikolai Grigorievich Yarmolchuk. This train moved on spherical wheels with electric motors embedded in them, which were located in semi-circular chutes under a wooden platform (in the full-scale project the trestle would have been concrete). A model train, built to 1/5 scale to test the vehicle concept, was capable of reaching speeds of up to 70 km/h. The full-scale project was expected to reach speeds of up to 300 km/h.[23]
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 200 mph (320 km/h) on straight stretches and 90 mph (140 km/h) on curves was built in Germany.
In 1956, the first monorail to operate in the US began test operations in Houston, Texas.
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.
This high-cost perception was challenged most notably in 1963 when the ALWEG consortium proposed to finance the construction of a major system in
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
Modern mass transit monorail systems use developments of the ALWEG beam and tyre approach, with only two suspended types in large use. Monorail configurations have also been adopted by
In 2004,
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
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.[35] Historically some systems, such as the Lartigue Monorail, used steam locomotives.
Magnetic levitation
Switching
Some early monorails (notably the
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.[citation needed]
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.
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.[40][41] The now-closed Sydney Monorail 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
Monorail systems
Manufacturers of monorail rolling stock with operating systems include Hitachi Monorail, BYD, Bombardier Transportation (now Alstom), PBTS (a joint venture of CRRC Nanjing Puzhen & Bombardier),[45] Intamin and EMTC.[46]
Other developers include CRRC Qingdao Sifang,[47][48] China Railway Science and Industry Group,[49] Zhongtang Air Rail Technology[citation needed], Woojin[50] and SkyWay Group.
Records
- Busiest line: Line 3, Chongqing Rail Transit, 682,800 passengers per day (2014 Daily Avg.)[51]
- Largest system: Chongqing Rail Transit (Lines 2 & 3), 97.8 km (60.8 mi)[52]
- Longest straddle-beam line: Line 3, Chongqing Rail Transit, 55.5 km (34.5 mi),[53]or 66.5 km (41.3 mi) if the Jurenba branch is included
- Largest suspended system: Chiba Urban Monorail, 15.2 km (9.4 mi)
- Longest maglev line: Shanghai Maglev Train, 30.5 km (19.0 mi)
- Oldest line still in service: Schwebebahn Wuppertal, 1901
In popular culture
François Truffaut'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-crew 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. During Live and Let Die (1973), a prop monorail is shown in the villain's lair on the fictional Caribbean island of San Monique. In the 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me there is working monorail on the villain's supertanker (submarine dock).
In 1987,
The fourth season of the American animated television show
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'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 (since 1999), Japanese Rail Sim 3D: Monorail Trip to Okinawa by Sonic Powered, SimCity 4: Rush Hour, Cities in Motion 2, Cities: Skylines in the Mass transit expansion pack of 2017, Planet Zoo and a non-operating monorail system in the 2020 Cyberpunk 2077.[59]
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 demonstrated in 1876, in 1877 the Bradford and Foster Brook Railway began construction of a 5 mi (8.0 km) line connecting Bradford 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 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.[60][61] Monorails were built by plantation operators and wood processing companies throughout the mountains of Central Java.[62] In 1919/1920, however, the hand-operated monorails gradually disappeared and were replaced by narrow-gauge railways with steam locomotives as forest utilization changed.[63]
In the 1920s the Port of Hamburg used a petrol powered, suspended monorail to transport luggage and freight from ocean-going vessels to a passenger depot.[64]
In the northern
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 50 km (31 mi) 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 42 kilometres (26 mi) 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.[citation needed]
The British firm Road Machines (Drayton) Ltd developed a modular-track ground-level monorail system with a 9 in (230 mm) high rail segments, 4 to 12 ft (1.2 to 3.7 m) 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.[66] 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 in Britain.[67]
Recent applications
Very small and lightweight systems are used widely on farms to transport crops such as bananas.[68][69] 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.[70] One European manufacturer says they have installed 650 systems worldwide.[71]
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.[72][73]
A suspended monorail capable of carrying fully loaded 20' and 40' containers has been under construction since 2020 at the
See also
- Bennie Railplane
- Bombardier Innovia Monorail
- Gadgetbahn
- Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad
- Lartigue Monorail
- List of monorail systems
- Monorail plan for the Los Angeles River, California
- Rail transport in Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
- Slope car / Monorackbahn
- Suspension railway
Notes
- ^ 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 must be narrower than the car."Monorail Society, What is a monorail?". Monorails.org. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
References
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External links
- Schwebebahn Archived 2016-08-19 at the Wayback Machine Monorail in Wuppertal, Germany
- Monorail Monorail in Sydney, Australia
- Minirail at the Expo 67
- Innovative 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 including News Briefs, a World List and a Technical Section
- "One-Track Wonders: Early Monorails" – Site with many images of imagined and real monorails
- The unknown Russian monorail ((in Russian); translated to English)
- Maglev Monorail – Official site of the International Maglev Board
- Walt Disney World's Monorail
- The 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