Monorail

The KL Monorail in Kuala Lumpur, a colourful straddle-beam monorail

A monorail is a transit system running on a single-rail guideway. According to a strict definition, a monorail vehicle must be wider than its guideway, and the single track must be used to support the weight of the system, not only used for guidance. There are two types of monorails: straddle-beam and suspended.

The term monorail or industrial monorail is also used to describe any number of systems in which a chair or carrier is suspended from an overhead rail structure for the limited transportation of goods or workers.

Contents

Background

Gyroscopically Balanced Monorail (1907) by Brennan and Scherl

Attempts at creating unconventional railways have been made since the latter part of the 19th century. Usually these have been claimed to be more efficient, faster or cheaper to construct than conventional railways.

Several attempts have been made to create a system in which a double-flanged steel wheel operates on a single rail similar to the railroad type of rail. The Wuppertal monorail described below is the only surviving monorail of this type.

Monorails have both benefited and suffered from their novelty and concept of modernity. When The Walt Disney Company placed a monorail in their Disneyland theme park in 1959, it exposed large numbers of visitors to the transportation form in a credible though miniature transit setting. At the same time, however, the Disneyland monorail and others built at other Disney properties and amusement locations have tended to identify monorails with amusements rather than practical transportation.

The popular press in the U.S. in mid-20th-century often featured monorail ideas in a "transportation of the future" context but this same press also displayed images of personal "rocket backpacks" and popular space travel, creating interest but also confusion as to which ideas were fads and which might become reality.

Types and technical aspects

The Schwebebahn Wuppertal, the world's first suspended monorail

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 of monorail in use today is the straddle-beam monorail, in which the train straddles a reinforced concrete beam in the range of two to three feet (~0.6-0.9 m) wide. A rubber-tired carriage contacts the beam on the top and both sides for traction and to stabilize the vehicle. The straddle-beam style was popularized by the German company ALWEG.

There is also a form of suspended monorail developed by the French company SAFEGE in which the train cars are suspended beneath the wheel carriage. In this design the carriage wheels ride inside the single beam.

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. There is a startup called [Metrail] who has built a diesel prototype.

Magnetic levitation

Transrapid maglev on monorail track

Magnetic levitation train (maglev) systems are typically built as straddle-type monorails, as they are highly stable and allow rapid deceleration from great speed. However, when in full-speed operation maglev trains actually hover over the track and are thus not in physical contact with it.

Switching

Switching has been a perennial issue with monorail systems since simple switching mechanisms associated with other systems are usually not feasible. Some early monorail systems--notably the suspended monorail of Wuppertal (Germany), dating from 1901 and still in operation--have a design that makes it difficult to switch from one line to another. Some other monorail systems avoid switching as much as possible, by operating in a continuous loop or between two fixed stations, as in Seattle, Washington.

Current operating monorails are capable of more efficient switching than in the past. In the case of 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 structure itself be moved to accomplish switching, which originally was an almost prohibitively ponderous procedure. Now, however, 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. Mulitiple-segmented beams move into place on rollers to smoothly align one beam with another to send the train in its desired direction. Some of these beam turnouts are quite elaborate, capable of switching between several beams or even simulating a railroad double-crossover.

In cases where it must be possible to move a monorail train from one beam to any of a number of other beams, as in storage or repair shops, a traveling beam not unlike a railroad transfer table may be employed. A single beam, at least long enough to carry a single monorail vehicle, is aligned at an entry beam to be mounted by the monorail cars. The entire beam then rolls with the vehicle to align with the desired storage beam.

Sydney monorail

Systems similar in appearance

The term 'monorail' is often applied by members of the public to any modern elevated railway, particularly automated ones such as the Docklands Light Railway, Vancouver SkyTrain and the JFK AirTrain, but this usage is erroneous; these systems use the same twin rails and electric third rail as most underground metros and some main-line railways.

Advantages and disadvantages

Old Soviet monorail in Ukraine

Advantages:

The primary advantage of monorails over conventional rail systems is that they require minimal space, both horizontally and vertically. Monorail vehicles are wider than the beam, and monorail systems are commonly elevated, requiring only a minimal footprint for support pillars.
Due to a smaller footprint they are seen as more attractive than conventional elevated rail lines and visually block only a minimal amount of sky.
They are quieter, as modern monorails use rubber wheels on a concrete track (though some non-monorail subway systems, like certain lines of the Paris metro and all of the Montreal metro, use the same technique and are equally quiet)
Monorails are capable of climbing, descending and turning faster than heavy rail systems, though not light rail systems.
Unlike conventional rail systems, straddle monorails wrap around their track and are thus not physically capable of derailing, unless the track itself suffers a catastrophic failure, which is why monorails have an excellent safety record.

Disadvantages:

Maglev systems require dedicated track and cannot be directly integrated with any other transport system.
As monorail stations are usually elevated, special arrangements (such as lifts and elevators) must be made to permit access by disabled passengers. Able-bodied passengers may be dissuaded to use the system because stations are hard to access.
Monorail vehicles are generally smaller than those on heavy-rail metros, leading to a higher cost per passenger per mile.
A monorail switch by its very design will leave one beam hanging in mid-air at any given time. An incorrectly positioned or jammed switch could thus cause the monorail to derail and fall, although the risk can be mitigated by careful design and there are no documented cases of this actually happening.
In an emergency, passengers cannot immediately exit because the monorail vehicle is high above ground and not all systems have emergency walkways. The passengers must sometimes wait until a fire engine or a cherry picker comes to the rescue. Newer monorail systems resolve this by building emergency walkways alongside the entire track, at the expense of visual intrusion. Suspended railways resolve this by building aircraft style evacuation slides into the vehicles.

Partial list of monorail systems

Monorail systems have been built in many countries around the world, many of them on elevated tracks through crowded areas that would otherwise require the construction of expensive underground lines or have the disadvantages of surface lines.

Asia

Kuala Lumpur Monorail - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Sentosa, Singapore. Closed March, 2005. Will be replaced by a new larger-capacity monorail system, the Sentosa Express.
South Korea - Lotte World, two station amusement park monorail.

China

Shanghai Maglev Train in Shanghai, China - Completed in 2004, the Shanghai Maglev Train is the first commercial monorail based on the German Transrapid maglev-monorail and runs for 30 km between Pudong International Airport and the Shanghai Lujiazui financial district. Designed for speeds up to 500 km/h (310 mph), its regular service speed is in the region of 430 km/h (267 mph) and is currently the fastest commercial railway system in the world.
Chongqing metro line 2

Japan

Tama Toshi Monorail Line, Tokyo, Japan

Japan has employed monorails in many cities, including:
*Chiba Urban Monorail (or Townliner) in Chiba, a satellite city of Tokyo
*Kitakyushu Monorail in Kokura, north Kyushu
*Monkey Park Monorail Line which links the Monkey Park in Inuyama, Aichi prefecture to the nearest railway station
*Okinawa Monorail in Naha city, Okinawa
*Osaka Monorail
*Shonan Monorail in Kanagawa, in the southern outskirts of Tokyo
*SkyRail, a commuter line in a residential development suburb of Hiroshima
*Tama Toshi Monorail Line in Tama City in west Tokyo
*Tokyo Disney Resort Monorail
*Tokyo Monorail is the world's busiest and most commercially successful monorail line, carrying around 100 million passengers yearly.
*Ueno Zoo Monorail which links the two sectors of the zoo in Ueno park, again in Tokyo

Europe

The Moscow monorail.

Belgium: There's a monorail in the Plopsaland theme park.
Germany operates a suspended monorail in Wuppertal, the Schwebebahn Wuppertal, dating back to 1901; Dresden's Schwebebahn has a similar system; The university of Dortmund has developed a magnetic Monorail Einschienenbahn. The system is the one used for the Düsseldorf SkyTrain, which operates at Düsseldorf International Airport. There is also the experimental Transrapid in Emsland that has been built by the German producers as a link from the City of Shanghai (China) to Shanghai International Airport.
Great Britain has monorail systems at Chester Zoo and the Alton Towers theme park. The first commercial monorail in the UK opened in 1962 at Butlins Skegness
Italy, Ravenna Amusement Park in Savio, 2 stations, 2 km.
Netherlands There is a Monorail located at the amusement park Slagharen.
Moscow Monorail, Russia, partially open
Listowel, Ireland was the site of the world's first commercial monorail, named the Lartigue system after Charles Lartigue who constructed this railway in 1888. A straddle-type monorail on a triangular beam, it was perhaps the only passenger monorail to also regularly carry freight and cattle. An historical recreation now exists and carries passengers as an entertainment.

North America

Monorails can be found in the following places in North America:

Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida - One of the world's best-known monorail serves over five million passengers yearly.
Disneyland in Anaheim, California - The Disneyland Monorail System is known as the "First daily operating Monorail system in the Western Hemisphere."
Seattle, Washington - short monorail (Seattle Center Monorail) built for the Century 21 Exposition in 1962 - currently suspended after accident
Hershey, Pennsylvania - amusement monorail at Hersheypark.
Lancaster, Pennsylvania - amusement monorail at Dutch Wonderland [link].
Las Vegas, Nevada - public transit
Memphis, Tennessee - a short monorail connects Mud Island in the Mississippi River to Memphis.
Newark International Airport in Newark, New Jersey - people mover connecting terminals, parking lots, and to Amtrak/NJ Transit Northeast Corridor rail station
Six Flags La Ronde in Montreal, Quebec - once part of a larger monorail systems built for Expo 67
Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, Minnesota
San Diego Wild Animal Park near Escondido, California. Five mile (eight km) long, one hour tour around the large area devoted to animal environments.
Pearlridge Center in Aiea, HI, near Honolulu. The monorail is named "Skycab," and connects the Uptown part of the mall to the Downtown part of the mall. It is the only monorail system in Hawaii.
Niles Monorail in Fremont, California. This a fully-operational, homebuilt, backyard monorail was constructed by monorail enthusiast, Kim Pedersen
Dallas, Texas - Amusement ride at Dallas Zoo

South America and Australia

Sydney Monorail

Sydney, Australia has the Sydney Monorail originally designed as public transport but has found more use as a tourist attraction.
The Gold Coast, Queensland has two monorails:
*A 2 km monorail around the Sea World Theme Park which was the first monorail in Australia.
*A link between Conrad Jupiters Casino and the nearby Oasis Shopping Centre in Broadbeach.
Brisbane, Queensland once had a monorail, which was built for World Expo '88 and ran from the CBD across the river to Southbank. It was removed some time after the expo. Although the AirTrain is elevated and may look like a monorail, it is a conventional train line operated as part of the QR CityTrain heavy rail network.
Brazil has a monorail in Rio de Janeiro that links the large Barra shopping mall to its parking lot Since 1990, a monorail is operating in Poços de Caldas, on Minas Gerais state. It has not been successful as a mass transit system, and nowadays is mostly used as a tourist atraction. It extends for 6 km, comprising 11 stations.

Planned monorails

Four separate times, voters in Seattle, Washington approved the construction a new monorail line up to 14 miles long to replace the Seattle Center Monorail. Although extensive planning had been done and land for the monorail's right of way had been acquired, the project was scrapped in a fifth public vote in November 2005, at a cost of several hundred million dollars.
A 6.6 km (approx. 4.1 miles) Monorail is planned in Gangnam district in Seoul, South Korea. The monorail connects Sinsa Station and Hangnyeoul Station via Yeongdong Bridge.
Extensions of the Las Vegas Strip monorail north to the city center and south to the airport are being planned.
As part of the DestiNY USA project in Syracuse, a monorail from Syracuse University to Syracuse Hancock International Airport via downtown and the DestiNY complexes is planned.
A 10-30 km (6-19 miles) monorail through the tourist district of Niagara Falls, Ontario is planned to replace the existing bus-based Niagara Parks Commission peoplemover system. The line will connect hotels and the road-based transportation network in the area to attractions such as Clifton Hill, Lundy's Lane, Casino Niagara, Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort, the Skylon Tower, Maid of the Mist and the falls itself.
A 300-400 km (190-260 miles) long 10 lines plus 21 feeder lines system is being planned for city of Chennai, India. If found feasible, the project would be the world's longest monorail network.

Several new systems are being considered or built worldwide including:

Tehran, Iran. Tehran Monorail.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, four new lines in addition to the current one: Petaling Jaya monorail, Subang Jaya monorail, Sungei Buloh monorail and Cheras monorail.
Penang Monorail, Malaysia
Noida, India
Sentosa Express, linking Sentosa, Singapore to the main island
Chongqing, China
Jakarta Monorail, Jakarta, Indonesia [link]
West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong, linking the WKCD with Tsim Sha Tsui
Hyderabad, India
Chennai, India
Wellington, New Zealand

External links

Monorails in general

[The Monorail Society] - home page of a volunteer organization promoting monorails, with separate pages on [monorail switches] and a [backyard monorail]
[Innovative Transportation Technologies] - a website for the Transportation engineering and Urban planning programs at the University of Washington

Specific monorails

[Schwebebahn Monorail in Wuppertal, Germany]
[Las Vegas Monorail]
[Seattle Monorail] - separately managed from the new [Seattle Monorail Project] (see also [Seattle Monorail Blog])
[Sydney Metro] - partly a monorail system
[Maglev Monorail - International Maglev Board]
[Niles Monorail - Amateur built]

Monorail Advocacy Groups

[Austin Monorail Project] - a non-profit advocating monorail transit for Austin, TX
[2045 Seattle] - a grassroots movement that supports the construction of rapid transit monorail in Seattle, WA

Organizations/Views Opposing Monorails

[Las Vegas Monorail: Troublesome Technology in a Unique "Niche" Application] - a critical article on the Las Vegas Monorail from Light Rail Now!, a pro-light rail organization in Austin, TX opposed to monorails
[Monorail Capital Costs: Reality Check] - a critical article on the capitial costs of monorails. From Light Rail Now!
[Monorails, Light Rail, and Automated vs. Non-Automated Transit Operation: Comparative Costs in Japan and USA] - a critical article on the cost differences of monorails, whether they are automated or not. From Light Rail Now!

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