not all of them do
…Don’t you think a monorail is more of a train than a bus…Connected cars traveling on a controlled route…It can’t move any direction except where the “track” takes it. But who cares how it’s defined…if it moves people from point A to point B efficiently.
Talking about bumpy rides, one of the shortcomings about perhaps all modes of transportation short of the Golden Age of Railroading and heavyweight passenger cars is the ride quality. The bumpy ride did in the GM AeroTrain and the ride on the early Talgos wasn’t much better. The United Aircraft TurboTrain along with current generation Talgos are supposed to be smooth riding, but I am told a person could sit near one of the guided axles at a car end and get a good bumping.
This notion of “modern” and “lightweight” train technology being rough riding needs some perspective. I took a plane trip where on the way out it was changing planes in Cincinatti but pretty much staying on (Bombardier!) Regional Jets – they are a skinnier, smaller, more cramped version of a DC-9, but they give you jet service where otherwise you would have the ear-numbing droning of props. The RJs have a smooth jet-like ride in the air, but on taxi, you feel every last little bump – I guess in terms of lightweight construction and rough riding, that must be what the 1950s lightweight trains were like.
…Boy, that brings back memories of how I just missed riding that Aero Train from Pittsburgh to Johnstown…We were scheduled to be on that Aero Train and when we boarded at Pgh. we went on a conventional passenger train and on each seat was a paper explaining what happened…One day each month the A Train was in for service and this was the day…And that was the last time I had a chance to {almost}, ride it…The date was If I remember correctly…Summer of 1957.
I have no doubts it rode not as well as convential passenger cars…being constructed in part of bus bodies and small and light. But wish I could have experienced it…
I realized a fond dream about ten years ago and saw THE Aero Train (perhaps the only complete set left?) in the Railroad Museum in Green Bay, WI.
I admit the front of the loco looks pretty sharp (and occasionally it STILL serves as template for editorial cartoons, etc., when they want a stereotype of “ultramodern passenger train”), but the thing itself is not nice.
I have heard that Aero was so light that it didn’t trip signals. Looking at the ultra-light-weight nature of the thing, I’m not surprised. To put it bluntly, there is no comparison between the weight of Aero Train vs. stainless or aluminum as there was between aluminum, stainless and heavyweight.
Nobody at the museum could say for sure whether the Aero had trouble tripping the standard electromechanical blocking mechanism, but the coaches on the train itself looked a great deal like the kind of city bus that General Motors was about the put into service (tail end of the 50’s/very early 60’s. The that was the bus that had (and there are variants and descendants of that bus still out there) – air-conditioning as standard and those raked-back looking passenger windows, unlike the square or rectangular house-looking windows.
Frankly, the seats looked like a student project trying to upgrade the aluminum chaise longes of the period rather than a real train. Thinly padded seats (I don’t recall whether there were those strandees’ raised bars on the backs of seats, hope not!).
However thrifty it may have been, I would think even a fairly well-loaded Aero would have been a hellish ride back in the late 1950s. CTC was still in the 1920’s tote-board-and-relay era and rarely existed. And there were no welded rails back then, as least not on the lines.
Would someone like to testify their experience good or ill? Because looking at all the above factors I would think even an ordinary non-high-speed trip would engage a heckofa lot of clickety-CRASH! instead of clickety-cla
…I have seen a complete list of photos on here of the building the Aero Train sets…If you are interested you might try to Google it and hunt them down. The “cars” were largly bus type bodies and of course the engine designs were compatible with those cars only. They have made models of the Aero Train for the commerical market. I wonder, a model set unaltered today might have a bit of value to it. I agree with the above poster…I imagine the ride would have been a bit sharp and noisy. I sure tried to find out but just missed it by lady luck.
In my opinion the people who set up that not-quite-tourist-attraction, not-quite efficacious-public-transit, the Las Vegas Monorail, would have been better off building a streetcar system or light-rail (alas, I can’ say “trolley” much these days because civilians think a trolley is a free tourist bus that looks like a cartoon version of a 1910 trolley).
I have to admit the public-transit system has improved quite a bit: the transit authority now runs articulated buses along the Strip (Las Vegas Blvd.), nos. 301 and 302, with close headways. The bus stops all have shelters but are fairly far apart, and somehow manage to miss practically all the casinos. I’d much rather envision a center-boulevard LRT setup that can trip the traffic lights in its favor, and with enough of a platform in between to keep the tourists alive. Practically all the Strip is six- or even eight-laned, so there would be plenty of room in the middle.
Many Western European systems, particularly those in the German-speaking countries, have taken into account that it’s a good idea to separate pedestrians from vehicles whenever possible. Such cities have underground passages, but I have to admit that the pedestrian overpasses now multiplying in Vegas do the job too…
[:)]
Don’t say it can’t be done; after suffering considerable collateral damage [:0] the downtown Houston, TX light rail is doing quite well. [8D]
smalling_60626
I frankly wasn’t impressed with Las Vegas’ monorail. For starters, the cars were very small compared to DART light rail cars. There were only a handful of seats, more than three fourths of the riders were standing. And it took over 20 minutes to go three miles. Light rail in any form, above the ground, on the ground, or below the ground is much faster and larger.
And that three mile monorail in Las Vegas was expensive, over $165 million spent…an average of over $50 million per mile. It is a cost effective way to ride from one casino to another, in other words useful for Las Vegas. However, if given a choice, I’d rather ride DART’s light rail cars…
Prior posting: However, if given a choice, I’d rather ride DART’s light rail cars…
I am so with you, donclark.[:)][:0] Of course, here in Chicago we’re starved for traction either old or new. The streetcars disappeared in 1958, the trolleycoaches in Spring of 1973 (oh, that they had lasted past the OPEC embargo!). Chicagoland has some first-rate commuter, including interesting modes like interurban, but we’re deprived relative to the likes of Salt Lake City or Houston when it comes to LRT’s. So for me, a decent urban LRT is as much a thrill as a Disney-style monorail, probably more.
In fact, the closest I can think of iin terms of distance from Chicago is the Fox Valley Trolley museum. Also, I believe, in Kenosha WI (just a couple of miles over the IL/WI border north of Waukegan on the UP North Line, formerly C&NW North Line), the town elders got together and renovated an old but servicable PCC car, which runs a loop between the Metra station and downtown.
Haven’t seen it myself, alas[V]; so I can’t speak to that.