With people looking for other forms of mass transit, monorails could be the solution without clearing chunks of land. I’m not talking about airport trains but through towns/cities.
This notion has been discussed repeatedly in the past. Monorails lack flexibility and are not really suitable for anything beyond short loop routes.
Without active controls ( almost half the cost of a F-16 ) speeds are limited to about 35 MPH MAS
Plus, you’re married to the technology of whoever builds the system. Not everyone can build a monorail, yet many manufacturers can make equipment that runs on two rails.
Monorails take up essentially the same amount of space as a conventional railroad, and cannot have grade crossings.
All of the above. In a nutshell, monorails are great in theory, but in fact aren’t the panacea everyone thinks they are.
Cost/benefit ratio is in the dumpster.
It’s more of a Shelbyville idea…
“Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken.”
“The mob has spoken” – is that a reference to the TV’s Simpsons and the Monorail Mania in the ficticious Springfield?
I often find short responses as to why a technology has failed or has not caught on to be deeply unsatisfying. There is no explanation offered as to what people were trying to do in the first place and how the tech failed to meet those goals.
With a transit system, you can either go below the street (subway – very expensive), at street level (light rail – either requires a special right-of-way that still has grade crossings or operates as a streetcar and is stuck in traffic with everybody else) or above street level.
The most well-known above-street level trains are the El, still used in Chicago, once used in New York but replaced by subway lines. My recollection of the Chicago El (elevated lines) is that they are massive structures that many people feel blight the street and the neighborhood. The steel-on-steel-on-steel wheel-on-rail-on-elevated structure is also very noisy.
The idea behind monorail-as-elevated-transit is that a more slender, visually appealing, quieter, and (this is a stretch) lower cost concrete beam substitutes for the clunky El. At least that was the idea behind the Alweg system – Seattle, Disneyland, (Las Vegas “Strip”) monorails. As mentioned above, one of the problems is a really hard time switching between diverging routes.
But the rubber-tire supported Paris Metro, OK, a subway and not an elevated line, has been duplicated in Montreal and other places? Then there are various airport “people mover” trams using everything from magnetic attraction maglev (which may account for the remark about the complicated control system) to variations on rubber-tire supported trains? Many of them being elevated lines using concrete beams, but a different guidance system than the Alweg? Are these “monorails” or do we call them some
Monorails really do not add anything to transit, and the equipment is very expensive and specialized. The system in Seattle has all of the problems of a conventional el and then plenty more.
Modern concrete construction can build elevated strcutures that are just as slender and quiet as anything a mono-rail can do. There is no reason to shy away from modern elevated city transit except of course people’s fears that you would be brining back your great-grandfather’s el.
LION thinks that the experementation with rubber tiers was a mega-flop which is different from a peta-flop.
Oh well, accoring to LION, with few exceptins, monos are limited to amusement parks.
ROAR
Much of the Midway L (Orange Line) is built on concrete superstructure not unlike an elevated highway. The roadbed on these sections is conventional track and ballast and excessive noise is not a major issue.
There is almost off-the-shelf technology that can make an elevated railroad quieter than a surface line. It involves “Barriers than can become walkways for maintenance.” This is discussed in my paper “Further thoughts on railway noise,” in the March-April issue of Noise Control Engineering. As applied to the approximately 20% of the route mileage of New York City’s rapid transit sstem, and excepts follow:
In the first paragraph of the first reference, it is stated that
noise barriers present a hazard to track workers, adversely
affect mechanized track maintenance, and present a permanent
visual intrusion…
…possibly the idea shown in Fig. 1 can present an answer to the first two problems in many cases, and keeping the noise sources in the vehicle as low as possible can provide the answer to the third. Figure 1 was prepared for mitigation of one of New York Cityʼs worst noise problems, and applies directly to many “subways on elevated structures” in that city, primarily The Bronx.
The need for three tracks on these structures is less great
than when the structures were built, and the weight savings
possible by eliminating the center track, by using single track
bi-directional operation during heavy maintenance periods, and
by using skip-stop express operation during rush hours instead
of separate one-way local and express services, which in any
case are provided on a small fraction of the elevated subway
lines.
I am confident that such firms as Wenger, Overly, Industrial Acoustics, and Trux can engineer walkable surfaces with efficient sound absorption and durable longitudinal hinges to make the concept practical for many situations. Ten dB Noi
Here is the discussion about monorails from last February:
As I recall, monorails can also be of the suspended design. The suspended rail is atop a series of pylons, and dual rails can be set in the dead middle of divided streets and highways, thus taking NO extra space. The pylon bases aren’t very wide and can be separated by 100 or more feet, and can be raised to be routed OVER buildings, parks and other spaces, disturbing no one. The rail can be covered by a snow/ice shield, preventing bad weather from stopping traffic. This raised feature also means NO interference with or from other traffic.Why not use this type of monorail?
The raised feature, also known as a suspended or hanging monorail, off the top of my head and with my friend google:
must have higher pylons than supported mono, or conventional, rail in order still to get “NO interference with or from other traffic”
and when other traffic still gives it interference, has greater death and injury risk since the collisions will be with the monorail trains, not the structure.
“The mobile crane on the back of a truck sliced open the bottom of a railway car”
has greater danger that a derailment will result in the train plummeting to the ground
http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/Wuprtal.html
“In April of 1999, a derailment of a morning commuter train caused four deaths, the only fatal mass transit monorail accident in the 20th century.”
Some years ago I happened to be in Kitakyushu in Japan while a monorail system was being built. The station at the end of the line filled the entire street from building to building, just like the old Dover Street station on the MBTA Orange Line. While it may be that a monorail has less visual impact than a 19th century elevated railroad, the stations are likely to be just as blighting as an elevated railroad.
BART trains in the San Francisco Bay Area run on long stretches of “modern” elevated structures. Unfortunately, significant noise is generated because the trains run at fairly high speed. I would not be surprised if a monorail running at the same speed didn’t make a comparable amount of noise, primarily rubber tires agains the concrete guide beams.
There is no free lunch.
Be surprised, my friend. There may be no free lunch, but there is also no comparison between the noise level and footprint of BART versus an Alweg-type monorail, such as the system used at Disneyland in Anaheim. (Well, one could make a comparison: truck-tractor rig versus Prius.)
I regularly have business near an elevated BART section. On the ground at some 40-50 feet away from the elevated structure (about 20-feet high), it is impossible to have a cellphone conversation when a train is passing – not at top speed, but at redu
too bad bardt does not implement my ideas for railroad noise control as discussed in march=april 2004 Noise Control Engineering (magazine) peer-reviewed paper:
Technical Note: Additional thoughts on railway noise
David Lloyd Klepper (a)
(Received 2001 December 10; revised 2002 June 12; accepted 2004 February 10)
Primary subject classification: 52.4
1.INTRODUCTION
This paper is intended as a significant addition to the
Hemsworth–Hubner paper in the 2001 July August issue and
discusses certain aspects of railway noise control, including
one new idea, that were not discussed in that very valuable
and important paper.
1
It is not intended to complete the picture,
but should provide a basis for an ongoing discussion in this
journal that can equal the attention that has been given to road
and aircraft noise control. The reasons why such continuing
discussion is necessary were presented in the last paragraph of
this reference, where it is noted that it will “…support the EU
policy to transfer traffic from road to rail without adversely
affecting the noise environment…” Europe is not the only
place with this transfer is being effected. The former Governor
of California announced the opening of the “last new highway
to be built in California” with future funds directed to public
and rail freight transportation.
2
State funds contributed to the
construction of the Alemeda Corridor to relieve congestion
for rail freight at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,
3
and the State of Virginia is working with CXS Corporation to
increase track capacity between Washington and Richmond.
4
Seattle Monorail Project
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Seattle Monorail Project was a proposed five-line monorail system to be constructed inSeattle, Washington as an extension of the existing Seattle Center Monorail. The 14-mile (23 km), 17 station Green Line running from Ballard to