But this was a proposed newer system. The Seattle Center Monorail (originally built at the time of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair) continues to run.
And Dave, I too am sorry BART has not looked into your noise-reduction proposals!
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Paul Milenkovic
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.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-
If I’m reading your references correctly, there has been, TO DATE, a grand total of only FOUR deaths associated with suspended monorails…EVER ! Can you cite any OTHER mass transportation means with so horrible a record? The other issues you list can be overcome, I’m sure, with materials and methods available today, including the switching problem!
Give us deaths per passenger mile, please, for a better comparison. There are few suspended monorails.
Despite my positng some negative comments, I feel certain that more monorails will be built, but only when their one advantage outways their major disadvantage, lack of flexibility. The market place is the final judge. For urban transit, the ordinary bus is the clear winner, with more routes and more passsengers handled than any other mode. But light rail, ordinary streetcar, trolleybus, guided bus and guided trolleybus, heavy rapid transit, commuter rail, arial cable tramways (Haifa and Grenoble), funiculars, underground subway funicular (Haifa the only one), combination light rail and funicular (Triest), ferry boats, elevators (Barcelona, Lisbon) all have a place, and so does monorail.
One of the main reasons that monorail technology has not found widespread appeal in the US is that many individuals still view it as appropriate for amusement parks, zoos and in some cases airports (Newark comes to mind). Unfortunately, we don’t have visionaries like the late Walt Disney (firmly believed that monorails were the wave of the future) to guide us at the moment. However, if one had the opportunity to travel abroad to either Brazil, Europe, or even Asia, monorails are either already in operation, have been in operation for several decades, or currently being constructed not as stand-alone units, but as part of a larger munincipal or regional transit-oriented system. For further information please check out the Monorail Society website (http://www.monorails.org).
It’s also a capacity issue: Monorail trains like Disney’s Alweg systems are relatively small and carry a fraction of the number of passengers that conventional subway and elevated systems can handle.
I recently rode the monorail at Disneyland in Anaheim. I was a very rough ride. Although the concrete track looked smooth, that was not the case as the speed was increased.
As it turns out, the Maryland Rail Heritage Library at the baltimore Streetcar Museum recently was bequeathed a LARGE estate that included a LOT of materials on monorails. To be blunt, the deceased was a possible model for the “monorail salesman” in the notorious Simpsons episode, “Marge Versus the Monorail.”
Monorails are an idea that sound good on paper but fail in execution. Costs (construction and operational) are usually far higher than estimated; the power-to-weight ratio doesn’t work; and too often, by the time a proposed system can be built the traffic patterns that instigated its construction (suburb to downtown, etc.) have changed, with an inflexible system turned into an albatross. One very unusual attempt to hold down costs which was actually installed in several countries–the Aeromovel, using atmospheric compression propulsion rather than electric motors–has not expanded beyond the few test systems in Brazil, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, and elsewhere.
I can name at least one major transit monorail project that has been abandoned and dismantled: Sydney, Australia’s.
If back in the Middle of last century a single system like the Alweg model had been established as a defacto standard for all manufacturers to build to monorails might have had a serious chance to be a major player but two rail light transit systems today are just as versatile and better load carriers than the most advanced monorails, plus two rail transit is far more adaptable and versatile as they can also accommodate freight traffic if need be.
Disney may have wanted us to think it was the wave of the future, but by making the monorail such an ubiquitous part of the theme park, he only reenforced the stereotype that monorails are for amusement only. He probably caused more damage to his own cause than anything else.
I was so, so disappointed when I rode the Disney monorail in Florida in 1986. After seeing the system at Anaheim on the Disney TV show, “The Wonderful World of Color” (on our black and white TV set, oh the irony) and being so fascinated by the way of the future, I finally got to ride a monorail. It rode like a bus on a rough road! I thought it would glide “as softly as a cloud” as Lyle Lanley said. But no.
This brings up something not considered before. How do you surface a monorail ? We know EWR airport has had to close its monorail for 6 months +. The ride had become rough and items like switches probably are being repaired or replaced especially the high use end of track switches. The Port Authority has unlimited funds but it still has taken way too long.
That kind of shut down is completely not acceptable for main line trains.
Any one in the highway repair business can testify to the difficulty of adjusting the surface of bridges back to smooth. The 26 mile I-10 causeway over the Atchafalya river basin has many closures to smooth the road.
A RR sufacing machine ( tamper ) can surface a track much quicker usually only in hours.
While we view terra fima as being stable, from a heavy duty construction vantage point it is anything but stable, at least until you get down and anchored to bedrock - however far down beneath the surface that may be.
I doubt most monorail systems will anchor their piers to bedrock and as such, the ground is subject to various forms of movment; thus changing the alignment of the piers with their neighbors and affecting the ride characteristics of the line.
I bet 54light15 and blue streak 1 were talking about the railhead, not the trackbed, surface.
blue streak 1, when you say “RR sufacing machine” do you mean “rail grinder”? I too wonder what monorails, hanging or overrunning, steel or concrete, use to keep the rail smooth.
No – a tamper which aligns and levels the track by adjusting the cross ties and compacting the ballast. Any one with a picture ?
Around here rail grinding is always done after track is surfaced. High end surfacing uses a laser and mirror system to get rails level and straight.
Thanks for clearing up my ambiguous interpretation. I know what a tamper is, that one word has saved me needing 999 more from you, so I don’t need a picture.
I now have to think what elevated railways use for their trackbed. I can’t think of any off the top of my head that have ballast anymore, but I think some of the ones in Philadelphia did once upon a time.
Actually Amtrak is on a campaign to replace open deck bridges ( cross ties on support beams ) to a ballast deck bridge. You will note most conversions have a higher MAS. Of course some bridges such a portal are open deck but the replacement(s) are planned to be ballasted.
The beam is concrete, and I suspect that it would have similar surface issues with wear as highways, both using rubber tires.