Why Monorails Are A Terrible Idea
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 เม.ย. 2020
- The rise and fall of monorails - Why monorails are not more popular and why they are secretly a terrible idea.
Monorail, Monorail, Monorail!
A monorail by definition is a train that uses a single rail track. Some monorail systems use magnets to levitate the monorail car but many others use rubber tires to make contact with the rail. Funnily this latter design actually has more wheels than normal trains, requiring one to power the train and another two on either side to keep the car connected to the track.
So why build one? A monorail has several advantages over a typical duo railway line.
Monorails actually have the least visual impact of all elevated rail options. With a single track, they can seemly glide aloft those city streets and still let in plenty of sunlight compared to older overhead rail found in Cities like Chicago and New york.
Plus less material is needed to make a monorail and therefore it can be cheaper.
The monorail is one of the most efficient systems in the world, hardly breaking down and able to maintain around 99% uptime. It is also less expensive to operate than standard rail. This might have to do with many of the monorail systems being privately owned enterprises, subsidized by the tourist attractions they are affiliated with, rather than public government departments.
Alas… for as fresh and cool as they are, monorails have some pretty steep disadvantages.
In order to achieve stability, the “rail” IN monorail tends to be both significantly wider and taller than you would think based solely on the name.
Compared to regular duo rail, the loading gauge of the monorail cars is essentially the same, and thus there is not a massive benefit in slightly reducing the footprint of the railbed. The mass of the vehicles carrying the passengers, if the same as two-wheeled designs, will impact around the same amount of force and will require the same amount of construction.
This means the same depth for the pylons and the same weight-bearing pillars.
And bad news for Suspended monorails, that requires even more space to place their rail infrastructure.
Plus think about leveled crossings and movement at the ground & underground level. A monorail structure requires at least some elevation at all times, while duorails can crossroads with less than a foot depth required.
Despite appearances, when underground a monorail requires more superstructure than standard duo rail.
Again, suspended monorails are even worst in all three scenarios.
Monorails make sense if the line is elevated nearly 100% of the track, but beyond that, there are very few transport corridors that make sense. Even at Disney World, they used a monorail to connect between different resorts, but when it came to its Hong Kong park, they opted for duo rail due to an underground section and connection with existing other rails.
And there is the technical challenge of switching tracks. On a duo-rail system, because of the way the train sits on top of the tracks, they can criss-cross over each other to let other trains pass or to swap out engines. On a monorail, because the monorail cars wrap around the entire tracks, you can't entirely use the same techniques.
Cross over tracks for monorails are not impossible... they are just really slow and costly to build. Plus, it is yet another component that can break down.
Monorails got really popular around the middle of the last century, with cities building the retro-futurism transport options to make a statement...
But by the 1970s and 1980s, a monorail was seen as a failed and disappointing public transport system and it was beaten out by cheaper alternatives, such as buses, trams, and existing trains. There where only a few places where a monorail made sense over other options, and they were built there more as a stunt than an actual public transport option... like at theme parks or tourist areas.
In fact, in the last few years, cities around the world went out their way to get rid of monorail programs.
In summary, to answer the question why did monorails not take off, and why did they never really become the transport of the world of tomorrow?
They are a niche transportation mode, much more expensive than light rail or streetcars, much more visible than subways, much less flexible than buses, much more difficult to engineer than two-rail based systems and while better than elevated trains in terms of blocking out the sky, they still block out the sky.
But don't despair, plenty of monorails are still slowly being built around the world today in China, Istanbul, and Malaysia.
China’s BYD and Canada’s Bombardier plan to add 295 miles of new track by the end of 2020, and to put that into perspective, since 1900 only 254 miles of track has been built globally.
Speaking to media, LA mayor Mayor Eric Garcetti said “With a small footprint, with electric motors, safety for both earthquakes and access, it could be on the table.
I ride a monorail almost on a daily basis. I live in Wuppertal. And not only does it work, it's has been the most important means of transport here for the last 120 years, with a daily ridership of over 80,000 people a day. Just recently the transport company here had bought 31 new trains to replace the old ones to increase the service from 3-4 minutes to a service every 2 minutes during rush hour. So it's pretty safe to say that the suspended monorail here won't stop service anytime soon.
Yeah, but that worked because of unique geography of Wuppertal. Monorail can work in some contexts, but they’re usually inferior to regular train.
It's interesting they don't make toy monorail trains because it would be too easy to build your own tracks made of tape and cardboard or just about anything like pieces of wood, so unlike model railroad trains, they wouldn't be making any money selling you track.
Well they're dedicated. But on flat ground, the standard duorail can hold something like 10 fold the weight. Engineering channels show the numbers on this and monorails come off as a bad joke.
@@OffGridInvestor apples and oranges. We aren't running freight via monorail. Comparing monorail to light rail, whether at grade or elevated, monorail has many advantages.
Suspended Monorail is more gimmicky than standard monorail. Nobody complaint because it looks like beautiful, and somewhat can fulfill the specific requirement there.
Yet, Suspended Monorail as pointless as installing B&M Invert Launch Rollercoaster as a mass transportation mode. It's not like we need to experience high speed swing turn or looking the beautiful sky while upside down (although I DO wish Wuppertal can do those instead of boringly moving)
Ive been on monorails in canada and japan. There, they are fully integrated into the public transport system. I understand that it has its disadvantages as you pointed out however, it really depends where you place them really. Monorails were not intended to replace the duorail and such but to give riders/commuters options. In dense cities like those in japan, commuters are provided monorails that hover rivers, creeks, roads as well as duorails that can go highspeed underground. The monorail idea is not a failure, the government is.
For sure, but I think we can agree that placement is the issue. You need a very specific landscape for a monorail to work.
@@FoundAndExplained No, not a "very specific" landscape. Actually dense cityscapes/metropolis are a common landscape for mass transit.... the intended design use of monorail... You're being dense and shortsighted in this video. Your strongest proponents for duorail are existing infrastructure and the longer term research & development that supports it. Monorail has a small footprint, energy flexibility, and can be built above existing civil development in existing right-of-way (aka low property cost, low environmental impact). Further development in the in the ever advancing technological age will only improve monorail's viability. Duorail/freight will continue to have better "specific" use scenarios. BOTH ARE GOOD IDEAS, YOU ARE BEING INTELLECTUALLY LAZY AND STIFFLING THE PERSPECTIVE OF OTHERS.
@@augustuswinter6337 There is still cost issues, hence why it isn't very popular. You need a specific landscape for it to be the best value-for-money
Switches in particular cause issues.
Also, compatibility with existing infrastructure (airport monorail is built to take people into the city, but if you built an airport to city central station rail line you could run a suburban train over a crossover and to the airport with no cost.
If no interoperability was needed nor likely to ever be needed, and the gauge issues were not important, and it had minimal/no switching, then it would be a sound choice. However, most rail lines operate in a way that you will rarely get all 3.
@@briannem.6787 I guess they are cheaper than subways and way more if you have high ground water or flooding risks.
And the switching is important if you run two tracks in opposite directions, on an normal railroad you can easy switch if one segment is down you run one track at the segment, yes it creates serious problems like blocking off lanes of roads but you are not closed down. And you can have trains overtake each other with one train stopping at all station and an express who just stop at a few, subways can do all of this.
@@magnemoe1 The difficulty in implementing a local-express system with a monorail would be immense, that is a LOT of switches required.
Also, a metro system can be overhead too if flooding's a risk, and you can make stations with watertight entrances so the station building can be flooded but the tunnels below aren't.
as some one who used to work with the Yui rail in Okinawa, Japan. the benefits of monorail are that it is runs quieter than other forms of elevated rail, its useful when obtaining right of way is limited/difficult, has good ability to climb hills, blocks less of the skyline, and for tourists, offers a great view of the city. the scenarios where monorails can be justified are few, but they do exist.
Very true!
So basically monorail is what USA needs to expand mass transit lol
I would agree to try monorail systems in the cities, or perhaps between cities as an alternative. Give them what they need to grow. As for cross country, I believe our current system is the best for now. Have ridden both types, both are great for where they are placed. Great video!
@@qjtvaddictit built its might on duorail in XIXth Century
The Sydney Monorail was NOT built for the 2000 Olympics, it opened in 1988 before Sydney even decided to bid for the Olympics. It was built to link the new Darling Harbour development with the city centre. It was meant to link up with city train stations like Circular Quay, however it’s construction was opposed by the opposition party, and when they gained government although they could not terminate the construction contract, they sabotaged the route preventing it connecting as much of the city as originally planned.
Thanks that was my mistake!
The primary reason that monorail proposals have failed in America is because railroad construction planners and road construction planners come into the bidding process and underbid monorail, and then later down the line run into massive construction costs which put the projects way over cost. You don't see this issue happening in other countries where transportation is heavily regulated at the federal level.
Many cities are short-sighted when it comes to considering monorail for construction. Los Angeles famously rejected a monorail project from Alweg (who built the Seattle and Disney systems), who offered to build it for free in exchange for revenue, and would then turn it over to the city when the revenue paid off the construction costs. LA decided to build more freeways, and we see how that worked out. Seattle looked at expanding the monorail there a decade ago, it was rejected in favor of a light rail project which ended up over-budget, tied up the city for years, is not making a profit, and has added to congestion. Las Vegas has a nice monorail, but the company has had to fight with the city for years to get permission to expand, as well as facing never-ending objection from taxi cab companies. Currently LV Monorail is the only proposed public transportation extension to the new Allegiant Stadium.
When you look at the rest of the world, however, you will notice what sets all of them apart from Sydney. That would be integration into the public transportation network. Only in Sydney did the city not do this. They expected that the downtown monorail would be a tourist attraction that would fetch additional tourist revenue. But when buses are 3x cheaper and go to all the same places as the monorail, it was a no-brainer for tourists. Despite calls for it to be re-developed into a connector for downtown employees, no proposal was ever put forward. Everywhere else, monorail systems tie into public transportation that links to buses, metro trains, light rail, trams, subways, seaports and airports. Almost all of them use the same integrated fare and ticketing systems as the rest of the public transport systems.
Further compounding Sydney's issue was the fact that the company which designed it, Von Roll, historically had only worked on amusement park rides and essentially used the same vehicle, which was ill-suited for public transportation. The company eventually went bankrupt and it became impossible to obtain spare parts for when the vehicles prematurely broke down. Public transportation systems in Japan were developed by Mitsubishi and Hitachi. In Korea they were developed by Samsung, in Japan by BYD and CRCC - all licensing Hitachi technology, which itself was developed from Alweg.
When you look at the long history of monorail, Sydney is the only city that has ever dismantled its monorail network. Everywhere else it has been built, it has worked, it has been profitable, and it boasts impressive safety records and uptime. To me, that doesn't speak to failure.
Wow Interesting! I tried to be as comprehensive as a 10 minute video would allow but like all things the real story is more detailed than that. That is correct, the Sydney Monorail didn't go anywhere, and in only one direction.
Case in point, Sydney is also home to another white elephant project, the Dulwich hill light rail line. However, that rail line was extended to reach a train line on both ends, and had new cars installed. It was expanded beyond just a feeder route for the casino and has a place in Sydney's transport network today.
Ideally, the Sydney Monorail should have run from the ferry terminal at CQ (harbour for those viewers not aware), through the middle of the city, to Central Train station, then up to the Moore park stadiums that had a sports match every weekend..... the exact same route the new light rail performs. Isn't that funny!
Perhaps I should do a part 2 video...!
@@FoundAndExplained Yeah you're gonna need to do a follow-up to this video. Even in Tainan, #Taiwan #臺灣, there are plans to build a new MRT system using Monorail (e.g. news.housefun.com.tw/news/article/131724263032.html ; any latest materials related to Tainan's future MRT are all gonna be in Traditional Chinese only, it's difficult to find such materials comprehensible in English). Part of the plans for the new MRT includes allowing transfers between the new Tainan MRT Red Line and the existing #Kaohsiung #KRTC #高雄捷運 MRT Red Line at Dahu (after #KRTC #高雄捷運 North extension to Dahu).
Very true. I see monorail use capturing the railroad passenger business by using it's ability to rise above ground level(on piers) bringing the consumer to higher levels than a typical railroad could, without considerable engineering/cost. I envision Bombadier-styled, propane turbine-powered, high-speed(100+mph) monorails, traversing our interstate medians nationwide.
Actually, it was Walt Disney himself who offered to build a downtown monorail system free of charge. Of course, he was planning on having one line go to Disneyland, but still...it was free and the city of LA turned it down.
Originally, the monorail in Las Vegas was using the old Mark IV Disney World monorails (Disney World by then were using Mark VI's). I believe they have since upgraded the trains to more modern designs. BTW, the Disneyland and Walt Disney World monorails are based on the Alweg system. Walt Disney purchased the right to use their designs.
Any contractor that faces a cost-overrun should go bankrupt and have all of their assets confiscated. Some States require such businesses to have been operating for a number of years and with sufficient annual budgets that they WILL finish on-budget no matter the costs.
Some contractors have even gone to prison for underbidding and being unable to complete the project. 5-20 yr sentences are fairly common as they commit "Theft by Fraud" and the pricetag determines which level of felony they have committed. Over $200,000 gets 10-20 yrs. Over $500,000 gets 20+yrs.
And typically it is the Owner who goes to prison as they are the ones required to sign the contracts. Having multiple people sign only endangers more people going to prison. But sometimes the Owner will compel the Project Manager to co-sign, so that if they fail, they BOTH go to prison.
They aren't terrible. It's a niche market, thus it depends on the city.
Monorails are also much quieter than traditional overhead trains, whose steel wheels grinding against steel rails reverberate between buildings making it unbearably loud for anyone walking below.
@@MattRichardsonX can attest to that notion, in Bangkok which is the capitol of my country, the BTS Skytrain when it turns, it screeches like a giant with its nails on a humongous chalkboard. Luckily there are two monorail lines being constructed, should be partially operational by the end of this year.
@@YouYesYouYouAreBeautifulMyKing True .the metro are so noisy when they turn.
I've been on a couple, and they offer the smoothest ride ever. I like them better than light rail and regular passenger trains.
@@MattRichardsonX Ok than use rubber tires like in Paris, Montreal and Mexico city.
I think this video should be renamed "why monorails are a terrible idea in AMERICA".
4:34 Conventional rail is usually designed as one big slab track not separate which blocks more light compared to monorail. Support beams are also smaller on monorail as less concrete is used.
5:08 Tunnel size should be around the same to accommodate ventilation systems and overhead power lines used in most rail lines.
5:47 Hong Kong used normal rail since MTR could just convert their existing M-stock to save cost.
6:19 Interesting fact the Tokyo monorail switch at hamamatsucho has operated for over 50 years without a single fault.
6:35 Those switches on the Osaka monorail has also operated flawlessly every 3 minutes thus with proper maintenance I don't see why it's a problem.
7:10 Monorails only failed in America because they don't go to places people want to go. Eg. Seattle (short line and failed expansion proposals) and Las Vegas which does not even link to the nearby airport.
7:40 The Sydney monorail was actually built in 1988 as a link to darling harbour. It failed as it was a single-directional loop with low capacity and high running costs. Sydney actually replaced the monorail with light rail costing a whopping $3 billion despite being plagued by breakdowns and slow running speeds.
Overall monorails do actually work in cities as a means of transport if planned properly (Chongqing, Japan, Sao Paulo, South Korea) not like in America where the monorail lines don't serve any effective means as mass transportation.
In short, monorails are terrible when the system is terribly designed and used in the wrong place.
They are supposed to be used in places that space limited. They require smaller structure to support the track which fits in existing road median
Exactly.
Harry, about China and monorails you are correct. In America, its not the monorail that failed, its the American view to public transport. Massive public transport projects, monorail and others, have simply been shot down by politics, and car owners complaining about dangers or something else. In China, and I don't want to get political, the government has full say on what is built without messy political parties or activist groups.
P.S. About Seattle, while it would been cool to have monorails, I personally think the crazy terrain in the region, could have been a major problem with monorails in large and expensive tunnels, but I'm very much for Seattle's expanding light rail network!
you're one monorail fan
@@willy.william4582 yes, full say because they are a communist dictatorship. That's not "getting political". I'm on the left and I'm not communist, nor are most people on the left. Same for the right; most on the right are not fascists. Probably 80% or more of the people in the world want option 3: a free country that has features of both the left and the right. but the key word is "free" and China is not that. The government is not supposed to have "full say". It's the people that are supposed to have the full say. The government is supposed to represent the people and not do things without the consent of the people.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"
--United States Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776.
"If you've ever ridden a monorail, let me know..." Just remember, you asked for it. I drove Mark VI's at Walt Disney World for seven years. I've driven the Mark V's at Disneyland, the red ALWEG train in Seattle, and one of the repurposed Mark IV trains in Las Vegas as well as the new model that they currently operate. I've ridden trains at Miami Metro Zoo (now Zoo Miami), Monorail Safari at Dallas Zoo, Wild Asia Monorail at Bronx Zoo, Skytrail at Minneapolis Zoological Gardens, Pearlridge Center Monorail, Carowinds Monorail, Capital Blue Cross Monorail at HersheyPark, Dutch Wonderland Monorail, Philadelphia Zoo Safari Monorail, Geauga Lake Park Parkview Express Monorail, Riverside Park Monorail, California State Fair and Exposition, Six Flags Magic Mountain Metro, Bumble Bee Monorail at Santa's Village, Minirail at La Ronde, The Veldt Monorail at Busch Gardens Tampa, the Jacksonville Skyway, the Tampa International Airport Monorail, the Newark International Airport AirTrain, and the Wild Animal Safari Monorail at King's Island. For stories about "out of service" systems, I've traveled to the sites of the Luxor-Excalibur Monorail, the State Fair of Oklahoma Monorail, the Forest Flight Monorail at Rainbow Springs, Miami Sequarium SpaceRail, and the 1964 New York World's Fair AMF Monorail. There may be more. I can't remember them all right now.
For future reference Bombardier is French so it is pronounced "Bom-bar-dee-ay" not "Bom-ba-deer"
I really butchered the names in this one!
Just the one to my ears, and it's the weird French one, so definitely forgivable.
The name may be French, the company is Canadian.
@@larrysmith6797 Indeed It really doesn't sound right unless I imagine Chretien saying it though... His is the quintessential French Canadian accent to my ears for some reason.
Now you know better ;-)
"Monorail sucks. Why build monorails when you can build duorails?"
Because you CAN'T build duorails in some places! Underground is not your free real estate. Things are down there
If you can't build a duorail, you can't build a monorail.
@@FoundAndExplained Not true; duorails generally take much more space than monorails.
@@seize4085 They don't have to. Conventional commercial railways have had gauges from 15" (Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch) to 7'-0-1/4" (Great Western, UK). The limitation is the loading gauge, the cross-section of the rolling stock. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Chile and San Francisco BART are 5'-6" or very close.
@@FoundAndExplained Monorails were designed with the straddle position so it can move at gradient (tracks are slanted to one side). They are also lightweight, so the footprint of the piers (the pillars holding the track) can be much smaller compared to other modes of elevated trains such as LRT or MRT). This is so that it can built to maneuver tight corners (ie between buildings) in fully mature developed areas. Case in point: KL Monorail in Malaysia.
LRTs & MRTs require a larger radius to make turns, therefore increasing land acquisition costs. Moreover, the higher weight of these trains & using 2 pairs of tracks (1 for running in one direction & another one to run the opposite direction) require larger & wider piers. This increases land acquisition costs & also means you can't build it around buildings without demolishing it (which may not be possible in some areas & greatly increase costs in others).
@@algrayson8965 I don't see how a duorail makes sense between Düsseldorfs airport terminals
You can find a number in Japan integrated into public transport. Likely the first thing you ride when you arrive in Haneda Airport.
Fantastic!
7:47 - Genuinely thought the side of that train said Monofail for a moment!
An advantage not mentioned is THE VIEW. It sure beats a subway in this category. It also beats surface rail as it allows you to see over a lot of buildings and trees. I’ve taken monorails in Seattle and Las Vegas and this is definitely my favorite thing about the experience.
Me and my brother like the People Mover in Detroit, we ride it every time we went to the Auto Show.
Elevated dual rail systems like the L in Chicago offer that same advantage.
You can get the view with lots of elevated conventional rail lines as well. You can get that on the DC Metro, Chicago L, NYC Subway, Baltimore's Light Rail, and even Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. Monorail doesn't have a monopoly on this at all.
@@onorebakasama True. But the view looking up from below the tracks is better with a monorail.
Suspended monorails are even more niche, and the only place I know where it was built not for a publicity stunt, but because of the surrounding terrain is Wuppertal, Germany
According to Chongqing, monorail's rubber tracks makes then quieter. With the line going through and near buildings, it would make sense.
So the track itself is rubber? Rubber on rubber would be very quiet!
@@FoundAndExplained No, it's rubber tire on concrete, it's still very quiet.
Honolulu has had a monorail since November 1977, connecting two parts of an enclosed shopping mall near Pearl Harbor called "Pearlridge Center." It was build by Rohr Industries. This was of course, several decades before the city's elevated metro rail system called "Skyline," opened the first ten miles of service last summer.
The case wasn't really made that they were "so bad." I saw one technical challenge that could be solved: oligarchical production, and one actual inherent problem: rail-changing, and one non-issue: pylon footprints. The advantages of almost never breaking down and being faster offer compensation for its drawback of rail changing challenges. I feel like someone has already figured out a better solution to rail-changing, but I'll never hear about it since monorails are so marginal and niche now.
I do not miss the Sydney Monorail. Its design of compartmentalised cars was inefficient and it connected poorly with other public transport options.
A monorail designed with standing room and interconnected cars would have been a lot more efficient and profitable.
In the Philippines they makes sense because our population density and space problem is not a option for more conventional trains like have you seen are cities manila in one of the top 10 most populated density in the world in rush hours.
I’ve ridden the monorail at Disney world many times and I’ve ridden a few monorails at certain airports
I think we need more for sure!
Yes indeed, they are very smooth and don’t have pot holes like the “duo rail” trains. I’d love to see more of them.
Monorails remain among the most effective, inexpensive, and space-efficient way to integrate mass transit into developed cities with minimal disruption to existing structures. (Trams are nearly as good, except they disrupt car traffic and hit pedestrians.) Their efficiency is likely _exactly_ why city developers hate monorails: no excuse to engage in massive tear-downs followed by lucrative, subsidized redevelopment projects.
Also, many cities have old duo rail lines, even buried under asphalt, that the railroads work a "deal" with to unbury the lines and make money from them vs. putting in new monorail infrastructure. Serious back scratching going on there at the cost of lives being lost at surface crossings and traffic congestion/delays.
Cars also hit pedestrians and they do it WAY MORE OFTEN with almost 1,3 million people a year dying from car accidents (in general, not just car-car crashes) and that's not even to mention the tens of millions who suffer temporary or permanent injuries from said accidents.
The reason most of them get torn down is because it is much harder to expand their services, lack the flexibility of bus services which can add new stops and lines with the stroke of a pen and are more expensive and more difficult to maintain when compared to either Trams, Busses, Metro or trains.
Yay! Another “explainer” video that intentionally perpetuates misinformation by using divisive clickbait. The video script is generally pretty well-informed, so I’m not sure what the purpose of the clickbaiting is. :/
what part is clickbait? Monorails end up not being as practical as duorail. At least that was the conclusion I had at the end of my countless hours of research.
Maybe monorails can be used in older cities where the roads weren't built for cars/buses and it's not convenient to tunnel. Sort of like "retrofitting" to have a public transport system as opposed to building a new section of the city with everything pre-planned and built-in underground.
PH is planning to have one east of Manila due in fact to the steepness of the incline the train needs to traverse. The mass transport is very much needed. Hoping for it to be constructed soon.
Yes, Monorails do quite well up hills!
Monorail is not an alternative to conventional rail, it is a competitor to subway in cities with a lot of high-rise buildings. Monorail is much cheaper than subway and it offers the same fast commute for passengers. Of course, like the subway, the monorail is not going to have the same density of coverage as light rail. Monorail remains an interesting option.
Man do you deserve more views. Great video!
Thank you so much! Give it a share if you know anyone who should watch :) I'll be making one video a week
In theory, I could see monorail being a replacement for some conventional intercity train routes. The elevated track structure would eliminate grade crossing issues and other ground-level congestion problems, and I would imagine the trains could travel at high speeds which would make them more competitive with the airlines. In rural areas where land is more affordable and there are fewer obstacles, I don't see any reason why tracks can't be built at ground level, as well. Monorail is not a one-size, fits-all option but it sure isn't the worst idea ever created.
sounds like a maglev monorail
a couple things
1 there are ways to grade separate train tracks but it since you can keep them on the ground most of the time they are much cheaper.
2 if you want to run another train on that corridor going from different end points well you cant because monorails trains are not compatible with conventional trains. so for example in the United States if you built a monorail from Seattle to Portland but then you want to run a train from Seattle to Eugene you would have to make another expensive monorail track or have passengers change in Portland. so it would be better to upgrade the existing line between Seattle and Portland and once the train to Eugene reaches Portland it can just keep going to its destination.
Great video. Do you have a background in engineering?
No! But I'm a published journalist and have done extensive research for each video I make.
I have been on the Disney World, Seattle, and Disney Land monorails
thanks for posting
It's sad to say but honestly one thing that helps the monorail for general city-use is that the middle class and above will be more inclined to take it than "traditional public transport" due to the better connotations in their mind. The aesthetic appeal of a brand new monterey is a lot better to them than just taking the subway. Adam Something touches on that in their video about the new Cairo administrative city.
They have monorail lines in the Chongqing Metro system and they work great and are used as often as the regular rail metro lines.
This was excellent, thankyou.
They are a really good ideal, just wish more cities in the usa would get them.
New Orleans had a Monorail during the 1984 Worlds Fair. I got to ride it a few times. Its long gone now but one train set is in private hands.
Yeah~ South Korea Dague Monorail was on video~!
I’m American and have ridden on a monorail many times.
Thanks for all the views! I'll be making a video each week on a very cool topic. So subscribe to see more :)
If you have any ideas - Post them below!
I live in central Florida (originally on the west coast, but later in Orlando). As such, I've ridden the original Walt Disney World Mark IV monorails and the Mark VI monorails that replaced it. I've also ridden the Disneyland monorail (Mark V I think?), the Las Vegas monorail (WDW's old Mark IV's), and the Seattle monorail (built by Alweg around the time Disneyland built theirs). These latter rides were some 20+ years ago, so they could have easily changed since then. BTW, Walt Disney purchased the right to use Alweg's design from them (Alweg was sad they weren't building the actual trains for Disney; their first American venture would be Seattle for their Worlds Fair).
Busch Gardens in Tampa had a hanging monorail that I've also ridden. It used two propane engines to generate the electricity for the electric motors. It was a very slow, boxy, and simple design. I don't recall much swaying (one of the problems with hanging monorails), but then it didn't go very fast. I think it went away in the 70's.
I've also been on several other mass transit systems: the New York Subway, the Long Island Railroad, the Washington D.C. subway, the London Underground, the Paris Metro, the Chicago EL, and the Atlanta Metro (ALL of them at least 20-30 years ago). The Paris system was unique in that some of the lines used a tire on concrete system instead of rail. Oh, and the Vancouver Skytrain (only 15+ years ago on that).
My experience has been that monorail cars tend to be smaller than rail cars, though all the monorail trains I've been on were designed for amusement parks; not public transportation. The ride is always very smooth and appears quick (except for Busch Gardens) even though the WDW monorails are governed at 40 mph (they can go 60 mph). I've always enjoyed riding them.
In terms of design and tech, I've liked the look of the Alweg cement beams. I've seen designs for a hanging monorail that had the bogie inside of the beam. This allowed for a switching mechanism similar to the duo-rail system; albeit one swing arm instead of two. I've seen videos of hanging monorails in both Germany in China. I noticed some swaying with the German one, not so much with the Chinese one. The hanging monorails seem to always have metal support beams instead of cement ones which seems to reduce the track signature further. With the bogie inside the track, the track could be built right next to trees and such without worry.
I've also seen a video of an elevated public transit system in Japan using tires instead of rails (like the one I rode in Paris). From what I can tell, switching is done by the car, not the track (I can _easily_ be wrong on that detail). BTW, the video was done to the song "Love on a Real Train" by Tangerine Dream.
Straddle type monorails are definitely restricted to above ground travel, though they do that very well and have a rather small footprint. Suspended monorails can run at ground level (and there's no track for a car to go over), but it still requires the support beams (and the expense to put them in). Elevated duo-rails have the advantage of popularity and, like suspended monorails, can go above, below, or on ground. A tire-and-concrete rail system would have the advantage of easy track maintenance and the disadvantage of replacing tires more frequently.
My singapore dosent have much monorails but atleast they have LRT’s (Light Rail Transport)
They had one at Skegness Butlins. Went on it a few times, it felt like the future.
The plan for monorail in Istanbul was cancelled back in 2017. Just before they were about to start building it.
My apartment is about a 10-minute walk from a monorail station in Daegu, Korea. It's a great way to travel through the city.
What about for a province that has no pre-existing rail system? Say, if the capital is densely pact and any railway must be built above ground?
Dude your videos are actually great. You deserve way more support
I appreciate that! Thanks so much for watching and subscribing! I do it for comments like these!
Monorails in Chongquing have limited capacity. There were six monorail lines planned but after lines 2 and 3 opened regular metro was chosen for the remaining four lines.
all i heard throughout the entire video is this guy's story between his relationship with his dad and why he left him
Watching the monorail animation move as columns rose up to catch it got me thinking. Imagine in the future where the track was only 3 to 5 longer than the train that actually glide from support column to support column throught out the city. As the track passed over 2 or 3 columns at a time, as the the front of the track passed over the last column the next one rose up to catch the rail while the last one lowered back into the ground.
Where he's talking about the Sydney monorail, at 7:46, it looks like it says "monofail" on the side of the car. Which given the message of the video, is pretty damn funny. XD
Very exhaustive analysis.
When thirteen I rode the Alweg monorail at Disneyland in 1965. The cars were noisy and rough riding. I managed to ride in the power car, which was heavy enough to ride smoothly and was air conditioned.
When I was seven or eight years old I rode the suspended monorail in the toy department of Harvey's Department Store.
I have been on two monorails. In1968 I was 11 and rode the mini-monorail at Hemisfair 68 in San Antonio, Texas, The ride was very smooth and quiet. Unfortunately, one of the monorails rear ended a parked monorail train and fell off the track. Several people were killed.
Two weeks ago (Nov. 2020) Now 63, I rode the monorail in Seattle. This monorail had a very rough ride and jerked side to side and bumped along the track . Not at all what i expected from a full size monorail, maybe because it is old....
the dual rail lobby strikes again
who can say no to all that money?
I have ridden the Seattle, Disneyland, and Las Vegas monorails.
I've only managed the Sydney one and Disney Land!
And what's your experience of traveling on them?
I've ridden Tokyo Monorail to Haneda Airport. Keikyu Railways is an alternative.
I guess that the Simpsons predicted that monorails are scams.
3:38 oh look, my childhood
I wish I rode on the Sydney Monorail more!
Advantages (2:05)
1. Low Visual Impact (looks cleaner, allows more sunlight below)
2. Less Material Needed (cheaper to build (and more eco friendly?))
3. More Efficient (more reliable & more cost-effective, b/c of private industry)
4. Quick Transport (no driver needed / don't need to slow down for other trains)
Disadvantages (3:36)
1. Same amount of construction as normal rail (duorail)
2. Levitated tracks make for inconvenient level crossings (eg. railroad crossings)
3. Underground monorails need more superstructure than duorail
4. Can't connect with existing rail lines
5. Building monorails that can switch tracks is... kinda slow and expensive
6. May be expensive to build proprietary monorail technology
Summary Points (7:56 to 8:30)
As an idea for a future video, I propose the german Transrapid. IMHO it has one of the saddest stories of any technology, basically being engineered to near perfection and after that suffering from a major loss of publical interest. The Maglev in Shanghai is the only running Transrapid left in the world.
I did ride on one Las Vegas during a Vacation. And if i can remember it right. The chicago international airport do also operate a line. Wich i also took a ride on.
I have been on a monorail before "afew times"... it was a theme park... but i got a good experience of it... it was old so it was slightly wobbly but was for the most part... smooth.. i do also like how they work and everything about them... so yes... i will say one day... monrails will make a comeback "for magnet rails... its cheaper to run them in a monorail then a duo rail system"
I agree. But I think Lyle Lanley would disagree.
I used to ride the mono-rail in Jacksonville frequently with my son. Then he grew up taking all the fun out of it.
Seattle's monorail is a beloved retro-future relic of the 1962 Century 21 Exposition.
I really like the jingle of this channel.
Actually, monorails are a great idea. They are electric, carbon-free, dependable, safe, elevated, quiet, and proven. They are a great way to move people in a city.
You can do all that with regular trains though.
They are what's known as a Gadgetbahn, public transport that tries to reinvent the wheel, but at the end of the day is just a train with so many downsides, and not enough upsides to compensate. As shown in cities like Vancouver, its possible and in fact quite easy to build elevated rail using traditional dual rail (Yes Vancouver does also use LIM Rail technology, but that's irrelevant in the context of dual rail viaducts). People look at New York for examples of how big and ugly dual rail viaducts are, but in reality technology has advanced far and modern dual rail viaducts are quiet, small, and don't take up more space than a monorail viaduct. Monorails aren't necesserily bad, its just that in 99% of cases, you might as well us a regular train.
forget it they cost $100 milion per miles.
Nothing powered by electricity is carbon free. The power plant rather than the train produces the pollution.
@@noneone8726 Says the oil industry shill. Sorry, but not all power stations are thermal.
I rode the Disneyland-Alweg monorail in 1965(?). The cars were open but I got to ride in the enclosed air conditioned power car!
MONORAILS might also be safer because:
1- At street level you must move the rail section in street interceptions in order for cars🚙 to pass by.......
2) .......greatly reducing deaths💀 caused by cars crossing the rail road when the trains are approaching.😫🚙🚅
3- It's also safer because it doesn't derails due to the changes in size caused by temperature changes as well as the friction wear that the dual rails suffer.
Years ago, when TWA was still in business, they used St. Louis as a hub for their flights. We flew in while on our way to Florida to visit my Mother who had moved there. When we landed, we found, (these were the days before the internet), that we had a four hour layover, so we took the monorail to downtown St. Louis and visited the "St. Louis Arch". We also walked around and eventually had lunch. Then we took the monorail back, caught our plane and went to see my Mother. I do not know if it is still there to this day or not.
The answer to any "why didn't it take off" question is "because it didn't have enough thrust"
The Kuala Lumpur Monorail is doing very well.
I've been on Monorails at Sea World on the Gold Coast and at Expo 88 in Brisbane!
Yes. In malaysia also have 2 monorail. One already operated and another still on paper.
Monorails aren't that bad when you think about it. Digging tunnels and doing maintenance in them for metros is still more expensive and time consuming than a monorail which does make sense to go for monorails plus you don't have to worry about collisions with pedestrians and other road vehicles like what busses and LRT have to deal with.
This could have been better if the title wasn’t click bait and you had explained and shown, as the narration implies, that there are cases when monorail is a superior solution.
There is no specific mention of Chongqing (although a still image of the switches is shown), the Haneda line in Tokyo or the new Sao Paolo line. Sao Paolo should have been a test of you theory. What another mode was superior?
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A few straw men
1. monorails in the US are the baseline. Why? Can’t their be a historic prejudice against different modes? Light rail is has a prejudice in its favour over BRT despite its much higher construction and O&M costs.
2. While some monorail designs are proprietary, the Alweg guideway isn’t. Bombardier didn’t build the original Disneyland vehicles but they were able to build new ones.
3. All modern mass transit systems need grade separation. Sydney only has one level crossing left on its heavy rail network and Melbourne is spending billions to remove level crossings.
There’s also a major error. The Sydney Monorail was a low capacity CBD loop. The new metro is a 40,000 pax per hour per direction system from the suburbs into the CBD. Completely different routes and purpose.
Unfortunately the title has to be a little clickbaity, but I stand to reason that duo rail is superior to monorail, apart from some situations as you mentioned.
@@FoundAndExplained It is not superior in every way. That is the point. There are things that monorail does better than conventional steel on steel duorail.
Most of the time you will want duorail but there are times where monorails are simply better.
There's one in Detroit too. The FUNNIEST cheapskate one I think was in Cleveland Ohio. It was an elevated CONCRETE rail with everything running ON TRUCK TIRES. 2 freewheeling either side of the rail to keep it on the rail, and one on top of the rail that was the drive wheel. Of course a similar thing on the front end as well. A total of 3 RAILCARS I believe. With a diesel engine rumbling away to run that one drive wheel. Worked great but it was as primitive as hell and quite a joke.
I've seen a few monorails in operation: Japan, Malaysia, and the US one in Disney. I have the impression they move much slower than the light rails or subway trains.
That is their primary drawback, they just don't go as fast as light rail. I hope that can be improved upon.
Suspension monorail is bomb.
I’ve ridden a few monorails and I liked them. Rarely you hear about problems with them, especially their safety. Trains are always having problems with people not respecting the law and causing crashes and deaths. Btw, minor thing but it’s Zoo Miami, not Miami Zoo!
In 1956 there was a suspended monorail in Houston, TX. While not a long section of track, it was before 1959 Disneyland's America's 1st daily operating monorail system. I say this, because I'm a native Houstonian. I miss riding in the front of the WDW monorail. I have ridden in the front/back @ Disneyland. Alweg, Bombardier, & Mapo monorails. I also say you didn't mention Arrow & Intamin as manufacturers. While they were for amusement parks, there were still some produced. San Antonio's HemisFair of 1968 also had a monorail.
I can think of one case where a monorail would improve the community’s quality of life. The West Bank, fewer check points cars too small and light to carry artillery or rockets, and isolated till next stop. Hard to break out of. How would you design such a monorail, would it have turnabouts as stops, and incorporate trains and individual cars together?
6:22 it’s a shame really, those switches are really cool to see in action IMO.
Nick, search for Coester Aeromovel train, a dream of a Brazilian engineer actualy "operating" between SBPA airport and metropolitan train line.
The flaw is the propulsion system with pressurized air inside concrete beans. Tons of friction...
I’ve been on a monorail in Seattle it’s pretty cool
Seattle monorail was just fine. it felt like riding the subway in DC--very clean and friendly. i hope they dont tear down that one.
What about the monobeam? It was short lived demo at Old Navy Yard in Charleston SC, that I understand received some contracts, but lost contact with the inventor and don't find any documents of progress
Suspension railways are i good choice for areas that are densely built up, as they hardly need any surface space. The Wuppertal Suspension Railway uses the river for its track.
loved monorails as a child in the 60's... rode the ones at Disneyland and Disney World, loved them. we have those loud and ugly elevated trains where i live and grew up...
I'm a wheelchair user and due to one of my 'gremlins' I can't drive, we don't have a monorail but we have trams near me (in the UK) which are great to get around in, when there isn't a plague going round, but my ideal would be those driverless pod things like they have at Heathrow airport. I was in Orlando a few years ago and pulled a wheelie in my chair on the Disney world monorail just as it set off, which made me lose my balance and I fell backwards, that was fun.......
The real reason is as long as you live in a country where a select few are super rich and everyone else isn't, they don't give a damn about everyone else's issues about public transportation. You don't have it because DADDY SAYS NO.
I've been on AirTrain Newark a bunch of times, it's considered outdated and needs to be replaced, but the Port Authority is so organizationally incompetent that it'll probably stay up for years longer than it was designed to. Obsolescence is a huge downside of proprietary monorail technologies, that's why PANYNJ went with a standard gauge Innovia Metro for AirTrain JFK and might do the same at LaGuardia.
Btw ther used to be monarials overseas in the nation of australia form Brisbane to Sydney and Gold Coast but taken down sadly but archived on the internet and could get new monaural sytem soon by chance and a high speed rail form Melb to Sydney soon
For suspended Monorail you may as well use a Cable car 🚠
At time code 7:47 a monorail is shown with what appears to be "Mono-fail" written down its side. Kind of appropriate if you think about it.
My favourite one
I'm going to have to disagree. Didn't Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook buy monorails and it put them on the map.
I don't for a minute believe that the first monorail in the USA wasn't built until 1959.
I can't think of an earlier one offhand, but the technology by then was already 150 years old.
Actually, I've been on more than one monorail in the USA in my life, so presumably I'm special.
“Statistically, if you’re in the United States, you have never been on one”
Floridians: 😐
Monorail makes no sense only to those never need to take them.
But to the people who relies on public transit to commute, Monorail is nearly perfect! Immune to ground traffic alone would convince anyone.