I'm a Mountaineer and a Morgantonian and thought I'd share a little info for the nerds. The behavior of the PRT at 11:43 (stopping on the main guideway to give way to another car) is not how the system behaved for the majority of its life. The PRT cars originally communicated with the main computer, located in the building seen at 7:37 , through a wire embedded in a little groove in the floor of the guideway. In the first 40+ years of the life of the system, you could imagine that the computer had a number of "slots" constantly circling the main guideway. Once a car was ready to depart a station, it would be dispatched into a "slot" and would leave the station at the proper time to merge right into that slot. No car would ever stop at any point between platforms during normal operation. The path and speed of the car was entirely determined once it had departed. However, any fault whatsoever in the miles-long system would bring every car to a screeching halt. Due to difficulty sourcing parts (❗including vacuum tubes❗) for the computer, which had been compared to the computer of the Cold War era Minuteman Missile System, the Thales Company (pronounced Talus) was contracted to modernize the backend of the system. The cars now communicate wirelessly via the square boxes mounted on poles on the track like the one seen at 11:11 at the top right. The new control system allows the cars to be spaced closer along the guideway and gives more power to the operators in managing faults in the system. However, it is during this modernization that the system saw its only collision during its decades-long operation. The cars' path, including giving way as seen, is able to adapt to the requests of the system, so now every trip may not be the same. Cars will sometimes now queue along the guideway as they wait for a platform at the busier stations during peak traffic. I recommend anyone interested in the history, construction, and former operation of the PRT to check out the 1977 documentary film, "A Ride of the Future", which can be found on the WV State Archives TH-cam page. In that video you will see the original computer, the old communications wire being laid in the tracks and buried in molten rubber, all set to absolutely manic 70s electronic jazz. Thank you all for visiting Morgantown and checking out my favorite transit in the world!
My dad was a WVU student in the mid 70s when the PRT was built. He said that before it was built, it would take over 20 minutes to get from one campus to another due to the road traffic. He said it was SOOO much nicer once they had the system up and running.
Love those mountain views! Another key reason why Morgantown wanted the PRT was its geography! As WVU expanded in the 1960s, geographic constraints, as the city is in a valley along the Monongahela River, forced WVU to build a second campus over 3 km away in Evansdale. While free busing was offered for students so they can move between the campuses, all the roads led through the city center, creating gridlock more typical of a megacity, so Morgantown needed something more efficient to move its students than buses. And as mentioned, this was cheaper to build than mass transit. But of course for much bigger cities, you're better off just building mass transit because in the end, all that money used to build a proper mass transit system pays off. Also, for other PRT systems, Heathrow built a PRT Ultra pod system in May 2011 on a 3.9-kilometer route connecting Terminal 5 to its business passenger car park! Unlike cars on British roads, the Heathrow pods drive on the right! They use batteries and vehicles can steer themselves and make their own turns between routes based on an internal map In Wuppertal, their geography is why they chose to build a suspended monorail! Wuppertal is located in a river valley (that's what Wuppertal means; Wupper Valley), and because of steep slopes, the original towns that now makes up Wuppertal expanded lengthwise (resulting in the thin shape of Wuppertal today). It wasn't suitable to build a tram nor a subway, so as a way to both unify the valley and find a place for transit to solve congestion, they built a suspended monorail that followed the Wupper River. It is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world as it opened in 1901!
Other unique transit systems that serve universities: The H-Bahn at TU Dortmund University in Germany is a suspension railway/monorail! It opened in 1984 where it initially just connected the north and south campuses with a single line. However, many stations have 2 platforms with a track either side permitting carriages to pass each other in opposite directions. 75% of it was funded by the German government while 20% by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and 5% by the city of Dortmund. The longest span between support pillars is 38.5 meters, where it crosses the university road, which bisects the two campuses. Just beyond the road the H-Bahn crosses through a nature reserve at its maximum elevation of about 16 meters above ground. In 1993, following a three-year construction period, a 900 m long branch was opened, along with new stations, one in Eichlinghofen and another at the S-Bahn station at the university! The Portland Aerial Tram connects the city's South Waterfront district and the main Oregon Health & Science University campus! The tram was jointly funded by OHSU, the City of Portland, and by South Waterfront property owners, with most of the funding coming from OHSU. It is owned by the city and operated by OHSU. The Rakavlit in Haifa is a cable car, from the HaMifratz Central Bus Station and public transit hub at the foot of Mount Carmel to the Technion and then onto the University of Haifa, for a total distance of 4.4 kilometers and an elevation gain of 460 m! Mount Carmel also has an underground funicular for its neighborhoods, the Carmelit! It opened in 1959, making it the oldest underground transit system in the Middle East! The Carmelit doesn't serve the university however
It's in West Virginia because of powerful US Senator Robert Byrd. He also required Amtrak provide "gravy trains" to the state, trains that did not have the ridership to support the service.
College towns and airports are really the only places I could see systems like this working. There’s a good reason why only a handful of systems like this exist. The only two systems I can think of are this and Heathrow Pods which take people from Terminal 5 to the parking garage. Even most airports utilize people movers instead of PRT. Still, I think this is a cool little thing that exists and looks fun to ride
And honestly, a bigger cabin to deal with more people, although you would think that's a ghost town based on the video, and just do a loop rather than bypassing stations seems like it would be just as useful considering how few people there are riding this.
Great video! I grew up in morgantown. Interesting fact- on weekends during low ridership, the pods will open and stop at all stops on the route. Also, during busier times, you may share a pod with others. In fact, it gets a little tight during mid-week.
"Take Me Home Country Roads" was primarily written by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, who lived in D.C. John Denver later helped with the lyrics, but he was not the principal writer.
I lived in Morgantown for 8 years (not a student). I...and my kids...used the PRT to get from the Evansdale neighborhood to the downtown and back when it was running... (It usually is shut down over the summer...)
There was kind of another, bigger, PRT system built. The Vought Airtrans at DFW airport was built with bypass tracks at the stations to allow for this style of operation. But for the sake of capacity it ran numerous fixed routes rather than operating on a true point to point basis. It was also used for cargo and baggage so counting all stops it was over 50 stations, 33 for passengers. It's absolutely a fascinating system that is sadly no longer in operation. Some of the old tracks and stations are visible from the newer skylink people mover. Vought's website about the system hasn't been updated in more than 20 years and is absolutely worth a visit.
@@Thom-TRA I was just about to suggest that this is very reminiscent of the DFW Airtrans system and later the TrAAin connecting the American Airlines terminals. I used the TrAAin twice back in the 90s and early 2000s before the Skylink was introduced. It was a very interesting system!
@@Thom-TRA As I kid I would book long layovers at DFW just to ride it. It went all over the airport including to the remote parking lots and had stops at both Hyatt hotels. The fact that it operated on the landslide outside of security was no big deal back in the day when it only took 30 seconds to go through security.
@@Thom-TRAThe old DFW AirTrans was a fascinating system for its time (1974) but by the 90s it was very obsolete. You can still see the guideways outside the terminals if you look in the right places.
This PRT is AMAZING…it’s nearly 50yrs old and still running…mind blown! Seriously and I have ridden on the ICE is Germany and the Shinkansen in Japan. Thank you for this piece! As a Californian, I might actually go to West Virginia just to check this system out 😍
PRT would also work in airport environment for terminal transfers as well parking areas, and intermodal stations (bus/train) that are on/next to the airport property.
Tom Scott did a video on this a while ago that's worth viewing although there's no Lindsey in it. Heathrow has pods at Terminal 5 if I remember correctly.
i live in morgantown, it rathers sucks transit wise, the prt is alright but im not in college so theres not too much use otherwise, unless you live in south park or close to downtown. It definitely does what it was made for but not much else, also it breaks down a lot some of the students gave it the nickname probably run tomorrow or something like that i honestly forget
I used to drive somewhat frequently between Maryland and Ohio, and Morgantown typically served as my midpoint stop. I wish I’d known this was here so I could’ve made a detour! Hope to see this for myself someday. Thanks for sharing!
@@Thom-TRA totally! It reminded me of new skyscraper elevators, where you check in with lobby security, and they tell you which elevator to catch (i.e. Elevator 5}, and that elevator only goes to the floor you've been authorized to go to.
Nice video. Glad to learn this system is still in use. In high school, in the ‘70s, I worked summers at the Boeing Kent Space Center (just south of Seattle) and always enjoyed watching those PRT ‘cars’ running on the test track there.
Huge shoutout to Lindsey for supporting Thom in making those videos! And to you good man for filling my saturday with knowledge and entertainment. I have heard about the PRT in Morgantown, but this is the best documentary about it I have seen so far. Also, I want to add, that there is a similar system in germany, at the TU (technical university) Dortmund. They have a driverless suspension railway (dangle train) to connect the different sites. It works just like the Morgantown system at times with low demand. And now I want to visit it (since there is no chance to visit the Morgantown system anytime soon).
Thank you for this fascinating video ! I was unaware of its existence, but enjoyed your description , and the many scenes along the way. It seems ideal for the University Campus, but as you say, it is not so good at accommodating large crowds who require multiple destinations. Amazing that it is 50 years old !
Very interesting insight into personal rapid transit. Awesome and costly infrastructure involved so it is easy to see why it would not be very practical as a major city form of public transit. But in a closed circuit application such as that at Morgantown, I can see its usefulness. Thanks for sharing.🙂🙂🙂
This is very interesting. I didn't know about this project. The ride looks peaceful and enjoyable. It reminded me of the Stearns Railroad trip along the Cumberland River in Eastern Kentucky.
I think a system like this has its niche but beyond that it isn’t a replacement for buses or trains. Imagine the Tube in London or New York Subway at Rush Hour and how many pods you would need to move as many people as a regular subway train. Even Airport PeopleMovers would be more efficient. It definitely has its niche at WVU because of complicated geography.
2 Million strikes me as more than capable of supporting a regional rail or bus network given that Kernow (Cornwall) has a population of 577,600 and supports 6 rail lines and a semi intergrated bus network. University transport is a heavy feature of Cornwall's public transport with the U1-4 bus network and The Maritime Line. I do wonder how cost effective these pod shuttles are. There was a proposed metro around Cambridge using pod style transport but it was another project like HS2 and GWR electrification that got junked by an anti public transport government. I wish MARC trains ran more services into West Virginia
IDK Thom, are you willing to share where you went to university? I went to SJSU and the engineer guys there are already researching a PRT. Can you believe that?
It all seems really unnecessary tbh. A regular people-mover making all stops would be way cheaper and nearly as fast end-to-end. 73 cars for such a tiny system is insane, and the stations are so much bigger and more overengineered compared to how they'd need to be for a regular people-mover.
Wow Thom....this is SO cool......who knew this existed? Well...apparently, you did! Now I have to add this to my bucket list.....it's the funnest thing ever....love how you can just bypass the stations!
Thom, it was good meeting you and your friend at Manassas Yesterday. We eventually had to retire the Amtrak RDC due to electrical problems. We also have a handmade model of the Kensington Station created by one of our members, but unfortunately we didn't have it put out. It's about 3 feet long, and impressive to see. If we continue to do our annual holiday display at Brookside Gardens, you could view the station model there. Also, this is another fantastic video! Thank you for making them for us.
That seems incredibly elaborate. Most places would just have a minibus shuttle. It does rather look like the engineering faculty was allowed to go wild and design their ideal rapid transit system, only for real!
Thanks for sharing. it's a pretty cool transit system and I bet it's handy for students, facultyu and staff at the university. This looks like something transplanted from EPCOT into the real world. BTW does anyone know how the switches work
Vehicles tell the central computer where they are (pior to the 2010s this job was handled by guideway equipment). Central computer then tells the vehicles where to go.
If you have to wait upwards of 5 minutes for a train, then it seems like a lot of the time you save by running express is just lost to waiting time. If they just ran 'regular' trains every couple of minutes, in reality the trip times would probably be about the same
@@Thom-TRA most stations make you wail 5 min. Going to or from Walnut is 7min sometimes. They do this so they can run more full vehicles and reduce the number of vehicles in use. The operators are pretty chill thought. If it’s not busy and you grab the station phone and ask nicely, sometimes they will let you on early.
This seems like a highly impractical system that would be fun to try out once or twice. I'd never heard of it. Then again, I've barely heard of West Virginia!
It was widely panned for its delays cost overruns at the time (Reader’s Digest did a famous hit piece on it). And it *did* have delays and cost overruns (as most brand-new technologies do). Sort of a shame it got tarnished with the stench of failure, as it’s been quite successful once the bugs were worked out. Morgantown is in a narrow valley without room to build new highways and had very real traffic congestion issues before the PRT opened. Such systems are not appropriate in larger cities but other medium-sized cities could benefit from them (and mass production would cut costs).
Thanks for sharing these thoughts, I agree. Hopefully other expensive, delayed projects will be better able to shake off their bad reputation in the states (like HSR).
I dont know if my comment went through but man i wish my university had a system like this and we dont even have a bus system within the university. My university is ERAU. But we got a great location and great beaches here in Florida.
The system is somewhat similar to the H-Bahn in Dortmund, Germany. It also operates on a campus, but the trains are hanging from above and carry more passengers at once. Also most of the time it operates on a normal timetable. But I believe that it originally stems from the PRT concept.
Thanks for your take on this - it raises the question of how personal 'Personal' actually is - has there ever been a rage issue from 2 groups competing for exclusive use of one pod? Thereapart this would be a track basher's heaven - they should do premium tours of every last millimetre of the system, starting and finishing at the engineering base. Colour scheme is unfortunate though, reminds me of the interior of a Ryanair plane and also of the seating area of the old Digbeth Coach Station, pre-refurb - bit of an adventure before you even got on a coach in Birmingham. Oh well. Thanks again \m/
Wow! Thanks for the video. I haven't been on the PRT in 30 years. I was visiting a friend at WVU. I drove to Morgantown from DC. Upon arrival, my friend told me where to park (I should not have listened to him). The next morning, my car was gone. It got towed. Since my friend didn't have a car, we took the PRT to the impound lot. I probably would have enjoyed the PRT more if I wasn't worried about my car.
Thanks for the very interesting video! Please, tell me, are you planning to visit the updated South Shore Interurban between Chicago and South Bend? They made some new double-track sections, upgraded stations and removed street-running section - so trains become faster for 30 minutes.
That's so cool. I've been by Morgantown several times and never knew this existed. For some reason my mind goes to the movie Total Recall (the first one) and the Johnny Cab. "Thanks for riding Johnny Cab!"
I attended WVU from 1980-1982 and used the PRT every day. Between the downtown campus, Evansdale and Medical it's a long trip and this solved a problem that was unique to WVU's layout. I visited the control center for the PRT while I was there and it created my livelong interest in engineering and electric transportation.
While this couldn't replace a lot of modes of transportation, it would be PERFECT for a ton of places that have no transportation infrastructure. I can think of a ton of places where it would make sense, how cool.
This would be wonderful in Los Angeles to feed pedestrians between the Metro K & C lines, LAX, So-Fi Stadium, Intuit Dome, TH-cam Theater taking a lot of traffic off of the city streets.
Nice piece on one of my favorite systems. I've wanted to ride the PRT since I saw it featured in a documentary on unusual transit systems about 20-25 years ago (I can't remember the name of the program or much about the other systems featured). I finally got a chance to ride it last fall - I took a side trip to Morgantown for a couple days just to ride it. And it was free that day as well. It's getting klunky, mechanically, but it still works as designed through many upgrades to the control systems.
The cynic in me sees PRT and thinks "Personal Rapid Transit... so basically a car, with a lot less usefulness" Doesn't seem to really grab onto the demographic of something like a BRT due to the P part, but maybe that's because it's not well used? Feels like something Elon Musk would come up with, except steal the idea from someone, say it's his, and they act like he's be altruistic in giving "his idea" to anyone who wants to develop it.
This was a delightful and awesome video, and I thoroughly enjoyed your joy and amazement of riding this unique transit system. Thank you for your explanations and observations, and it makes me want to make a stop there too to experience this awesome little “private” train!!!
Well no mode of transportation is perfect but I do think that PRT could work in more places. I wouldn’t want it or other people movers to be dominant form of transit everywhere but it could work well in conjunction with rapid transit, light rail or whatever. One specific PRT line that never got built but should’ve been was a line from the Rosemont CTA Blue line station to the commuter rail station closest to O’Hare airport.
Kinda reminds me of the H Bahn in Dortmund and the Singapore LRT, just more private. The latter one also struggles with the smoothness of the ride. But nontheless a very cool concept with potential to be implemented in more cities👌🏻
This system reminds me of a shuttle train that you'd see at airports but on a larger scale. With the use so many vehicles, the operator in me would love to see the operating system which keeps the trains at safe distant from one another and I love the use of express tracks to bypass the other stations.
I think it would make sense to have a train connecting with the PRT that runs up to Pittsburgh; since Pittsburgh is pretty close, and UWV has around 25K students. If only Pittsburgh had kept its commuter rail lines
There are railroad track on the other side of the river heading to Pittsburg. Currently only used by freight. This is part of the reason I keep telling people we should expand the PRT to Westover. There is a bus that makes trips to Pittsburg that you can transfer to from the PRT’s medical station. Not a great arrangement though as you have to walk through the parking garage and several flights of stairs.
Wow, this brings back memories of my undergrad days at WVU. I took the PRT from Towers to Beechhurst every day. Those steps up to the downtown campus were rough. It was also convenient to take it to Walnut on Friday nights to go out, in pre Uber/Lyft times and Taxis were few.
@@Thom-TRA I went to WVU in the md to late 90's, It ran until 10pm on weeknights. 5 or 6 Saturday except during home football games. No Sunday service. To get back late you would take a university shuttle bus, which were old International school buses in Mountaineer Livery, affectionally called the "Drunk Bus" or one of the few city taxis.. It ran on a Saturday schedule during summer weekdays but I believe that stopped from the pandemic. When I was there the system was still run on the original computer hardware and software. Replacement parts were an issue. A break down mid-trip was not unusual. Unless the university put out a bulletin to the professors of a major issue, it was a non-excuse for lateness. The computers were ancient even by 1990's standards. I believe punch cards were used on some systems. There were 4 quadrant block signs above entry points to the cars with a destination that would light up and a bell would sound. So at Walnut the sign would be Beechurst, Engineering, Towers and Medical. If I recall correctly, Saturday mode would not have express but all stop "local" service, except during football games. Express was weekday only. If on a weekday you were going to less frequented stop like Walnut 7am Monday morning you would swipe or pay your 50 cents then, yup same as now, would wait around 10 mins or until 10 people showed up for the same destination before boarding. The guideway is heated to melt snow and ice and unless it was more than 6 or 8" University would not close. The elements can be seen where the rubber tires roll. A broken down car would be rescued and towed by old AMC Jeep CJ's in extreme cases.
You have Virginia and West Virginia which split apart during the Civil War,no East Virginia!All the others that share a name have compass points in them;South and North Carolina and North and South Dakota .
I'm a Mountaineer and a Morgantonian and thought I'd share a little info for the nerds. The behavior of the PRT at 11:43 (stopping on the main guideway to give way to another car) is not how the system behaved for the majority of its life. The PRT cars originally communicated with the main computer, located in the building seen at 7:37 , through a wire embedded in a little groove in the floor of the guideway. In the first 40+ years of the life of the system, you could imagine that the computer had a number of "slots" constantly circling the main guideway. Once a car was ready to depart a station, it would be dispatched into a "slot" and would leave the station at the proper time to merge right into that slot. No car would ever stop at any point between platforms during normal operation. The path and speed of the car was entirely determined once it had departed. However, any fault whatsoever in the miles-long system would bring every car to a screeching halt. Due to difficulty sourcing parts (❗including vacuum tubes❗) for the computer, which had been compared to the computer of the Cold War era Minuteman Missile System, the Thales Company (pronounced Talus) was contracted to modernize the backend of the system. The cars now communicate wirelessly via the square boxes mounted on poles on the track like the one seen at 11:11 at the top right. The new control system allows the cars to be spaced closer along the guideway and gives more power to the operators in managing faults in the system. However, it is during this modernization that the system saw its only collision during its decades-long operation. The cars' path, including giving way as seen, is able to adapt to the requests of the system, so now every trip may not be the same. Cars will sometimes now queue along the guideway as they wait for a platform at the busier stations during peak traffic. I recommend anyone interested in the history, construction, and former operation of the PRT to check out the 1977 documentary film, "A Ride of the Future", which can be found on the WV State Archives TH-cam page. In that video you will see the original computer, the old communications wire being laid in the tracks and buried in molten rubber, all set to absolutely manic 70s electronic jazz. Thank you all for visiting Morgantown and checking out my favorite transit in the world!
Thanks for all this great info! I would have never been able to find all this myself!
My dad was a WVU student in the mid 70s when the PRT was built. He said that before it was built, it would take over 20 minutes to get from one campus to another due to the road traffic. He said it was SOOO much nicer once they had the system up and running.
I bet! That’s so cool he witnessed it opening
Love those mountain views! Another key reason why Morgantown wanted the PRT was its geography! As WVU expanded in the 1960s, geographic constraints, as the city is in a valley along the Monongahela River, forced WVU to build a second campus over 3 km away in Evansdale. While free busing was offered for students so they can move between the campuses, all the roads led through the city center, creating gridlock more typical of a megacity, so Morgantown needed something more efficient to move its students than buses. And as mentioned, this was cheaper to build than mass transit. But of course for much bigger cities, you're better off just building mass transit because in the end, all that money used to build a proper mass transit system pays off. Also, for other PRT systems, Heathrow built a PRT Ultra pod system in May 2011 on a 3.9-kilometer route connecting Terminal 5 to its business passenger car park! Unlike cars on British roads, the Heathrow pods drive on the right! They use batteries and vehicles can steer themselves and make their own turns between routes based on an internal map
In Wuppertal, their geography is why they chose to build a suspended monorail! Wuppertal is located in a river valley (that's what Wuppertal means; Wupper Valley), and because of steep slopes, the original towns that now makes up Wuppertal expanded lengthwise (resulting in the thin shape of Wuppertal today). It wasn't suitable to build a tram nor a subway, so as a way to both unify the valley and find a place for transit to solve congestion, they built a suspended monorail that followed the Wupper River. It is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world as it opened in 1901!
I love the ingenuity people have when Mother Nature poses a challenge!
Avery why do I see you everywhere
Other unique transit systems that serve universities: The H-Bahn at TU Dortmund University in Germany is a suspension railway/monorail! It opened in 1984 where it initially just connected the north and south campuses with a single line. However, many stations have 2 platforms with a track either side permitting carriages to pass each other in opposite directions. 75% of it was funded by the German government while 20% by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and 5% by the city of Dortmund. The longest span between support pillars is 38.5 meters, where it crosses the university road, which bisects the two campuses. Just beyond the road the H-Bahn crosses through a nature reserve at its maximum elevation of about 16 meters above ground. In 1993, following a three-year construction period, a 900 m long branch was opened, along with new stations, one in Eichlinghofen and another at the S-Bahn station at the university!
The Portland Aerial Tram connects the city's South Waterfront district and the main Oregon Health & Science University campus! The tram was jointly funded by OHSU, the City of Portland, and by South Waterfront property owners, with most of the funding coming from OHSU. It is owned by the city and operated by OHSU. The Rakavlit in Haifa is a cable car, from the HaMifratz Central Bus Station and public transit hub at the foot of Mount Carmel to the Technion and then onto the University of Haifa, for a total distance of 4.4 kilometers and an elevation gain of 460 m! Mount Carmel also has an underground funicular for its neighborhoods, the Carmelit! It opened in 1959, making it the oldest underground transit system in the Middle East! The Carmelit doesn't serve the university however
It's in West Virginia because of powerful US Senator Robert Byrd. He also required Amtrak provide "gravy trains" to the state, trains that did not have the ridership to support the service.
The Cardinal, at least, has enough ridership to run every day, but AmTrack hasn't the rolling stock.
Another interesting fact: The tracks have pipes embedded in them to carry heated antifreeze so they can melt the snow and ice during the winter.
That’s very useful
College towns and airports are really the only places I could see systems like this working. There’s a good reason why only a handful of systems like this exist. The only two systems I can think of are this and Heathrow Pods which take people from Terminal 5 to the parking garage. Even most airports utilize people movers instead of PRT. Still, I think this is a cool little thing that exists and looks fun to ride
And honestly, a bigger cabin to deal with more people, although you would think that's a ghost town based on the video, and just do a loop rather than bypassing stations seems like it would be just as useful considering how few people there are riding this.
These could work in the Florida and Southern California theme parks. Build one to connect all the resorts at the Disney or Universal campuses.
At the time it was touted as the wave of the future. HA!
Wow, a college has its own transit network? Honestly huge colleges should learn from this.
Several have bus systems but nothing like this
@@Thom-TRA a lot of people (especially college students) criticize a specific one, but I forgot which one.
UC Davis: Am I a joke to you?
@@MistuhKayTrains I want to go there so bad
Dortmund, Germany has its own university dangling monorail system and it has connections to other public transport.
Great video! I grew up in morgantown. Interesting fact- on weekends during low ridership, the pods will open and stop at all stops on the route. Also, during busier times, you may share a pod with others. In fact, it gets a little tight during mid-week.
Morgantown is in the Fallout 76 video game. The remnants of this rapid transit systems cars and platforms etc. are in the game.
It sounds like there are a lot of transit systems in fallout. I’ve gotten this comment before.
Thanks. I knew about the system in the 70's but have NEVER seen it in service until now. Great Video. Cheers!
"Take Me Home Country Roads" was primarily written by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, who lived in D.C. John Denver later helped with the lyrics, but he was not the principal writer.
I lived in Morgantown for 8 years (not a student). I...and my kids...used the PRT to get from the Evansdale neighborhood to the downtown and back when it was running... (It usually is shut down over the summer...)
That’s awesome!
There was kind of another, bigger, PRT system built. The Vought Airtrans at DFW airport was built with bypass tracks at the stations to allow for this style of operation. But for the sake of capacity it ran numerous fixed routes rather than operating on a true point to point basis. It was also used for cargo and baggage so counting all stops it was over 50 stations, 33 for passengers. It's absolutely a fascinating system that is sadly no longer in operation. Some of the old tracks and stations are visible from the newer skylink people mover. Vought's website about the system hasn't been updated in more than 20 years and is absolutely worth a visit.
I never realized there was a system before the current one at DFW
@@Thom-TRA I was just about to suggest that this is very reminiscent of the DFW Airtrans system and later the TrAAin connecting the American Airlines terminals. I used the TrAAin twice back in the 90s and early 2000s before the Skylink was introduced. It was a very interesting system!
@@Thom-TRA As I kid I would book long layovers at DFW just to ride it. It went all over the airport including to the remote parking lots and had stops at both Hyatt hotels. The fact that it operated on the landslide outside of security was no big deal back in the day when it only took 30 seconds to go through security.
@@Thom-TRAThe old DFW AirTrans was a fascinating system for its time (1974) but by the 90s it was very obsolete. You can still see the guideways outside the terminals if you look in the right places.
This PRT is AMAZING…it’s nearly 50yrs old and still running…mind blown! Seriously and I have ridden on the ICE is Germany and the Shinkansen in Japan. Thank you for this piece! As a Californian, I might actually go to West Virginia just to check this system out 😍
Now that’s saying something!
PRT would also work in airport environment for terminal transfers as well parking areas, and intermodal stations (bus/train) that are on/next to the airport property.
From a technology standpoint, it seems like it was something of a "proof of concept" for the Detroit/Miami/Jacksonville people mover.
Those do operate a lot more than regular trains, however
I could listen to this thing’s sweet “errrrrrrrrrr brooooon earrrrr chi-boom phsssssss’ all day :)
I couldn’t believe how loud the system was
Duke University also had a PRT system that ran between their main campus and their Medical Center. They took it out in the 1990's...
The university years ago had a challenge to see what student groups could fit the most amount of people in one train the band won
Tom Scott did a video on this a while ago that's worth viewing although there's no Lindsey in it. Heathrow has pods at Terminal 5 if I remember correctly.
“Although there’s no Lindsey in it” made me laugh out loud. Also, you’re right about Heathrow!
Yes you remember correctly 😊
i live in morgantown, it rathers sucks transit wise, the prt is alright but im not in college so theres not too much use otherwise, unless you live in south park or close to downtown. It definitely does what it was made for but not much else, also it breaks down a lot some of the students gave it the nickname probably run tomorrow or something like that i honestly forget
I used to drive somewhat frequently between Maryland and Ohio, and Morgantown typically served as my midpoint stop. I wish I’d known this was here so I could’ve made a detour! Hope to see this for myself someday. Thanks for sharing!
You’ll have to redo the drive just for old times’ sake!
Of course, with a stop at Sheetz along the way
@@jarodarmstrong I live for the goji berry Mountain Dew at sheetz
Same here, but NYC to Cincinnati. There was a Big Boy just off the interstate 😂
How odd.
Still, better than Musk's stupid Vegas loop thing.
Horizontal elevator ftw! Great description! 🎉
Thanks! I wish the elevator in my apartment building wouldn’t make any intermediate stops
@@Thom-TRA totally! It reminded me of new skyscraper elevators, where you check in with lobby security, and they tell you which elevator to catch (i.e. Elevator 5}, and that elevator only goes to the floor you've been authorized to go to.
Nice video. Glad to learn this system is still in use. In high school, in the ‘70s, I worked summers at the Boeing Kent Space Center (just south of Seattle) and always enjoyed watching those PRT ‘cars’ running on the test track there.
Were they already clad in yellow and blue back then?
@@Thom-TRA blue and gold paint came in the 2000s. Originally they were white with the Boeing and UMTA logo.
Huge shoutout to Lindsey for supporting Thom in making those videos! And to you good man for filling my saturday with knowledge and entertainment. I have heard about the PRT in Morgantown, but this is the best documentary about it I have seen so far.
Also, I want to add, that there is a similar system in germany, at the TU (technical university) Dortmund. They have a driverless suspension railway (dangle train) to connect the different sites. It works just like the Morgantown system at times with low demand. And now I want to visit it (since there is no chance to visit the Morgantown system anytime soon).
I rode the Dortmund H-Bahn a few years ago, really enjoyed it!
The electrical humming in the PRT station sounds like the wining of the cable in a gondola station
It really does!
Very cool. Like the future looked in 1970s sci-fi movies. I wonder how they steer at those junctions.
They have a computer system that tells them where to turn. All-wheel drive.
Cute but honestly it seems ridiculously inefficient in terms of cost to build vs rides per year.
The good people of Rutgers U in New Jersey could use one of these. 5 separate campus linked by diesel buses.
Insanity
Wow it looks nice😊! Heard That Indianapolis has a people mover as well. Check that out!😊
That one closed sadly!
Oh wow! I didn't know. However, it would be nice for Indianapolis, to have a light rail train that can go between Downtown and The Airport!
Thank you for this fascinating video ! I was unaware of its existence, but enjoyed your description , and the many scenes along the way. It seems ideal for the University Campus, but as you say, it is not so good at accommodating large crowds who require multiple destinations. Amazing that it is 50 years old !
This is so interesting, thanks for sharing with us! Going to try to make a stop here when I visit WV this month.
Let me know how it goes!
Very interesting insight into personal rapid transit. Awesome and costly infrastructure involved so it is easy to see why it would not be very practical as a major city form of public transit. But in a closed circuit application such as that at Morgantown, I can see its usefulness. Thanks for sharing.🙂🙂🙂
This is very interesting. I didn't know about this project. The ride looks peaceful and enjoyable. It reminded me of the Stearns Railroad trip along the Cumberland River in Eastern Kentucky.
I think a system like this has its niche but beyond that it isn’t a replacement for buses or trains. Imagine the Tube in London or New York Subway at Rush Hour and how many pods you would need to move as many people as a regular subway train. Even Airport PeopleMovers would be more efficient. It definitely has its niche at WVU because of complicated geography.
Have you ever been on the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn? I have but not since the 1990's.
West Virginia? A level of poverty competitive with 50 out of 50 Mississippi.
2 Million strikes me as more than capable of supporting a regional rail or bus network given that Kernow (Cornwall) has a population of 577,600 and supports 6 rail lines and a semi intergrated bus network.
University transport is a heavy feature of Cornwall's public transport with the U1-4 bus network and The Maritime Line.
I do wonder how cost effective these pod shuttles are. There was a proposed metro around Cambridge using pod style transport but it was another project like HS2 and GWR electrification that got junked by an anti public transport government.
I wish MARC trains ran more services into West Virginia
IDK Thom, are you willing to share where you went to university? I went to SJSU and the engineer guys there are already researching a PRT. Can you believe that?
I've always wanted to ride this, but whenever I've been through Morgantown it's been closed between terms. It's still a "bucket list" item for me.
So cool - I’ve never heard of this before.
It reminds me a little of the AIrBART In Oakland.
Very similar to the Heathrow Pods at LHR Airport in London, England
It all seems really unnecessary tbh. A regular people-mover making all stops would be way cheaper and nearly as fast end-to-end. 73 cars for such a tiny system is insane, and the stations are so much bigger and more overengineered compared to how they'd need to be for a regular people-mover.
Wow Thom....this is SO cool......who knew this existed? Well...apparently, you did! Now I have to add this to my bucket list.....it's the funnest thing ever....love how you can just bypass the stations!
It’s like an amusement park ride but practical. It’s so much fun!
Thom, it was good meeting you and your friend at Manassas Yesterday. We eventually had to retire the Amtrak RDC due to electrical problems. We also have a handmade model of the Kensington Station created by one of our members, but unfortunately we didn't have it put out. It's about 3 feet long, and impressive to see. If we continue to do our annual holiday display at Brookside Gardens, you could view the station model there. Also, this is another fantastic video! Thank you for making them for us.
Oh no! Sad to hear there were electrical problems. It was great to meet you too!
Brilliant video sir, good to see Lyndsey keeping an eye on you!
Awesome wee gadget bahn!
That seems incredibly elaborate. Most places would just have a minibus shuttle. It does rather look like the engineering faculty was allowed to go wild and design their ideal rapid transit system, only for real!
Thanks for sharing. it's a pretty cool transit system and I bet it's handy for students, facultyu and staff at the university. This looks like something transplanted from EPCOT into the real world. BTW does anyone know how the switches work
There are magnets that tell them where to turn!
Outstanding! How is the switching and control done? if this technology is decades old it must have been right on the bleeding edge.
Vehicles tell the central computer where they are (pior to the 2010s this job was handled by guideway equipment). Central computer then tells the vehicles where to go.
The story of how the Morgantown PRT was created and built, and the man behind all of that before Boeing became involved, is a fascinating tale.
Mr. Alden?
Thank you for the Video.. 📷 🚂
You're welcome
If you have to wait upwards of 5 minutes for a train, then it seems like a lot of the time you save by running express is just lost to waiting time. If they just ran 'regular' trains every couple of minutes, in reality the trip times would probably be about the same
I don’t think the wait is always that long
@@Thom-TRA most stations make you wail 5 min. Going to or from Walnut is 7min sometimes. They do this so they can run more full vehicles and reduce the number of vehicles in use.
The operators are pretty chill thought. If it’s not busy and you grab the station phone and ask nicely, sometimes they will let you on early.
Looks like fun!
It was great!
Very cool! Thanks.
49 years and no graffiti ???
so it's like the tesla loop but better in every way lmao
In every way
cars are in good shape for going on 50 years, too. wonder what they'll do when they crap out
I think people like it enough they’ll replace them
@@Thom-TRA would love to see what a modern rolling stock manufacturer could cook up for this system
This seems like a highly impractical system that would be fun to try out once or twice. I'd never heard of it. Then again, I've barely heard of West Virginia!
West Virginia? Where’s that?
@@Thom-TRA obligatory: “OHHH! West Virginia!!!! I have family in Richmond!”
It was widely panned for its delays cost overruns at the time (Reader’s Digest did a famous hit piece on it). And it *did* have delays and cost overruns (as most brand-new technologies do). Sort of a shame it got tarnished with the stench of failure, as it’s been quite successful once the bugs were worked out. Morgantown is in a narrow valley without room to build new highways and had very real traffic congestion issues before the PRT opened. Such systems are not appropriate in larger cities but other medium-sized cities could benefit from them (and mass production would cut costs).
Thanks for sharing these thoughts, I agree. Hopefully other expensive, delayed projects will be better able to shake off their bad reputation in the states (like HSR).
Let’s go first like and comment
Great Video i Enjoyed it😊
Thank you!!
I like PRTs, I don't have to deal with unruly passengers
I dont know if my comment went through but man i wish my university had a system like this and we dont even have a bus system within the university. My university is ERAU. But we got a great location and great beaches here in Florida.
This doesn't seem very efficient to me but interesting idea. I suppose it's something that could be useful somewhere.
The system is somewhat similar to the H-Bahn in Dortmund, Germany. It also operates on a campus, but the trains are hanging from above and carry more passengers at once. Also most of the time it operates on a normal timetable. But I believe that it originally stems from the PRT concept.
I have been on the Dortmund H-Bahn. Very weird, very fun. I made a video about it years ago.
"Take Me Home, Country Roads" was a hit in 1971. Did you know this song from decades before you were born? Great song!
The first sentence in this entire video is the first line of that song…
@@Thom-TRA whereas 'PRT, take me home' is the work of John Fort Collins, the off-brand tunesmith \m/
50 years old means they must have been using a big mainframe computer to handle the operation.
What speed do they get up to? They bomb along at what looks like about 80 mph
Thanks for your take on this - it raises the question of how personal 'Personal' actually is - has there ever been a rage issue from 2 groups competing for exclusive use of one pod?
Thereapart this would be a track basher's heaven - they should do premium tours of every last millimetre of the system, starting and finishing at the engineering base.
Colour scheme is unfortunate though, reminds me of the interior of a Ryanair plane and also of the seating area of the old Digbeth Coach Station, pre-refurb - bit of an adventure before you even got on a coach in Birmingham. Oh well.
Thanks again \m/
The Ryanair reference was on point
I would love to ride it but I'm on the other side of the world in Brisbane Australia
Wow! Thanks for the video. I haven't been on the PRT in 30 years. I was visiting a friend at WVU. I drove to Morgantown from DC. Upon arrival, my friend told me where to park (I should not have listened to him). The next morning, my car was gone. It got towed. Since my friend didn't have a car, we took the PRT to the impound lot. I probably would have enjoyed the PRT more if I wasn't worried about my car.
lol yeah definitely more enjoyable when you have peace of mind. As most things are.
I keep confusing it with Morganville
this is really awesome. Looks a little bit like Miami's Metromover, but this looks way cooler. Thanks again Thom for a great ride.
It’s certainly in a league of its own!
Wow I have multiple friends and relatives who went to WVU and I never knew about this! This is so cool.
You should ask them about it!
Thanks for the very interesting video!
Please, tell me, are you planning to visit the updated South Shore Interurban between Chicago and South Bend?
They made some new double-track sections, upgraded stations and removed street-running section - so trains become faster for 30 minutes.
I don’t have any plans yet as of right now but maybe!
I would love to know how the signaling system works on this thing
I know there are induction loops embedded in the track
That's so cool. I've been by Morgantown several times and never knew this existed. For some reason my mind goes to the movie Total Recall (the first one) and the Johnny Cab. "Thanks for riding Johnny Cab!"
Check it out next time! Won’t take more than half an hour
I attended WVU from 1980-1982 and used the PRT every day. Between the downtown campus, Evansdale and Medical it's a long trip and this solved a problem that was unique to WVU's layout. I visited the control center for the PRT while I was there and it created my livelong interest in engineering and electric transportation.
What a cool college memory!
While this couldn't replace a lot of modes of transportation, it would be PERFECT for a ton of places that have no transportation infrastructure. I can think of a ton of places where it would make sense, how cool.
Yep. As others have said, there are areas where this could be just niche enough.
This would be wonderful in Los Angeles to feed pedestrians between the Metro K & C lines, LAX, So-Fi Stadium, Intuit Dome, TH-cam Theater taking a lot of traffic off of the city streets.
They’re already building trains to connect those places, actually!
Nice piece on one of my favorite systems. I've wanted to ride the PRT since I saw it featured in a documentary on unusual transit systems about 20-25 years ago (I can't remember the name of the program or much about the other systems featured). I finally got a chance to ride it last fall - I took a side trip to Morgantown for a couple days just to ride it. And it was free that day as well. It's getting klunky, mechanically, but it still works as designed through many upgrades to the control systems.
We must have ridden it pretty close to each other, I was there last fall too
The cynic in me sees PRT and thinks "Personal Rapid Transit... so basically a car, with a lot less usefulness" Doesn't seem to really grab onto the demographic of something like a BRT due to the P part, but maybe that's because it's not well used? Feels like something Elon Musk would come up with, except steal the idea from someone, say it's his, and they act like he's be altruistic in giving "his idea" to anyone who wants to develop it.
It’s meant to be a labor-saving device for people making the same few trips.
This was a delightful and awesome video, and I thoroughly enjoyed your joy and amazement of riding this unique transit system. Thank you for your explanations and observations, and it makes me want to make a stop there too to experience this awesome little “private” train!!!
You should!!
Well no mode of transportation is perfect but I do think that PRT could work in more places. I wouldn’t want it or other people movers to be dominant form of transit everywhere but it could work well in conjunction with rapid transit, light rail or whatever. One specific PRT line that never got built but should’ve been was a line from the Rosemont CTA Blue line station to the commuter rail station closest to O’Hare airport.
I wish the Rosemont one would have been built too
Kinda reminds me of the H Bahn in Dortmund and the Singapore LRT, just more private. The latter one also struggles with the smoothness of the ride. But nontheless a very cool concept with potential to be implemented in more cities👌🏻
Love the H-Bahn
harry bird was the best US senator for bringing home pork to his constituents.
Robert C. Byrd. Half the things in the state are named after him.
So these are basically the same as the People Movers at Disney?
Sort of not really
This system reminds me of a shuttle train that you'd see at airports but on a larger scale.
With the use so many vehicles, the operator in me would love to see the operating system which keeps the trains at safe distant from one another and I love the use of express tracks to bypass the other stations.
I'm sure you might be able to find some stuff online! Otherwise, it's worth giving the university a call
How are the pods controlled at diverging points? How are the controlled in general?
There is a magnetic loop system that gives the steering system instructions
I think it would make sense to have a train connecting with the PRT that runs up to Pittsburgh; since Pittsburgh is pretty close, and UWV has around 25K students. If only Pittsburgh had kept its commuter rail lines
Yeah it’s pretty close
There are railroad track on the other side of the river heading to Pittsburg. Currently only used by freight. This is part of the reason I keep telling people we should expand the PRT to Westover.
There is a bus that makes trips to Pittsburg that you can transfer to from the PRT’s medical station. Not a great arrangement though as you have to walk through the parking garage and several flights of stairs.
There's a similar system at Heathrow T5 for the business car parks.
Yes there is!
Wow, this brings back memories of my undergrad days at WVU. I took the PRT from Towers to Beechhurst every day. Those steps up to the downtown campus were rough. It was also convenient to take it to Walnut on Friday nights to go out, in pre Uber/Lyft times and Taxis were few.
Did it run all night long?
@@Thom-TRA I went to WVU in the md to late 90's, It ran until 10pm on weeknights. 5 or 6 Saturday except during home football games. No Sunday service. To get back late you would take a university shuttle bus, which were old International school buses in Mountaineer Livery, affectionally called the "Drunk Bus" or one of the few city taxis.. It ran on a Saturday schedule during summer weekdays but I believe that stopped from the pandemic. When I was there the system was still run on the original computer hardware and software. Replacement parts were an issue. A break down mid-trip was not unusual. Unless the university put out a bulletin to the professors of a major issue, it was a non-excuse for lateness. The computers were ancient even by 1990's standards. I believe punch cards were used on some systems. There were 4 quadrant block signs above entry points to the cars with a destination that would light up and a bell would sound. So at Walnut the sign would be Beechurst, Engineering, Towers and Medical. If I recall correctly, Saturday mode would not have express but all stop "local" service, except during football games. Express was weekday only. If on a weekday you were going to less frequented stop like Walnut 7am Monday morning you would swipe or pay your 50 cents then, yup same as now, would wait around 10 mins or until 10 people showed up for the same destination before boarding. The guideway is heated to melt snow and ice and unless it was more than 6 or 8" University would not close. The elements can be seen where the rubber tires roll. A broken down car would be rescued and towed by old AMC Jeep CJ's in extreme cases.
Very cool. I'm guessing they don't run in snow and ice?
There are actually warmers in the track that melt it
I think of West Virginia as the home of the Shay Steam Locomotives and the B&O and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroads.
That's Really Amazing What Will They Think 🤔 Of Next. Thanks For Video.😅😊❤
You have Virginia and West Virginia which split apart during the Civil War,no East Virginia!All the others that share a name have compass points in them;South and North Carolina and North and South Dakota .
I literally live here, these things break down every hour.
Counterpoint: I went to WVU for 4 years and never once got stuck on the PRT, riding is mostly daily.
it obviously isn’t viable for entire towns and cities, but on a small scale like a college campus this is really neat!
I wish my campus had one!
@@Thom-TRA same