From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Trains Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Trains, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to rail transport on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
	See also: WikiProject Trains to do list
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale. (assessment comments)
Mid	This article has been rated as mid-importance within the Trains WikiProject.
	This article is maintained by the Monorail task force.

Not as 'sexy' as maglev, yet still sufficient to affront the establishment as a challenge to their monopoly of wisdom and expert status, the gyro monorail has never had a favourable press. Most assessments reflect the ignorance of the authors, rather than real deficiencies, conclusions appear to be written before the analysis, baselines for comparison are conspicuous by their absence, or ill-defined, Intuition is in evidence where objective analysis and sound scholarship are required. I thought it high time some facts were introduced to the debate. Gordon Vigurs 11:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Language 2 Wow 3 I like this sentence: 4 If you insist 5 Request to 'wikify' 5.1 Derailing

[edit] Language

What are you talking about? This is the English language Wikipedia. There's nothing stopping you front translating it into the other languages for the other wiki's.SirLamer 15:42, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wow

Well, this article must be one of the most detailed, complicated, technical articles on Wikipedia, all wonderfully illustrated with incomprehensible diagrams and formulae - that tells me absolutely nothing about the most important question - does it work?? Can we have a section on real-life implementations and why they succeeded or failed? Thanks. DWaterson 23:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I like this sentence:

Gyros work because sulum proprius of orbita quod est simultaneously spinning quod precessing insisto a trajectory per veneratio ut torpeo tractus quod est symmetrical super spin , quod precession axes , tamen asymmetrical super tertius axis , hinc adicio Newton’s Secundus Lex ut sulum proprius , quod consummatio pro universitas rota , illic est casses moment inter tertius axis. That’s it; there is nothing mystical or strange about it.

なるほど as they say in Japanese.

Like the guy who commented before me, I'd like some explanation as to why we're not all riding around in Gyro Monorails. There's a photo with the article, so someone must have built one at some point, but what happened to it? --61.214.155.14 05:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] If you insist

There are many technically sound ideas that never caught on, this is one of them. See Monorail history for what little history there is. The problem is that the only nations with the technological resources to develop it already had extensive conventional railway networks. It was an idea some 50 to 100 years ahead of its time. I'm sorry, but the article cannot be dumbed down further. Gordon Vigurs 17:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Ahem. I hardly think that it is "dumbing down" to provide readers with useful, practical information. Wikipedia is, after all, an encyclopaedia, not a technical manual. You wouldn't expect to have, say, a technical article about how televisions work, without then saying what programmes you can watch on them, would you? DWaterson 21:29, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually I would. The functioning of televisions has nothing whatsoever to do with the plots of soap operas. Also, it is doubtful whether the readership of one would be remotely interested in the other. Gordon Vigurs 23:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Very well. I find that a rather pretentious and arrogant approach, but clearly you consider it appropriate for this article and I bow to your superior knowledge on the subject matter. Nevertheless, I think you will find that Wikipedia, as an encyclopaedia (not a technical manual) seeks to blend both practical and technical information in a manner that the layman would find useful. Therefore, I do still think that it is appropriate to include a section on the gyro monorail in practice in the article. DWaterson 02:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree, but the article is already very long. OK, I'll put an extended introduction in to cover history of development, examples etc.. Watch this space. Gordon Vigurs 08:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added a section, which I hope covers the missing information. By the way, thanks for taking an interest. Gordon Vigurs 20:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the newly-added history background, I think it really improves the article. --220.106.63.163 03:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request to 'wikify'

Please specify precisely in which respect the article is deficient. It appears to conform to the manual of style, but the subject matter is not amenable to presentation as a geek list.Gordon Vigurs 11:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The most obvious:

• GIANT images (use "thumb" without a px size)
• Images without captions
• Title Capitalization Of Headers
• Linking of notable terms to their articles
• Unit formatting and metric conversions

— Omegatron 15:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Regarding image formatting, the layout guide and manual of style are not completely consistent, so as a newcomer I welcome advice. Gordon Vigurs 22:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Note that thumb without a set px size leaves the image at the user's default size. If you want a bigger default size, you can set it in your user preferences. — Omegatron 14:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Derailing

Intuitively, I would expect the gyro monorail to derail much more readily than a conventional twin-track train, given the same level of ground vibration. How did the designers prevent derailment, or did they just ignore the problem? --220.106.63.163 03:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not too sure that it is likely to be any worse, a double flange imposes a pretty extreme constraint on the lateral displacement of the wheel. Brennan's model quite happily negotiated a bridge consisting of a stretched cable, with no tendency to fall off. The radii of curves used in the test tracks were much sharper than could be negotiated by a conventional railway - again showing no tendency to derail.

During trials with the full size vehicle, Brennan deliberately spun the gyros in the same direction so that the actuation torques introduced a net yawing moment, introducing a tendency to derail, as well as the potential for instability described in the article. Again this caused no major problems. I suspect it is the erroneous assumption of pitch/yaw gyroscopic reactions on the vehicle which gives rise to this intuition. In a double counter-rotating gyro system, such as employed by Brennan and Scherl, these reactions are balanced out leaving only roll torques.

Please expand your point, it may well be valid. After all, nobody to date has driven one of these things faster than 30mph.Gordon Vigurs 16:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow response. I think Brennan's experiment defeats any amount of theoretical hand-waving on my part.

For the sake of completeness, I will try to explain better. I was thinking that since a conventional train not only has a flange on each wheel, it also has a stopper on each side, it is less likely to derail should the track suddenly move out of the way. --220.106.59.56 12:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)