List of monorail systems
Monorail systems have been built in many countries around the world, many of them on elevated tracks through crowded areas that would otherwise require the construction of expensive underground lines or have the disadvantages of surface lines.
-
Operational monorails
This is a listing of monorails that are presently operating and open to the public. Only true monorails (self-propelled, vehicle wider than track) are included; see People mover for a list of "monorail-like" systems.
Africa
South Africa
Asia
People's Republic of China
- Chongqing Rail Transit, Chongqing
- Shanghai Maglev Train, Shanghai
- Happy Line, Shenzhen, Guangdong
- Window of the World Monorail, at the Window of the World amusement park, Shenzhen, Guangdong
- Castfast Hotel, Fenggang, Dongguan, Guangdong[3]
Japan
Japan employs monorails in many cities, including:
Malaysia
Philippines
Singapore
South Korea
Thailand
United Arab Emirates
Europe
- Belgium: There are monorails in the Bobbejaanland theme park.
- Finland has a monorail in the Linnanmäki amusement park.
- Germany has several monorail systems:
- Ireland: Listowel was the site of the world's first commercial monorail, named the Lartigue system after Charles Lartigue who constructed this railway in 1888. A straddle-type monorail on a triangular beam, it was perhaps the only passenger monorail to also regularly carry freight and cattle. An historical recreation now exists and carries passengers as an entertainment.
- Italy: Mirabilandia Amusement Park in Ravenna, 1 station, 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi).
- Netherlands: there is a monorail located at the Slagharen amusement park and one located at Ouwehands Zoo.
- Russia: The history of monorails in Russia dates back to 1820. The Moscow Monorail opened in 2004 has 6 stations, 4.7 kilometres (2.9 mi).
- Spain: Plaza Imperial Monorail in Zaragoza (Aragon), opened in 2008, 2 stations, 0.6 kilometres (0.37 mi).[4]
- United Kingdom: monorail systems operate at:
North America
Monorails can be found in the following places in North America:
- Disneyland Monorail System, Disneyland, Anaheim, California - Known as the "First daily operating Monorail system in the Western Hemisphere"
- Niles Monorail in Fremont, California. This fully operational, homebuilt, backyard monorail was constructed by monorail enthusiast, Kim Pedersen
- Walt Disney World Monorail System, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida - Serves over fifty million passengers yearly
- Zoo Miami, in Miami, Florida - Connects major exhibits at the zoo
- JTA Skyway, in Jacksonville, Florida - Connects the main JTA bus terminal to the convention center and other downtown destinations, as well as a Park and ride garage
- Pearlridge Skycab, Pearlridge Center in Aiea, HI, near Honolulu. Connects the Uptown part of the mall to the Downtown part of the mall. It is the only monorail system in Hawaii.
- Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, Minnesota
- Las Vegas Monorail, Las Vegas, Nevada - public transit
- Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey - AirTrain Newark connects terminals, parking lots, and Amtrak/NJ Transit Northeast Corridor rail station
- Hershey, Pennsylvania - amusement monorail at Hersheypark
- Lancaster, Pennsylvania - amusement monorail at Dutch Wonderland [6]
- Ocean City, New Jersey - amusement monorail at Gillians Wonderland Pier
- Memphis, Tennessee - a short suspended monorail connects Mud Island in the Mississippi River to Memphis.
- Dallas Zoo in Dallas, Texas
- Seattle, Washington - short monorail (Seattle Center Monorail) built for the Century 21 Exposition in 1962
- Six Flags La Ronde in Montreal, Quebec - once part of a larger monorail systems built for Expo 67
- Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida - installed in 1991 for transportation between the parking garage and different Airsides. It was the first monorail in that cars are completely computer operated.
- Bronx Zoo in Bronx, New York City to visit Wild Asia exhibit in the Bronx Zoo
- California State Fair monorail in Sacramento, California on the fairgrounds at CalExpo
- Jungle Jim's International Market monorail in Fairfield, OH brings riders from a remote parking lot to the Oscar Events Center; cars were originally used at nearby Kings Island. [7]
South America
- Poços de Caldas, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais have a monorail since 1990. It has not been successful as a mass transit system, and nowadays is mostly used as a tourist attraction. It extends for 6 km, comprising 11 stations. There is a second monorail in the city of Poços de Caldas that is now decommissioned due to a failure in the track. The train sits on display at the station in the city center.
Australia
Monorails under construction
Physical construction work has started on the following monorails:
- Makkah Monorail, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.[6]
- Mumbai Monorail, India.[7]
- Calabar Monorail, Nigeria[8]
- Putrajaya Monorail, Malaysia. Construction suspended in 2004.
- Skybus Metro, Margao, Goa, India. 1.6 km test track built, construction of 10.5 km public track suspended.
- Line 2, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Monorail extension (23 km) to conventional line, under construction since 2009.
Proposed monorails
Africa
North America
South America
- Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil,[15] proposed as part of development plan for the FIFA World Cup 2014. The project has been suspended.[16]
- São Paulo, Brazil has a project to build a monorail that will connect Congonhas Airport to Morumbi and Jabaquara districts.[17]
- Vargas, Venezuela. Proposed. The system would be part of state of Vargas new governor's transportation plan. The project would connect 5 cities: Catia La Mar, Maiquetia, La Guaira, Macuto and Caraballeda. The Swiss corporation Intamil presented the proposal. The trains will ride around 80 km/h and will translate about 60.000 passenger per hour.
Asia
- West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong, linking the WKCD with Tsim Sha Tsui
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, four new lines in addition to the current one: Petaling Jaya monorail, Subang Jaya monorail, Sungei Buloh monorail and Cheras monorail.
- Malacca Monorail, Malacca, Malaysia
- Penang Monorail, Malaysia
- JB Monorail in Johor Bahru, Malaysia
- Lahore, Pakistan
- Karachi, Pakistan
- Islamabad, Pakistan
- Daegu, South Korea
- Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Bangkok Monorails, Bangkok, Thailand. Bangkok Metropolitan Administration plan to build eight monorail lines around the city to support downtown area that have a small road network. And the new monorails also support a mainline metro too.
- Kai Tak Monorail and Kowloon Bay Monorail, New Kowloon, Hong Kong
- West Kowloon Cultural District Monorail, Kowloon, Hong Kong
- Dhaka, Bangladesh
India
- Chennai Monorail, Chennai
- Bangalore Monorail, Bangalore
- Delhi Monorail, New Delhi
- Indore Monorail, Indore
- Kolkata Monorail, Kolkata
- Kozhikode Monorail, Kozhikode
- Navi Mumbai Monorail, Navi Mumbai
- Patna Monorail, Patna
- Pune Monorail, Pune
- Thiruvananthapuram Monorail, Thiruvananthapuram
Europe
- Istanbul Monorail, Turkey[18]
- Birmingham Monorail, United Kingdom[19]
- Preston Monorail, United Kingdom[20]
- Uppsala, Sweden (this proposed monorail only carries 1-5 passengers, and needs no drivers).[21]
- Liverpool Monorail, United Kingdom (to be create as part of the Liverpool Waters project with link to John Lennon Airport
- Thessaloniki Monorail, Greece, proposed extension of the Thessaloniki Metro from Mikra Depot to Makedonia International Airport via monorail.
- MCH Skybus, Herning, Denmark - MCH's 2025 vision includes a monorail system between the exhibition centre and the town centre.[22]
Oceania
- Geelong-Melbourne-Frankston, Australia Proposed to combat the rapidly growing population around Port Philip Bay. The proposal will feature a monorail linking the regional city of Geelong to Melbourne and on to the south-east suburb of Frankston while passing through Avalon Airport and Tullamarine. Travel time between Geelong and Melbourne will be around 20 mins.
Decommissioned or Cancelled Monorails
Asia
Hong Kong
India
Indonesia
Iran
Japan
- Himeji City Monorail Line, Himeji, Hyōgo, Japan (1966–1974)
- Odakyu Mukogaokayuen Monorail Line, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan (1966–2001)
- Monkey Park Monorail Line, Inuyama, Aichi, Japan (1962–2008)
- Nara Dreamland Monorail, Nara Dreamland, Japan (1961–2006)
- Drean Land Monorail Line, Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan (1966–1967)
- Nagoya City Higashiyama Park Monorail Line, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan (1964–1974)
Malaysia
Singapore
South Korea
- Wolmi Galaxy Rail, Incheon. Construction completed in 2010, but never opened to public and now scheduled for demolition.
Thailand
- Fashion Island Monorail, Bangkok, Thailand. Short indoor amusement park monorail in Fashion Island shopping center. Decommissioned due to an accident which killed 2 riders.
- Tuk-Tuk Monorail, Bangkok. Half indoor-outdoor monorail tour operated between LeoLand amusement park and the water park. The track is still located in the 6th floor of Central City Bang Na.
Australia
- Brisbane, Queensland once had a Von Roll Type II monorail, which was built for World Expo '88. Four sets, consisting of nine carriages each, operated in a continuous loop throughout the Expo site. A single train set was sold to Sea World, Gold Coast, for expansion of its monorail system. It is unknown where the other sets and track were relocated to.
Europe
- Milngavie, near Glasgow, had an experimental high-speed propellor-powered monorail, the Bennie Rail Plane, built during 1929-30 and abandoned during the Great Depression.
- Butlins Skegness Camp, Skegness, United Kingdom (1964–2003) — the first commercial monorail in the UK
- Birmingham Airport had a magnetic levitation train which had to be closed down due it becoming life expired and a lack of spare parts. It was later rebuilt as a more conventional elevated rail system.
- Merry Hill Shopping Centre, Brierley Hill, West Midlands had a Von Roll Mk III Series monorail which opened in June 1991 but only worked for a short while before finally being sold off in 1996. The rolling stock now operates in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia. Reasons for the closure of this system include a combination of technical problems and safety concerns (especially the difficulty of evacuation), exacerbated by a dispute between the owners of Merry Hill and The Waterfront which at this time were owned separately.
- Seville Expo '92
- France has two abandoned test tracks for the Aérotrain, which can be considered monorails. One is between Limours and Gometz-la-Ville and the other between Saran and Artenay. France also had a suspended monorail the SAFEGE that featured in the film Fahrenheit 451.
- Russia had one suspended monorail build in 1899 at a leisure park. A horse-pulled monorail was already been built in 1820 in Myachkove near Moscow.
North America
- Busch Gardens Tampa Bay also had a monorail, the Veldt Monorail. It shut down in 1999 due to upkeep cost.
- Busch Gardens Europe had a monorail, Eagle One, that connected the theme park with the nearby Anheuser-Busch brewery. Park visitors could tour the brewery and return via monorail. The setup lost money; the tours were discontinued and Eagle One dismantled in the 1990s. (I think only Tampa and the California Busch Gardens had monorails.)
- Carowinds operated the Carowinds Monorail from 1973 through 1994.[27]
- Expo 86 in Vancouver, British Columbia had a monorail that was moved to Alton Towers in the United Kingdom.
- Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, Michigan (outside of Detroit) had a shuttle monorail that connected to the Dearborn Hyatt Regency Hotel to the Fairlane shopping mall.
- Jetrail, a suspended monorail, was the world's first fully automated monorail system during operation at Dallas Love Field (1969–1974)
- The Trailblazer suspended monorail ran from October 1956 until 1964 at Fair Park in Dallas, Texas. The single monorail car was used in Houston for a demonstration prior to its relocation to the State Fair of Texas.
- Kings Dominion near Richmond, Virginia had a monorail as the conveyance for visitors to its Lion Country Safari attraction, which was removed after the 1993 season.
- The Minirail at Expo 67 in Montreal, which joined Pleasure Beach Blackpool in purchasing rail and rolling stock from the monorail system at the 1964 Lausanne exposition, along with new rail cars from the manufacturer.[28][29]
- State Fair of Oklahoma Monorail, Oklahoma City (1964–2005)
- The Ontario Southern Railway operated one of the earliest North American monorails between the amusement park at Crystal Beach, Ontario and the main line railway station (1896–1898)
- The Pelham Park and City Island Railroad in the Bronx, New York, New York operated a short-lived monorail system in 1910. It ceased operation after an accident.
- The Philadelphia Zoo had a monorail in the 1970s and 1980s, but was discontinued in the 1990s.
- Toronto Zoo Domain Ride, Toronto (1976–1994)
- Miami Seaquarium Spacerail, Miami Seaquarium (1963–1991)
- The Wgasa Bush Line at the San Diego Wild Animal Park near Escondido, California was shut down in March 2007. It was a five mile (eight km) long, one hour tour around the large area devoted to animal environments.
- Flushing Meadow Park New York, New York had a monorail during the 1964 New York World's Fair
- Jungle Jim's International Grocery Store near Cincinnati, Ohio maintained a monorail circulator purchased from Kings Island Theme Park. However, plans are in motion to bring the monorail back online in the future to shuttle people from the grocery store's hotel to the store.
- Six Flags Magic Mountain operated a monorail since the park's opening in 1971 and shut down several years ago due to lack of parts.
- Fairplex operated a monorail built by the American Crane and Hoist company. The middle 90s saw a new station and new cars built by Arrow Dynamics. The new cars were far heavier than the original and caused it to last only a couple of years more until it was dismantled. Today, very little to no traces exist of it.
- Santa's Village in Skyforest had another American Crane and Hoist monorail that shut down when the park went defunct.
South America
- Brazil had a monorail in Rio de Janeiro that linked the large Barra Shopping mall to its parking lot. After its destruction, only one part of the track and the platform still remain in the parking lot (second floor, behind the Fnac dome).
References
- ^ "Nasrec Development - Stage 2: Business Plan" (PDF). Johannesburg Development Agency. 2005-09. http://www.jda.co.za/nasrec/docs/business_plan18sept05.pdf. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
- ^ "Sun City Transport". http://www.suninternational.com/Destinations/Resorts/SunCity/Pages/TransportandTransfes.aspx. Retrieved 2009-10-21.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Monorails of Europe, Zaragoza Plaza Imperial, monorails.org.
- ^ Beesley, Paul (2008-07-04). "Behind the scenes - A closer look at Blackpools Monorail". Ridemad. http://ridemad.com/behind-the-scenes-a-closer-look-at-blackpools-monorail. Retrieved 2008-10-09. "Pleasure Beach Blackpool bought the monorail in 1964 from the Lausanne expo in Switzerland and it was opened in Pleasure Beach in 1966."
- ^ [2]
- ^ "Mumbai monorail contract". Railway Gazette International. 2008-12-31. http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/10/mumbai-monorail-contract.html.
- ^ Nigerian Monorail, Railways Africa 2007-05-03
- ^ http://www.railwaysafrica.com/blog/2010/12/nigerian-monorail-3/
- ^ http://www.railwaysafrica.com/blog/2010/09/port-harcourt-monorail/
- ^ a b African Business July 2007 p48
- ^ "Monorail to Sherbourne suggested". The Nation Newspaper. 2008-04-24. http://www.nationnews.com/story/324718661759833.php. Retrieved 2008-04-27.
- ^ a b c Joseph P Schwieterman (2007-09-01). "Return of the inter-city train". Railway Gazette International: pp. 563. http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view//return-of-the-inter-city-train.html.
- ^ Pennsylvania High Speed Maglev Project - Connecting Pittsburgh International Airport, Downtown, Monroeville, Greensburg
- ^ http://www.acritica.com.br/content/not-detail.asp?materia_id=147137
- ^ http://www.bnamericas.com/news/infrastructure/Manaus*_US*776mn_monorail_suspended_over_financing,_irregularities
- ^ http://veja.abril.com.br/noticia/economia/bombardier-construira-monotrilho-em-sao-paulo
- ^ Kiliç, Yacin (2007-10-10). "İstanbul to be introduced to monorail system". Today's Zaman. Archived from the original on 2007-11-22. http://web.archive.org/web/20071122034214/http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=124362. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
- ^ "Plans for a monorail between New Street and Birmingham airport". 2009-01-20. http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-transport-news/2009/01/20/plans-for-a-monorail-between-new-street-and-birmingham-airport-65233-22728884/. Retrieved 2009-01-20.
- ^ "Preston council chief proposes monorail service". 2008-04-23. http://www.englandsnorthwest.com/invest/news/archive/5291-preston-council-chief-proposes-monorail-service.html. Retrieved 2008-04-27.
- ^ "News paper article". 2006-01-01. http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article341313.ab. Retrieved 2009-11-13.
- ^ "6. fase - Svævebane". MCH. http://www.mch.dk/MCH/MCH/Vision-2025/6.-fase---Sv%C3%A6vebane.aspx. Retrieved 20 August 2011.
- ^ [3]
- ^ [4]
- ^ [5]
- ^ Monorail News
- ^ Pendergrast, Lolo (August 23, 1994). "Carowinds retires monorail attraction". The Charlotte Observer: p. 1C.
- ^ Gold, John Robert; Margaret M. Gold. Cities of Culture. Ashgate Publishing. p. 122. ISBN 978-1840142853. http://books.google.ca/books?id=StyJsEnqgd0C&pg=PA122&dq=expo+67+mini+rail&hl=en&ei=mxu-Tr_rCKbk0QHg5Yn5BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=expo%2067%20mini%20rail&f=false. Retrieved 12 November 2011.
- ^ Beauchamp (January 1997). Exhibiting Electricity. Institution of Electrical Engineers. p. 287. ISBN 978-0852968956. http://books.google.ca/books?id=GWsZNONuGk0C&pg=PA287&dq=expo+67+mini+rail+Lausanne&hl=en&ei=n1G9TszvHeLL0QHJh_DlBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=expo%2067%20mini%20rail%20Lausanne&f=false.
External links
- [8] The Monorail Society
- [9] Light Rail Transit Association fact sheet on Monorails.
![[3]](http://lh4.ggpht.com/_sHoRsk2fL3A/Se5rJddESAI/AAAAAAAAOhA/8eHdJlCy2SQ/昔日荔園遊樂場照片29.jpg){kind=link}
![[4]](http://images4.fotop.net/albums4/takenbyedwin/amusementpk/LY02a_sf.thumb.jpg){kind=link}
![[5]](http://thosewerethedays.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/761d2576cad34e43c341411aa2198898.jpg){kind=link}