“If they had succeeded, they’d have gone bankrupt” what a great phrase that sums up what potential investors should have thought when their bank accounts were saved! Great video on a scheme I’d not come across before, Jago you do excellent work, thank you!
I can't be the only one who thought of Tim Traveller's videos on the Wuppertal and Lartigue (?) railways. I wasn't expecting to see them both linked to London.
Being a resident of the Pacific Northwest and one of the original riders of the Seattle Monorail during its inaugural season at the Seattle Worlds Fair, a vid on monorails would be appreciated.
In the UK we had a dozen or so monorails, mostly short in length and set up in holiday camps, zoos or fairground parks. A few still run, such as the 'Safari Skyway' at Chessington World of Adventures in SW London, the Beaulieu Motor Museum monorail in Hampshire, Chester Zoo monorail in Cheshire, the Alton Towers amusement park monorail and the Flamingoland monorail in Yorkshire. Interestingly, the first suspended monorails were built in Britain in 1816 and 1825 at Enfield and Cheshunt, the latter sometimes carrying passengers. Both were horse operated.
I’ve been on the Seattle Monorail many times, and have seen the Elvis movie with him riding on it. The ride was quick at only 90 seconds , and it was deafening as it rumbled along between downtown and the world’s fair site. Nevertheless, the monorail was beloved and there was a voter-driven attempt to extend it through the metro area which was rejected by the city council.
@@frglee - sadly, the one at chessington was closed and dismantled about 6 years ago - I went on it in its last season. I understand that spare parts were in short supply. Also the one at Chester zoo is also no more - I went there last summer and whilst some infrastructure remains, it’s no longer working.
The one here in Seattle is good fun and most people visiting don't realize it exists so it is always a surprise when you take them for a ride. I think the attraction is the great unobstructed views of the city and the novelty of it but that is about it.
And two calves were needed to transport a bull. I guess that some nearby farmers made a living by hiring the livestock needed for balance to the railway.
I got lost on a monorail once at Expo '67 in Montreal in the summer of, yes, 1967. I was 12 and was put on it by myself for some reason and I was supposed to get off at a certain stop to be met by my mother to go another pavilion. I couldn`t see the station sign in time, the doors closed, and we were moving off. Somehow I spotted by mother in the teeming crowds below, leaned out the half-open window and yelled: ``MOTHER!!`` Somehow, in a mad fit of mother-instinct never exhibited before or since, she heard me, turned and gestured that I should get off at the next stop, which I successfully managed to do. Terrifying. I`ve lived in fear of monorails ever since, although I would like to ride one again, one more time before I die, to let it know it didn`t beat me.
You mentioned that there was one proposal inspired by the Wuppertal Schwebebahn. It sounds reasonable, which is probably why it was proposed in the first place. It worked over the river Wupper, why wouldn't it work over the Regent's Canal? Well, it's kind of a miracle that the Schwebebahn exists at all. The guy who invented it wanted to have it built in Berlin, but it was seen as impractical. So he went to Wuppertal, which is the most perfect city for a suspended monorail you could imagine. Wuppertal was an industrial town with traffic issues that lies in a valley (the name is literally "the valley of the river Wupper"), so everyone lives and works along the river and many journeys in the city follow its course, as the mountains prevent sprawl from going that far away. And what kind of industry was in Wuppertal? Steel. All of the steel for the project could be produced right there. More perfect conditions could not exist, and doing the same on the Regent's Canal could've never succeeded the way it did in Wuppertal.
You got all of that right, and the whole thing is still only a mixed blessing! It isn't what the name suggests, a hovering railway, but an infernally noisy contraption. Parts of it at either end, in Vohwinkel and Barmen, are above the road and pass in front of windows on the second floor, way into the night. The Schwebebahn has blighted the whole valley and I, for one, am not particularly surprised that the population of Wuppertal peaked in the year of its opening and has gone down drastically afterwards.
@@peterjansen7929 Yes, another part of its miraculous existence is that the timing was just right as well. Had it been invented any later, it would've never been built anywhere. A modern tram or Stadtbahn would probably be just as, if not more efficient while being more standardized and less noisy. The only thing the Schwebebahn has over trams (apart from the "huh, that's weird" factor) is that it takes away less ground space while running over streets, assuming a dedicated right of way for trams.
And of course now it is a tourist attraction, although why anyone would want to go and see an out of date piece of engineering? Oh yes of course, I did.
@@peterjansen7929 that sounds like an _engineering_ challenge that could be overcome by applying some more of that spectacular German Engineering Expertise: after all, the system is _bonkers_ old, it's probably well past due for some newer, quieter rolling stock.
The Wuppertal Bahn is definitely worth a visit, and still performs it's role as a transport link, taking traffic from the crowded roads in the valley. In its early years of operation, it was once used to transport an elephant for a circus. While the train was moving, the elephant suddenly panicked, smashed through the wooden carriage walls and fell in to the river below. The elephant survived!
When Marco Polo was in India there were giant birds picking up elephants, killing them by dropping them from a great height and then eating them, which proves that elephants don't always survive such falls. Seriously, the train was full of reporters and nobody took a picture of this LEGENDARY accident. Tuffi (the elephant) clearly burst out of the train before it even started and the circus and the press made a bigger story out of it afterwards.
I rode on a monorail in the UK at the Garden Festival in Gateshead over 30 years ago, it was somewhat sedate, and the open sided cars gave great views, good job it was warm and sunny
There has been a monorail at Beaulieu, the car museum, for years. It could easily be dismissed as a ‘fairground ride’ but I believe the then Lord Montagu was attempting to showcase possible transport of the future, as well as provide an attraction of course.
The Wuppertal Schwebebahn is one cool system and extremely safe too with only one fatal incident in 120 years of operation due to negligence of a repair crew not a system problem. "Schweben" means to dangle or to waft and as it accelerates or decelerates there is definite lateral movement.
@@the_retag It also has the meaning of hang or be suspended and as that is what the Schwebebahn does I went with "dangle" or "waft" as that is my experience of it.
I rode the monorail at Disneyworld in Florida about 35 years ago. I thought it would "ride as softly as a cloud" but no, it bumped along the track like a bus on a poorly paved road. What a disappointment! I have ridden the Wuppertal line which is excellent. Near one end of it is a brew pub in the old municipal indoor swimming pool.
The ride quality of the Disney monorails isn't great (and you can't ride up front with the driver anymore, which is a bummer.). But the Disney World monorails excell at two things: accessibility and ambient noise. Getting a stroller, wheelchair, or ECV on to and off of the monorails is *fast.* Faster than I've ever experienced with any other form of transport. And you can fit eight to twelve strollers or four ECVs in a carriage. The sound of the monorails traveling overhead is barely noticeable thanks to the electric motor and rubber tires. They wouldn't be able to sell rooms in the Contemporary Resort hotel if it wasn't.
And funny enough Gerry Anderson predicted that the Monorail would replace the London Underground. It hasn’t happened yet but time will tell. It’s still early and Thunderbirds’ Vault of Death is set in 2065 so maybe it will happen. Who knows.
Every schoolboy's book on railways generally includes a short chapter, near the end on what the book terms 'railway oddities'. The Lartigue system is usually included, as is the 'Bennie Railplane' and the 'Lewis Never Stop Railway'. Videos on both would be much appreciated.
Yes please, more on monorails, which as I recall, together with jetpacks and helicopters, were going to revolutionise public transport. In 1955 that marvellous publication “The Eagle” published a cutaway drawing of an “exciting impression of the possible design of the very latest monorail car, capable of up to 200mph as an express or perhaps 100mph for suburban journeys” Love the use of the word ‘perhaps’. Interestingly the picture shows a sleek looking, from the outside, vehicle with an interior that looks like a pre-war deep underground train complete with slatted wooden floors.
The Regents Canal City & Docks Railway Company has one of those hidden-in-plain-site agenda names, like Monty Pythons Holiday Homes for Pets Pie Company :)
If you're curious, The Tim Traveler has a video about the Lartigue system, including the restored one in Ireland: ua-cam.com/video/UPWgJ6-iHM0/v-deo.html
There was another Lartigue line, built somewhere in France; it's engine and stock were very similar to those on the L&B. Unfortunately it did something disgraceful before a pre-opening party of dignitaries and was promptly banned from being opened to the public. There was also an experimental line, similar to the Wuppertalbahn, built up Tyneside way in the 1920's/30's (was that the Bennie Railplane?) which worked, but collapsed in a storm and was abandonned. H G Wells' novel 'The War in the Air' also talks of a monorail system covering the Home Counties, so they were a popular idea around 1908. Have you thought of a film about the lost Crystal Palace Tube Railway, which essentially used compressed air to drive a carriage along a sealed tunnel? Again, it worked but wasn't developed beyond the experimental stage.
I'm working on a big documentary project related to monorail right now... There's no overlap with this story but it's fun to see you tackling the subject matter too. I've had a similar reaction to many of those early inventions of just, "why??" 😄
Thanks for a great video! It's suddenly reminded me of another, much later, scheme that would have involved reusing the canal for a faster form of transport. Apparently, there was a scheme proposed in the 1950s or 1960s to drain the Grand Union canal between Paddington and Hayes and turn it into an express bus route for airport buses running between Heathrow and the West End. I actually met the chap who was behind this proposal some years ago - he was working at the Transport Research Laboratory at the time. He told me that because the canal's not that wide, they invented the concept of kerb-guided buses to help fit the buses into the available space. Perhaps something for a future video if you can find anything more about it?
I see *Kingsland Basin* of the Regents Canal @ 0:25. I used to work in the building that previously stood on the site of the yellow one seen centre-left. It was a commercial photographic studio called *Golderstat,* which company served the furniture industry of East London with photography and printing of brochures. This was in the '60s. Oh, and before the photographic studio was a cowshed to a dairy dating to Victorian times The fodder for the cows arrived by canal barge, of course. I saw those buildings demolished for the building of the now replaced studios. Note: The basin looks so smart now, if a bit municipal. When I knew it, it was full of old prams and rotting tyres, with dereliction all around and no trees. It wasn't the sort of place you would choose to moor up your narrow boat.Indeed, back in the day, the erection of the photo-studios gentrified it quite a bit.
As a publicity stunt, the Wuppertal took a baby elephant for a ride. Unfortunately, the baby elephant wasn't too keen on the idea and smashed it's way out of the carriage and went for a swim. Luckily, no serious harm was done - to the elephant, at least.
Monorails have been far more successful as amusement rides, or as short-range tourist transportation with a novelty aspect, and that actually makes sense--they're cool-looking, and such rides are usually a simple loop or shuttle without many switches (except for transfer tracks for maintenance and such). So there is a niche, it's just not the one that advocates imagined. The last monorail I rode was the one in Singapore that goes from the roof of the VivoCity shopping center to Sentosa Island, a land of amusement parks and other tourist attractions. It's generally crowded because it's the least expensive way over aside from walking the causeway in the tropical steam heat (come to think of it, there might be buses that are cheaper, but it's only a few bucks). As an attraction, it's somewhat overshadowed by the far more expensive cable cars overhead.
I love how much of the canal you showed. You were t Kingsland Basin, where I lived for a time before coming back to the states. Oh how I miss my walks along the canal!
"...It didn't really do anything that a conventional railwey couldn't...". After two hundred years of development, this phrase neatly sums-up the monorail in general.
After watching the Tim Traveller video on the monorail video in Ireland, it was nice to get some more background on how the idea was developed for other places.
Japan is the place for monorail fans - there are at least three that I know of, all still running successfully. One links Tokyo’s Haneda airport to near the city centre and has 140,000 passengers per day. Another is in the nearby city of Chiba and is claimed to be the world’s longest at 15.2km. A third is the Shonan monorail between Ofuna, south west of Tokyo to the seaside town/small island of Enoshima, where the Olympic sailing events were held recently.
I was delighted to see the Lartigue/ Ballybunion Monorail shown as I from Ireland. One or two undergrounds were proposed. A tunnel was partially built at Dublin's Kingsbridge; noe Heuston along the River Liffey to Amiens Street, * the docks beyond. I remember reading about a proposed underground in CIE staff magazine, & showing a line along the Liffy. (Which is probably full of viking and church architecture as thats what they found when they dug up a site for a new office block!
Yes, we need a lot more monorail videos please. I have ridden the Disney monorail at Orlando and it worked really well. Don't forget the Hovertrain project as well. If you look at my channel I did a video about the remaining Hovertrain which is up at Peterborough.
Enjoyed this one Jago :D One thing's bugging me though - where is that thumbnail image from? Unless I missed something, it doesn't appear in the video. Is it the Listowel-Ballybunion line? The track looks right but what is that weird thing sitting on it?
The thumbnail is almost certainly from the experimental monorail at Tervuren, Brussels, built in 1897. The electrically-powered vehicle was built at Gloucester, this is as rebuilt. Plenty of information about this on the web eg Behr monorail Brussels, and in the 1st volume of the history of monorails and in 'Grace's Guide'. The Tervuren line was close to the current terminus of Brussels STIB tram route 44. Nothing of it remains!
That’s another of the Behr carriages on test - I didn’t get around to using the image in the video itself, but it was the closest image I could find to the monorail as it might have been.
Part of me agrees, but part of me says that we shouldn't be happy as the vast majority of those people are only living in boats because they can't afford houses or flats. Given how expensive boats are to buy and to live in year-round, it just shows how unreasonably expensive London is to live in. :(
I love those crazy retro futuristic transportation solutions, which have been worth a try, but weren't successful (strange, that in a conservative society like the German Kaiserreich they had a shot with the "Schwebebahn" (Wupppertal dagle train - this solution still works and is beloved! Thanks a lot for this marvellous lesson in British dreaming of a future never to come! Best greets from Germany! Valentin
Well, maybe socially conservative, but not technologically. Check out the Siemens three-phase high-speed test trains that ran between Marienfelde and Zossen in the early 1900s. They reached over 200 kph in those!
Interestingly, there are 2 new monorails being built in Bangkok (the Pink, and Yellow, lines). The both lines are due to part open later this year, whilst another line (Grey) is under review.
I had to double check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1st. It sounded more plausible than I expected. But although ingenious, it does also sound as if it would hit the snags mentioned. The Lartigue monorail was certainly much lower in construction cost than a conventional railway, but that surely wouldn't apply to a Wuppertal-type system above the canal. And maybe quite a few people prefer the canal without a continuous array of pylons above it.
Another great video, even better because I love the canal area! By the way, is it just me that is annoyed by the different blue on the Royal Oak Station sign? OCD much?
Some nice pictures too of the Listowel and Ballybunion. I'm reminded of a local song there; "The old train's held together with rope; And the tacking they say won't endure sir; Sure they balance the people with soap; And sometimes with bags of manure sir". Part of it was rebuilt (80 years after closure!) so I would be very interested to ride on it. It was also said that the wheels running along the monorail at head height set up an uncomfortable drumming noise for passengers. I wonder if they still have the sets of steps in the train to let passengers get from one side to the other?
Mention should be made of the Bradford & Foster Brook, a monorail in Bradford PA that operated for a few months ca. 1880, shut down after a boiler explosion of a new locomotive they were building. Based on the Lartigue-type concept monorail operated at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Also the Epsom Salts monorail, a Lartigue-like monorail operated in California 1924-6 to haul Epsom salts from a mine that was internal-combustion propelled.
Our local shipping centre in Dudley, Merry Hill built a monorail to provide a transport link from the centre itself, the retail park and a business site. It was not a success It opened in 1991, hardly ever ran and closed in 1996. It had so many technical problems and many a time broke down, stranding shoppers over the carparks However to an 8 year old it was brilliant
Hello - I love both your videos and your puns. Both are great fun! I hope you do a video on monorails because it would possibly help explain why people love them conceptually and then never build them. As a child in the US growing up in the 1960s, I read all the material about the monorail built in Seattle for the 1962 World's Fair. Everyone adored the 1.4km monorail and said it was the way of the future. Apparently it wasn't because despite many discussions, the monorail is still 1.4 km and still connects the same two points. If that is the future, I guess it is a very distant future. I would love to better understand why these things never seem to go anywhere. I thought you would like the wordplay. Thanks for your great work. Roger in Wisconsin
I suspect that another main cause of monorail failure is ... the mono wheel. In this I am referring to the need for a single double flanged wheel guided on the single rail ... which inherently fails to self steer leading to much screeching and wear. The dual rail system with conical wheels neatly overcomes this in most rail curves and straights.
As you say, probably for the best. There is (was?) a mono rail in the centre of sydney. Mostly a tourist attraction, it runs on a rail elevated above the pavement, about first floor level. The train straddles the rail, but the passenger compartments are full above the rail. Quite a cool way to have a look around that bit of Sydney, but otherwise, not much use
I'd love to watch a video by you on monorails - successful and otherwise! That they're so little used makes them just the sort of unusual quirks of history that I think you'd be able to put a really interesting light to.
What you say about the North London being a conventional railway meaning that their trains could run onto other lines is why I really do wish people wouldn't say that HS2 should be a maglev or a hyperloop. With the current plans, trains can (and will) run off it onto the existing network to serve places that the new line won't reach directly, thus allowing for much greater flexibility than a new type of technology!
I was going to say Japan has to most monorail installations, but I checked the "font of all knowledge" and found there are a surprising number of monorails that are actual transit systems. Japan seems to lead with 10 operational. US follows with 8 but 2 of those are Disney installations(full disclosure: 1 of Japan's is also Disney).
The gist of it is fairly straight forward: The standard railway was there first and the monorail isn't actually meaningfully Better in ~99.999999% of contexts. Pretty much everything else stems from that. Still, the specifics can be interesting.
Not a monorail, not maglev. Uses rubber tyres on two tracks. You're maybe thinking of the old Birmingham Airport thingy, which was maglev but also wasn't a monorail.
@@bobwalsh3751 It was, unless I'm very much mistaken, the world's first commercial maglev system. Ran a whole 500 yards or so from Birmingham International Station to the Airport. Closed in the 1990's because it became too unreliable. Cute little carriages!
Japanese Yuzu and other small citrus hillside orchards use tiny Monorails to shift people and the picked fruit, do a story on those, they are really great little things.
I’m still sad that Sydney removed it monorail a few years back. I went on it in 2012 when I was on holiday there and it was awesome. I’d love a monorail here in the UK. With all these trams and “light rail” I’m sure we could cram a few monorail posts in amongst the pedestrian zones where cars aren’t allowed anymore! Make a better use of those wide open road thingies than for all those horseless carriages 🤣
As always another exemplary video, but I would respectfully ask for more modeling videos and perhaps a look at your layout. Either way, a video from you is always welcome....Thank you.
Having only ever ridden a monorail at Walt Disney World in Florida, I'd love to hear about efforts to make a monorail-based public transportation system.
Well, having a nearly flat canal layed connecting railway would be interesting, however wuppertal itself was a thin, long valley based city along the river
I can just about view the Kuala Lumpur monorail from my apartment that runs in the city centre based on a system by Scomi, a Malaysian company. It has 11 stations and covers around 8km. The points are intriguing. There is another one connecting the main island of Singapore to the island of Sentosa on a system by Hitachi.
The only reason so many railway companies bought canals, making an offer the shareholders could not resist, was to close them down and steal their freight traffic.
In Seattle the voters approved referendums five times in a row to expand their monorail however because the city government wouldnt get behind it it never got built .
![[SFS] Locomotives that HIT STUFF...](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/s8dvJrX0t58/mqdefault.jpg)
“If they had succeeded, they’d have gone bankrupt” what a great phrase that sums up what potential investors should have thought when their bank accounts were saved!
Great video on a scheme I’d not come across before, Jago you do excellent work, thank you!
I can't be the only one who thought of Tim Traveller's videos on the Wuppertal and Lartigue (?) railways. I wasn't expecting to see them both linked to London.
And in the unlikely event someone builds a SAFEGE monorail over the canal, there'll be a link to the Düsseldorf SkyTrain too. 🙃
Being a resident of the Pacific Northwest and one of the original riders of the Seattle Monorail during its inaugural season at the Seattle Worlds Fair, a vid on monorails would be appreciated.
In the UK we had a dozen or so monorails, mostly short in length and set up in holiday camps, zoos or fairground parks. A few still run, such as the 'Safari Skyway' at Chessington World of Adventures in SW London, the Beaulieu Motor Museum monorail in Hampshire, Chester Zoo monorail in Cheshire, the Alton Towers amusement park monorail and the Flamingoland monorail in Yorkshire. Interestingly, the first suspended monorails were built in Britain in 1816 and 1825 at Enfield and Cheshunt, the latter sometimes carrying passengers. Both were horse operated.
I’ve been on the Seattle Monorail many times, and have seen the Elvis movie with him riding on it. The ride was quick at only 90 seconds , and it was deafening as it rumbled along between downtown and the world’s fair site. Nevertheless, the monorail was beloved and there was a voter-driven attempt to extend it through the metro area which was rejected by the city council.
See my friends: "Carol Kim Pedersen" YT Channel. I helped build the backyard monorail.
@@frglee - sadly, the one at chessington was closed and dismantled about 6 years ago - I went on it in its last season. I understand that spare parts were in short supply.
Also the one at Chester zoo is also no more - I went there last summer and whilst some infrastructure remains, it’s no longer working.
The one here in Seattle is good fun and most people visiting don't realize it exists so it is always a surprise when you take them for a ride. I think the attraction is the great unobstructed views of the city and the novelty of it but that is about it.
Livestock was a popular freight on the Listowel; to carry one calf, two sheep were used for balance outward, one sheep each side on the return.
And two calves were needed to transport a bull. I guess that some nearby farmers made a living by hiring the livestock needed for balance to the railway.
I got lost on a monorail once at Expo '67 in Montreal in the summer of, yes, 1967. I was 12 and was put on it by myself for some reason and I was supposed to get off at a certain stop to be met by my mother to go another pavilion. I couldn`t see the station sign in time, the doors closed, and we were moving off. Somehow I spotted by mother in the teeming crowds below, leaned out the half-open window and yelled: ``MOTHER!!`` Somehow, in a mad fit of mother-instinct never exhibited before or since, she heard me, turned and gestured that I should get off at the next stop, which I successfully managed to do. Terrifying. I`ve lived in fear of monorails ever since, although I would like to ride one again, one more time before I die, to let it know it didn`t beat me.
How times have changed with the advent of the mobile phone!
😄💜
A cross over of two of my favorite transit types... The Canals (so relaxing in the front of a narrowboat) and the trains. Nice.
You mentioned that there was one proposal inspired by the Wuppertal Schwebebahn. It sounds reasonable, which is probably why it was proposed in the first place. It worked over the river Wupper, why wouldn't it work over the Regent's Canal? Well, it's kind of a miracle that the Schwebebahn exists at all. The guy who invented it wanted to have it built in Berlin, but it was seen as impractical. So he went to Wuppertal, which is the most perfect city for a suspended monorail you could imagine. Wuppertal was an industrial town with traffic issues that lies in a valley (the name is literally "the valley of the river Wupper"), so everyone lives and works along the river and many journeys in the city follow its course, as the mountains prevent sprawl from going that far away. And what kind of industry was in Wuppertal? Steel. All of the steel for the project could be produced right there. More perfect conditions could not exist, and doing the same on the Regent's Canal could've never succeeded the way it did in Wuppertal.
You got all of that right, and the whole thing is still only a mixed blessing!
It isn't what the name suggests, a hovering railway, but an infernally noisy contraption. Parts of it at either end, in Vohwinkel and Barmen, are above the road and pass in front of windows on the second floor, way into the night. The Schwebebahn has blighted the whole valley and I, for one, am not particularly surprised that the population of Wuppertal peaked in the year of its opening and has gone down drastically afterwards.
@@peterjansen7929 Yes, another part of its miraculous existence is that the timing was just right as well. Had it been invented any later, it would've never been built anywhere. A modern tram or Stadtbahn would probably be just as, if not more efficient while being more standardized and less noisy. The only thing the Schwebebahn has over trams (apart from the "huh, that's weird" factor) is that it takes away less ground space while running over streets, assuming a dedicated right of way for trams.
And of course now it is a tourist attraction, although why anyone would want to go and see an out of date piece of engineering? Oh yes of course, I did.
@@peterjansen7929 that sounds like an _engineering_ challenge that could be overcome by applying some more of that spectacular German Engineering Expertise: after all, the system is _bonkers_ old, it's probably well past due for some newer, quieter rolling stock.
@@ShadowDragon8685 It's just had some new rolling stock. But the older ones, rattly as they are, are more characterful!
The Wuppertal Bahn is definitely worth a visit, and still performs it's role as a transport link, taking traffic from the crowded roads in the valley.
In its early years of operation, it was once used to transport an elephant for a circus. While the train was moving, the elephant suddenly panicked, smashed through the wooden carriage walls and fell in to the river below. The elephant survived!
When Marco Polo was in India there were giant birds picking up elephants, killing them by dropping them from a great height and then eating them, which proves that elephants don't always survive such falls.
Seriously, the train was full of reporters and nobody took a picture of this LEGENDARY accident. Tuffi (the elephant) clearly burst out of the train before it even started and the circus and the press made a bigger story out of it afterwards.
I rode on a monorail in the UK at the Garden Festival in Gateshead over 30 years ago, it was somewhat sedate, and the open sided cars gave great views, good job it was warm and sunny
There has been a monorail at Beaulieu, the car museum, for years. It could easily be dismissed as a ‘fairground ride’ but I believe the then Lord Montagu was attempting to showcase possible transport of the future, as well as provide an attraction of course.
'I call the big one, 'Bitey''
I LOVE monorails.
Please more.
☮
The Wuppertal Schwebebahn is one cool system
and extremely safe too
with only one fatal incident in 120 years of operation
due to negligence of a repair crew not a system problem.
"Schweben" means to dangle or to waft
and as it accelerates or decelerates
there is definite lateral movement.
Ots actually better translated as hover in most cases
@@the_retag
It also has the meaning of hang or be suspended
and as that is what the Schwebebahn does
I went with "dangle" or "waft"
as that is my experience of it.
That poor elephant though!
@@spuddy345 Tuffi survived.
@@johncrwarner in this case yes, it is the meaning, but not a normal tranlation you would see often
I rode the monorail at Disneyworld in Florida about 35 years ago. I thought it would "ride as softly as a cloud" but no, it bumped along the track like a bus on a poorly paved road. What a disappointment! I have ridden the Wuppertal line which is excellent. Near one end of it is a brew pub in the old municipal indoor swimming pool.
The ride quality of the Disney monorails isn't great (and you can't ride up front with the driver anymore, which is a bummer.). But the Disney World monorails excell at two things: accessibility and ambient noise.
Getting a stroller, wheelchair, or ECV on to and off of the monorails is *fast.* Faster than I've ever experienced with any other form of transport. And you can fit eight to twelve strollers or four ECVs in a carriage.
The sound of the monorails traveling overhead is barely noticeable thanks to the electric motor and rubber tires. They wouldn't be able to sell rooms in the Contemporary Resort hotel if it wasn't.
@LueLou Called an Alweg system, I think.
@LueLou I see to recall that the word Alweg was painted on the lower side of the vehicles at DW but it was a long time ago.
It is on my list and thanks for mentioning the pub.
Very interesting and a delight to listen to!
Fascinating. This is why I love Jago's channel. You can learn about transport history that is not covered anywhere else.
Somehow Yerkes _not_ being involved in a London monorail scheme seems wrong. After all, Brockway is a town in his home state of Pennsylvania.
😂
I thought Yerkes hailed from Ogdenville.
And funny enough Gerry Anderson predicted that the Monorail would replace the London Underground. It hasn’t happened yet but time will tell. It’s still early and Thunderbirds’ Vault of Death is set in 2065 so maybe it will happen. Who knows.
Every schoolboy's book on railways generally includes a short chapter, near the end on what the book terms 'railway oddities'. The Lartigue system is usually included, as is the 'Bennie Railplane' and the 'Lewis Never Stop Railway'.
Videos on both would be much appreciated.
Once again, brilliant. Your writing style is so entertaining.
The fellow who invented the Monorail had a *One-Track-Mind!* LOL
I have actually been riding on a monorail in Seattle back in 1996 🚝
It will be celebrating its sixty first "birthday" March 29.
Having travelled on the reconstructed Lartigue monorail at the museum in Listowel, it was a true curiosity and its shortcomings obvious. Fun though..
Yes please, more on monorails, which as I recall, together with jetpacks and helicopters, were going to revolutionise public transport. In 1955 that marvellous publication “The Eagle” published a cutaway drawing of an “exciting impression of the possible design of the very latest monorail car, capable of up to 200mph as an express or perhaps 100mph for suburban journeys” Love the use of the word ‘perhaps’. Interestingly the picture shows a sleek looking, from the outside, vehicle with an interior that looks like a pre-war deep underground train complete with slatted wooden floors.
Somebody once said that had we started with monorails, the person who then invented the "duorail" would have been hailed a genius.
The Regents Canal City & Docks Railway Company has one of those hidden-in-plain-site agenda names, like Monty Pythons Holiday Homes for Pets Pie Company :)
"...a mule-hauled railway in the Algerian desert." This is what I come here for.
If you're curious, The Tim Traveler has a video about the Lartigue system, including the restored one in Ireland: ua-cam.com/video/UPWgJ6-iHM0/v-deo.html
There was another Lartigue line, built somewhere in France; it's engine and stock were very similar to those on the L&B. Unfortunately it did something disgraceful before a pre-opening party of dignitaries and was promptly banned from being opened to the public. There was also an experimental line, similar to the Wuppertalbahn, built up Tyneside way in the 1920's/30's (was that the Bennie Railplane?) which worked, but collapsed in a storm and was abandonned. H G Wells' novel 'The War in the Air' also talks of a monorail system covering the Home Counties, so they were a popular idea around 1908. Have you thought of a film about the lost Crystal Palace Tube Railway, which essentially used compressed air to drive a carriage along a sealed tunnel? Again, it worked but wasn't developed beyond the experimental stage.
I'm working on a big documentary project related to monorail right now... There's no overlap with this story but it's fun to see you tackling the subject matter too. I've had a similar reaction to many of those early inventions of just, "why??" 😄
Reasons that monorails have failed would indeed be of great interest!
Thanks for a great video! It's suddenly reminded me of another, much later, scheme that would have involved reusing the canal for a faster form of transport. Apparently, there was a scheme proposed in the 1950s or 1960s to drain the Grand Union canal between Paddington and Hayes and turn it into an express bus route for airport buses running between Heathrow and the West End. I actually met the chap who was behind this proposal some years ago - he was working at the Transport Research Laboratory at the time. He told me that because the canal's not that wide, they invented the concept of kerb-guided buses to help fit the buses into the available space. Perhaps something for a future video if you can find anything more about it?
The views of the canal remind me that I really miss riverside pubs, now that I live in Australia.
I see *Kingsland Basin* of the Regents Canal @ 0:25.
I used to work in the building that previously stood on the site of the yellow one seen centre-left. It was a commercial photographic studio called *Golderstat,* which company served the furniture industry of East London with photography and printing of brochures. This was in the '60s.
Oh, and before the photographic studio was a cowshed to a dairy dating to Victorian times The fodder for the cows arrived by canal barge, of course. I saw those buildings demolished for the building of the now replaced studios.
Note: The basin looks so smart now, if a bit municipal. When I knew it, it was full of old prams and rotting tyres, with dereliction all around and no trees. It wasn't the sort of place you would choose to moor up your narrow boat.Indeed, back in the day, the erection of the photo-studios gentrified it quite a bit.
As a publicity stunt, the Wuppertal took a baby elephant for a ride. Unfortunately, the baby elephant wasn't too keen on the idea and smashed it's way out of the carriage and went for a swim. Luckily, no serious harm was done - to the elephant, at least.
Monorails have been far more successful as amusement rides, or as short-range tourist transportation with a novelty aspect, and that actually makes sense--they're cool-looking, and such rides are usually a simple loop or shuttle without many switches (except for transfer tracks for maintenance and such). So there is a niche, it's just not the one that advocates imagined.
The last monorail I rode was the one in Singapore that goes from the roof of the VivoCity shopping center to Sentosa Island, a land of amusement parks and other tourist attractions. It's generally crowded because it's the least expensive way over aside from walking the causeway in the tropical steam heat (come to think of it, there might be buses that are cheaper, but it's only a few bucks). As an attraction, it's somewhat overshadowed by the far more expensive cable cars overhead.
I love how much of the canal you showed. You were t Kingsland Basin, where I lived for a time before coming back to the states. Oh how I miss my walks along the canal!
A well balanced discussion of a dangerously lop-sided idea.
"...It didn't really do anything that a conventional railwey couldn't...".
After two hundred years of development, this phrase neatly sums-up the monorail in general.
After watching the Tim Traveller video on the monorail video in Ireland, it was nice to get some more background on how the idea was developed for other places.
Japan is the place for monorail fans - there are at least three that I know of, all still running successfully. One links Tokyo’s Haneda airport to near the city centre and has 140,000 passengers per day. Another is in the nearby city of Chiba and is claimed to be the world’s longest at 15.2km. A third is the Shonan monorail between Ofuna, south west of Tokyo to the seaside town/small island of Enoshima, where the Olympic sailing events were held recently.
I was delighted to see the Lartigue/ Ballybunion Monorail shown as I from Ireland. One or two undergrounds were proposed. A tunnel was partially built at Dublin's Kingsbridge; noe Heuston along the River Liffey to Amiens Street, * the docks beyond. I remember reading about a proposed underground in CIE staff magazine, & showing a line along the Liffy. (Which is probably full of viking and church architecture as thats what they found when they dug up a site for a new office block!
Yes, we need a lot more monorail videos please. I have ridden the Disney monorail at Orlando and it worked really well. Don't forget the Hovertrain project as well. If you look at my channel I did a video about the remaining Hovertrain which is up at Peterborough.
Beautiful scenic views from London. Just that is worth watching, and it's only a bonus on top of the very insightful commentary.
Enjoyed this one Jago :D One thing's bugging me though - where is that thumbnail image from? Unless I missed something, it doesn't appear in the video. Is it the Listowel-Ballybunion line? The track looks right but what is that weird thing sitting on it?
Thought the same thing. Looks like a moving concrete bunker.
i would imagine the weird moving concrete bunker is a Behr carriage 4:08
The thumbnail is almost certainly from the experimental monorail at Tervuren, Brussels, built in 1897. The electrically-powered vehicle was built at Gloucester, this is as rebuilt. Plenty of information about this on the web eg Behr monorail Brussels, and in the 1st volume of the history of monorails and in 'Grace's Guide'. The Tervuren line was close to the current terminus of Brussels STIB tram route 44. Nothing of it remains!
Think I travelled on a monorail in Sydney but think it's no more now. I'd appreciate a video on the history.
That’s another of the Behr carriages on test - I didn’t get around to using the image in the video itself, but it was the closest image I could find to the monorail as it might have been.
Nice story, lovely photography.
The amount of house boats shown in this episode makes me very happy.
Part of me agrees, but part of me says that we shouldn't be happy as the vast majority of those people are only living in boats because they can't afford houses or flats. Given how expensive boats are to buy and to live in year-round, it just shows how unreasonably expensive London is to live in. :(
I love those crazy retro futuristic transportation solutions, which have been worth a try, but weren't successful (strange, that in a conservative society like the German Kaiserreich they had a shot with the "Schwebebahn" (Wupppertal dagle train - this solution still works and is beloved! Thanks a lot for this marvellous lesson in British dreaming of a future never to come!
Best greets from Germany!
Valentin
Well, maybe socially conservative, but not technologically. Check out the Siemens three-phase high-speed test trains that ran between Marienfelde and Zossen in the early 1900s. They reached over 200 kph in those!
Die Schwebebhan is on my bucket list especially on a day when they are running The Kiaiserwagan
Interestingly, there are 2 new monorails being built in Bangkok (the Pink, and Yellow, lines). The both lines are due to part open later this year, whilst another line (Grey) is under review.
I remember riding the monorail at Chessington Zoo way back.
Probably in the early 80s.
Very sedate it was too
I had to double check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1st. It sounded more plausible than I expected. But although ingenious, it does also sound as if it would hit the snags mentioned. The Lartigue monorail was certainly much lower in construction cost than a conventional railway, but that surely wouldn't apply to a Wuppertal-type system above the canal. And maybe quite a few people prefer the canal without a continuous array of pylons above it.
Iffen you did? Why marry, nuncle, what a motley turn of phrase alights your dictionary to delight mine ears...
Was there a chance the track could bend? :D
That seems highly unlikely, practitioner of Sanatana Dharma!
@@JagoHazzard Well, Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook have them, so they can't all be bad!!!
@@Larry ...and as featured in the World's Fair from 1951 (?)
@@Larry HHHHELLO YOUUUU
@Larry Bundy Jr Not on your life, my Hindu friend!
The Simpsons reference was brilliant, and as someone who rode the 1964 NY World's Fair AMF Monorail, blindingly accurate !!!
Another great video, even better because I love the canal area!
By the way, is it just me that is annoyed by the different blue on the Royal Oak Station sign? OCD much?
Yes, I really enjoyed this video. I learnt many things thanks to it.
Some nice pictures too of the Listowel and Ballybunion. I'm reminded of a local song there; "The old train's held together with rope; And the tacking they say won't endure sir; Sure they balance the people with soap; And sometimes with bags of manure sir". Part of it was rebuilt (80 years after closure!) so I would be very interested to ride on it. It was also said that the wheels running along the monorail at head height set up an uncomfortable drumming noise for passengers. I wonder if they still have the sets of steps in the train to let passengers get from one side to the other?
Yet another brilliantly researched article from Jago. Extremely interesting.
Mention should be made of the Bradford & Foster Brook, a monorail in Bradford PA that operated for a few months ca. 1880, shut down after a boiler explosion of a new locomotive they were building. Based on the Lartigue-type concept monorail operated at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Also the Epsom Salts monorail, a Lartigue-like monorail operated in California 1924-6 to haul Epsom salts from a mine that was internal-combustion propelled.
Our local shipping centre in Dudley, Merry Hill built a monorail to provide a transport link from the centre itself, the retail park and a business site.
It was not a success
It opened in 1991, hardly ever ran and closed in 1996. It had so many technical problems and many a time broke down, stranding shoppers over the carparks
However to an 8 year old it was brilliant
Hello - I love both your videos and your puns. Both are great fun! I hope you do a video on monorails because it would possibly help explain why people love them conceptually and then never build them. As a child in the US growing up in the 1960s, I read all the material about the monorail built in Seattle for the 1962 World's Fair. Everyone adored the 1.4km monorail and said it was the way of the future. Apparently it wasn't because despite many discussions, the monorail is still 1.4 km and still connects the same two points. If that is the future, I guess it is a very distant future. I would love to better understand why these things never seem to go anywhere. I thought you would like the wordplay. Thanks for your great work. Roger in Wisconsin
Another monorail video definitely sounds like fun 🙂
I've been on the Gatwick monorail and it was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life.
Well not really, but I'd like a video on monorails.
Sadly, the inter-terminal shuttle at Gatwick is not a monorail. It's definitely got two rails, albeit running on concrete "tracks"
@@PaprikaLlama Heartbroken. Well I've been on the Newark AirTrain as well, I hope its a monorail or all is lost.
I suspect that another main cause of monorail failure is ... the mono wheel.
In this I am referring to the need for a single double flanged wheel guided on the single rail ... which inherently fails to self steer leading to much screeching and wear.
The dual rail system with conical wheels neatly overcomes this in most rail curves and straights.
As you say, probably for the best.
There is (was?) a mono rail in the centre of sydney. Mostly a tourist attraction, it runs on a rail elevated above the pavement, about first floor level. The train straddles the rail, but the passenger compartments are full above the rail.
Quite a cool way to have a look around that bit of Sydney, but otherwise, not much use
Transit… on a single rail? Madness!
I’d love to see more about monorails around London area.
the most prominent memory I have of monorails is watching them being used ever so frequently in Thunderbirds
Most definitely enjoyed it, thanks
Excellent as always !
Keep the good work up Mr. Hazzard!
I'd love to watch a video by you on monorails - successful and otherwise! That they're so little used makes them just the sort of unusual quirks of history that I think you'd be able to put a really interesting light to.
‘Question of Balance’ -nicely slipped in there 😊
What you say about the North London being a conventional railway meaning that their trains could run onto other lines is why I really do wish people wouldn't say that HS2 should be a maglev or a hyperloop. With the current plans, trains can (and will) run off it onto the existing network to serve places that the new line won't reach directly, thus allowing for much greater flexibility than a new type of technology!
Yes, I'd like a good thorough video about monirails
MONORAIL!
I was desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of *SHARKS!* , I know they have been moved, but I've been told they live on elsewhere on Regent's Canal.
Excellent Jago - that was all new news to me
You do have a most pleasing narrative style - regardless of the topic.
would love more monorail content!
Another fascinating episode!👍😁
First thought "I never knew there was one!" ... cue, press Play. 👍
If you do make the "why haven't monorails caught on?" video (and I hope you do), please call it "Monofail".
I like it!
I was going to say Japan has to most monorail installations, but I checked the "font of all knowledge" and found there are a surprising number of monorails that are actual transit systems. Japan seems to lead with 10 operational. US follows with 8 but 2 of those are Disney installations(full disclosure: 1 of Japan's is also Disney).
For a while there were quite a lot of monorails, but quite small ones:
ua-cam.com/video/Irv3KJR6B80/v-deo.html
The gist of it is fairly straight forward: The standard railway was there first and the monorail isn't actually meaningfully Better in ~99.999999% of contexts. Pretty much everything else stems from that. Still, the specifics can be interesting.
@@laurencefraser Being totally incompatible with standard railways doesn't help.
Would be interesting to know more about the Magnetic Levitation Monorail in use at Gatwick Airport between two of the Terminals!
Not a monorail, not maglev. Uses rubber tyres on two tracks. You're maybe thinking of the old Birmingham Airport thingy, which was maglev but also wasn't a monorail.
@@ubergeekian Birmingham Airport had WHAT NOW?!
@@bobwalsh3751 It was, unless I'm very much mistaken, the world's first commercial maglev system. Ran a whole 500 yards or so from Birmingham International Station to the Airport. Closed in the 1990's because it became too unreliable. Cute little carriages!
@@LancashireLass It was out of order more than in order if I remember correctly.
Nice leveraging in of the "balance of reading the news" Jago, take a gold star and have the rest of the day off.
Japanese Yuzu and other small citrus hillside orchards use tiny Monorails to shift people and the picked fruit, do a story on those, they are really great little things.
Yes please! in depth coversge of monorails if possible. Maybe a series?
I’m still sad that Sydney removed it monorail a few years back. I went on it in 2012 when I was on holiday there and it was awesome.
I’d love a monorail here in the UK. With all these trams and “light rail” I’m sure we could cram a few monorail posts in amongst the pedestrian zones where cars aren’t allowed anymore! Make a better use of those wide open road thingies than for all those horseless carriages 🤣
interesting very interesting, my dear Watson
As always another exemplary video, but I would respectfully ask for more modeling videos and perhaps a look at your layout. Either way, a video from you is always welcome....Thank you.
Thank You.
Having only ever ridden a monorail at Walt Disney World in Florida, I'd love to hear about efforts to make a monorail-based public transportation system.
Well, having a nearly flat canal layed connecting railway would be interesting, however wuppertal itself was a thin, long valley based city along the river
Good one Jago 👍
Consistently awesome
Kuala Lumpur has a monorail as part of its public transport network. Fun to ride on, but the vehicles have a limited capacity
Hi Jago. Video(s) on monorails? Yes, yes. yes!
A good subject. Perhaps some time we could have a video on the Listowel & Ballybunion Railway as well? There must be enough material for one.
Seconded!
I can just about view the Kuala Lumpur monorail from my apartment that runs in the city centre based on a system by Scomi, a Malaysian company. It has 11 stations and covers around 8km. The points are intriguing.
There is another one connecting the main island of Singapore to the island of Sentosa on a system by Hitachi.
I wish I could see the nice historic London without having to deal with the rest of it, hated my visits but the history draws me
Much as monorails have not been seen as a good solution to most situations, there are quite a few practical and busy examples, mainly in Japan.
I love monorails 😍 x
The only reason so many railway companies bought canals, making an offer the shareholders could not resist, was to close them down and steal their freight traffic.
In Seattle the voters approved referendums five times in a row to expand their monorail however because the city government wouldnt get behind it it never got built .