113-1032: The Palm Monorail is a monorail line on the Palm Jumeirah island in Dubai , United Arab Emirates . It is operated by the UK-based Serco . The monorail connects the Palm Jumeirah to the mainland, with a planned further extension to the Red Line of the Dubai Metro . The line opened on April 30, 2009 as the Palm Jumeirah Monorail . It is the first monorail in the Middle East . The trains are driverless, with attendants for any emergency situations.It's currently runs from Gateway Station to Atlantis Aquaventure and stopped at
226-423: A railroad double-crossover . Vehicle specifications are generally not open to the public, as is standard for rolling stock built for public services. An alternative to using a wye or other form of switch, is to use a turntable , where a car sits upon a section of track that can be reoriented to several different tracks. For example, this can be used to switch a car from being in a storage location, to being on
339-690: A track brake . The new Innovia Metro still offers linear motor propulsion as the advantageous option but an electric rotary propulsion version is also an option. The first rotary-powered Innovia Metro 300 system is being implemented in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Innovia Metro vehicle was built using a lightweight aluminum frame riding on two sets of articulated trucks using small steel wheels. The original Innovia ART 100 cars are 12.7 metres (41 ft 8 in) long. The second generation Innovia ART 200 cars are 16.7 metres (54 ft 9 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) long each and come in articulated pairs . By 2011,
452-546: A 1.9-kilometre (1.2 mi) oval test track that included at-grade, elevated and ramped sections, switches, and the automatic control centre. Phase III of the ICTS program ended on January 31, 1980, when testing on the prototype was completed at the Millhaven site, by this point the government had invested about $ 57.2 million, of a total $ 63 million spent on the product by the government and its industrial partners. By
565-431: A consortium to continue the development of the ICTS, changing their name to "Urban Transportation Development Corporation" ( UTDC ) to avoid any "provinciality" during their efforts to market the design to other cities. The result was essentially a larger, rubber-wheeled version of the original maglev vehicle. The consortium included of SPAR Aerospace for the linear induction motor , Standard Elektrik Lorenz (SEL) for
678-562: A faulty monorail from a confidence trickster at a wildly inflated price. The Monorail Society, an organization with 14,000 members worldwide, has blamed the episode for sullying the reputation of monorails, to which Simpsons creator Matt Groening responded "That's a by-product of our viciousness...Monorails are great, so it makes me sad, but at the same time if something's going to happen in The Simpsons , it's going to go wrong, right?" The 2005 feature film Batman Begins features
791-405: A high cost to include operator cabins and conventional controls. No other Innovia Metro system uses manual control. The Innovia Metro 300 systems are marketed to use Bombardier's own CITYFLO 650 automation system, but can also use other automation systems, such as SelTrac . The original versions of Innovia Metro were based on a linear induction motor (LIM) using vehicle-mounted windings and
904-653: A load-bearing single rail and an external wheel for balance. A highspeed monorail using the Lartigue system was proposed in 1901 between Liverpool and Manchester. In 1910, the Brennan gyroscopic monorail was considered for use to a coal mine in Alaska. In June 1920, the French Patent Office published FR 503782, by Henri Coanda, on a 'Transporteur Aérien' -Air Carrier. One of the first monorails planned in
1017-557: A manually operated monorail of limited but sufficient capacity for the transport of small timber and firewood in the Northern Surabaya forest district. In later years, this idea was further developed by L. A. van de Ven, who was a forester in the Grobogan forest district around 1908–1910. Monorails were built by plantation operators and wood processing companies throughout the mountains of Central Java. In 1919/1920, however,
1130-829: A monorail, constructed by Bruce Wayne's father through Gotham City, that is part of the climax of the film. The monorail is also included in the spin-off video game . Blaine the Mono is a train featured in Stephen King 's The Dark Tower series of books and first appears in The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands . Monorails have also appeared in a number of other video games including Transport Tycoon (since 1999), Japanese Rail Sim 3D: Monorail Trip to Okinawa by Sonic Powered , SimCity 4: Rush Hour , Cities in Motion 2 , Cities: Skylines in
1243-907: A narrow guide way. Monorail vehicles are wider than the guideway that supports them." Monorails are often elevated, sometimes leading to confusion with other elevated systems such as the Docklands Light Railway , Vancouver SkyTrain , the AirTrain JFK and cable propelled systems like the Cable Liner people mover which run on two rails. Monorail vehicles often appear similar to light rail vehicles, and can be staffed or unstaffed. They can be individual rigid vehicles, articulated single units, or multiple units coupled into trains. Like other advanced rapid transit systems, monorails can be driven by linear induction motors ; like conventional railways, vehicle bodies can be connected to
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#17327984994141356-744: A portion of both Vancouver's Expo and Millennium Lines (using a converted freight tunnel for the Expo line, and a bored tunnel under Clarke Road for the Evergreen Extension), Kuala Lumpur's Kelana Jaya Line, and Beijing's Airport Express. The Scarborough RT in Toronto also includes a short tunnelled section, though there are no stations within it. The Kuala Lumpur and Beijing systems, along with New York's Airtrain JFK, also incorporate platform screen doors commonly found in automated people movers around
1469-682: A proposal. The first cut reduced the field to a still-large fourteen proposals. After a year-long selection process, GO selected the Krauss-Maffei Transurban maglev as the preferred solution. As a maglev, the system would be silent, addressing concerns about noise on elevated portions of the track. Additionally, the system's linear induction motor did not require physical contact for traction, which meant it would run with equal capacity in snow or icy conditions. Krauss-Maffei agreed to do all vehicle construction in Ontario, and allow
1582-579: A subway line, from Kennedy station along a new route to Scarborough Centre. Line 3 Scarborough was scheduled to be decommissioned in November 2023, with bus service covering the route until the subway extension opens in 2030. However, an accident involving a car detachment and derailment on July 24, 2023, resulted in the TTC closing the line prematurely. The SkyTrain metro network has the largest Innovia Metro system in operation, and currently has two such lines:
1695-516: A total of 302 people. The line has a theoretical capacity of 40,000 passengers per day, with trains running every few minutes during peak hours and every 15 to 20 minutes during off-peak hours. However, actual ridership averaged around 600 passengers per day during the first week, and the monorail ran "virtually empty". As of July 2017, the line runs every 11 minutes and averages 3,000 passengers per day. Palm Gateway station has more than 1,600 parking spaces available. Monorail A monorail
1808-460: A track-mounted stator consisting of a thin aluminum plate mounted flat between the rails . The small size and flat shape of the motor , and its lack of a transmission connected to the bogies , allows the ART to be much closer to the ground than a traditional subway car. The motor is used for all control with the exception of final stopping and positioning using disc brakes and emergency braking using
1921-457: A wooden platform (in the full-scale project the trestle would have been concrete). A model train, built to 1/5 scale to test the vehicle concept, was capable of reaching speeds of up to 70 km/h. The full-scale project was expected to reach speeds of up to 300 km/h. In the latter half of the 20th century, monorails had settled on using larger beam- or girder-based track, with vehicles supported by one set of wheels and guided by another. In
2034-465: Is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover . More accurately, the term refers to the style of track . Monorail systems are most frequently implemented in large cities, airports, and theme parks. The term possibly originated in 1897 from German engineer Eugen Langen , who called an elevated railway system with wagons suspended
2147-443: Is an automated rapid transit system manufactured by Alstom . Innovia Metro systems run on conventional metal rails and pull power from a third rail but are powered by a linear induction motor that provides traction by using magnetic force to pull on a "fourth rail" (a flat aluminum slab) placed between the running rails. However, newer versions of the technology are available with standard electric rotary propulsion. The design
2260-438: Is because Chongqing is criss-crossed by numerous hills, mountains and rivers, therefore tunneling is not feasible except in some cases (for example, lines 1 and 6 ) due to the extreme depth involved. Today it is the largest and busiest monorail system in the world. In July 2009, two Walt Disney World monorails collided , killing one of the drivers and injuring seven passengers. The National Transportation Safety Board found
2373-416: Is currently owned by Thales . SelTrac is a completely automated system, with centralized control. The system originally used a current loop in the track bed to signal to and from the vehicles, but this has been replaced in more modern versions with a variety of radio systems. In the original system, the current loop also provided positioning by crossing the lines every metre, with an onboard sensor counting
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#17327984994142486-546: Is marketed as the Innovia Metro, while previous models are retroactively branded as Innovia ART. The largest system is part of the Vancouver SkyTrain metro network, which has seen several major expansions over its lifetime. It operates just under 50 kilometres (31 mi) of track compatible with Innovia Metro trains. Vancouver was the first to order Innovia Metro 300 vehicles. Since then, vehicle orders for
2599-477: Is speeding towards a stricken bridge. The James Bond film franchise features monorails in three movies, all belonging to the villain. In You Only Live Twice (1967) there is a working ground level monorail inside the SPECTRE volcano base. During Live and Let Die (1973), a prop monorail is shown in the villain's lair on the fictional Caribbean island of San Monique. In the 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me there
2712-481: Is the straddle-beam, in which the train straddles a steel or reinforced concrete beam 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 m) wide. A rubber - tired carriage contacts the beam on the top and both sides for traction and to stabilize the vehicle. The style was popularized by the German company ALWEG . There is also a historical type of suspension monorail developed by German inventors Nicolaus Otto and Eugen Langen in
2825-465: Is to place a moving apparatus on top of a sturdy platform capable of bearing the weight of vehicles, beams and its own mechanism. Multiple-segmented beams move into place on rollers to smoothly align one beam with another to send the train in its desired direction, with the design originally developed by ALWEG capable of completing a switch in 12 seconds. Some of these beam turnouts are quite elaborate, capable of switching between several beams or simulating
2938-567: Is under construction in Wuhu and several "Cloudrail" systems developed by BYD under construction a number of cities such as Guang'an , Liuzhou , Bengbu and Guilin . Monorails have seen continuing use in niche shuttle markets and amusement parks. Modern mass transit monorail systems use developments of the ALWEG beam and tyre approach, with only two suspended types in large use. Monorail configurations have also been adopted by maglev trains . Since
3051-709: Is using the BYD SkyRail design. Other significant monorail systems are under construction such as two lines for the Cairo Monorail , two lines for the MRT (Bangkok) and the SkyRail Bahia in Brazil . Modern monorails depend on a large solid beam as the vehicles' running surface. There are a number of competing designs divided into two broad classes, straddle-beam and suspended monorails. The most common type
3164-555: Is working monorail on the villain's supertanker (submarine dock). In 1987, Lego released a monorail among the Futuron Space line. Despite being the most expensive Lego set of its time (due to being massive and including electrical elements), it was very popular, with Lego releasing a Town themed monorail in 1990 and another Space monorail in 1994 among the Unitron line, as well as additional track. The monorail system
3277-671: The Eugen Langen One-railed Suspension Tramway (Einschieniges Hängebahnsystem Eugen Langen). Monorails have found applications in airport transfers and medium capacity metros. To differentiate monorails from other transport modes, the Monorail Society defines a monorail as a "single rail serving as a track for passenger or freight vehicles. In most cases, rail is elevated, but monorails can also run at grade , below grade, or in subway tunnels. Vehicles either are suspended from or straddle
3390-597: The 1964–1965 World's Fair . This high-cost perception was challenged most notably in 1963 when the ALWEG consortium proposed to finance the construction of a major system in Los Angeles County, California , in return for the right of operation. This was turned down by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors under pressure from Standard Oil of California and General Motors (which were strong advocates for automobile dependency ), and
3503-454: The Bradford and Foster Brook Railway was built in 1877 and ran for one year from January 1878 until January 1879. Around 1879 a "one-rail" system was proposed independently by Haddon and by Stringfellow, which used an inverted "V" rail (and thus shaped like "Λ" in cross-section). It was intended for military use, but was also seen to have civilian use as a "cheap railway." Similarly, one of
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3616-529: The British company Serco . The project budget is US$ 400 million, with an additional US$ 190M set aside for a 2-kilometre (1.2 mi) future extension to the Dubai Metro, while other sources state a budget of US$ 1.1 billion. A journey on the monorail costs Dhs 20 one-way, 30 return. The Al Ittihad Park station, originally intended to serve the cancelled Trump International Hotel and Tower development,
3729-684: The Cabinentaxi system from Germany, but that company decided to pull out of the contest in order to focus on a larger development in Hamburg . The UTDC responded to a "buy American" clause in UMTA by opening a branch office in Detroit, and that immediately swung the decision in their favour. However, with the Ronald Reagan administration taking office in 1981, DPM was rapidly de-funded. Four of
3842-537: The Centennial Monorail demonstrated in 1876, in 1877 the Bradford and Foster Brook Railway began construction of a 5 mi (8.0 km) line connecting Bradford and Foster Township, McKean County in Pennsylvania . The line operated from 1878 until 1879 delivering machinery and oil supplies. The first twin-boiler locomotive wore out quickly. It was replaced by a single boiler locomotive which
3955-518: The Changsha Maglev Express ). However, it is argued that the larger width of the guideway for the maglevs makes it not legitimate to be called monorails. Some early monorails (notably the suspended monorail at Wuppertal , Germany) have a design that makes it difficult to switch from one line to another. Some other monorails avoid switching as much as possible by operating in a continuous loop or between two fixed stations, as in
4068-676: The Evergreen Extension , a 10.9-kilometre (6.8 mi) extension from Burnaby to Coquitlam in the northeast, which the Millennium Line now re-routes to. Although at one point the extension was proposed to be a street-level LRT system that would not have used Innovia ART technology, in 2008 plans were changed back to the SkyTrain option by the provincial government to facilitate higher ridership from increased capacity, shortened travel times and to integrate seamlessly with
4181-432: The Evergreen Extension . The SkyTrain system uses a mixed fleet of Innovia ART 100, 200 and 300 cars. The latest version of the technology uses the name "Innovia Metro" and is marketed as a mid-size metro system. Innovia Metro is compatible with Bombardier's own CITYFLO 650 integrated transit automation system and is offered in variants compatible with both linear motor and electric rotary propulsion. Bombardier now markets
4294-639: The Expo Line and the Millennium Line . Vancouver's SkyTrain network continues to maintain on-time reliability over 95%. The Expo Line opened in late 1985, in time for Expo '86. With the opening of the Millennium Line in 2002, Vancouver added to its original Innovia ART 100 fleet the longer, articulated Innovia ART 200 trains first used in Kuala Lumpur, which allow for significantly greater rider capacities. In 2012, Vancouver began construction of
4407-584: The ICTS ( Intermediate Capacity Transit System ). The ICTS was chosen for lines in Vancouver , Toronto , and Detroit . Further sales were not forthcoming and the Ontario government lost interest in the company, selling it to Lavalin of Quebec in 1986. Lavalin ran into serious financial difficulties and the UTDC returned to Ontario control, only to be immediately sold to Bombardier Transportation . Bombardier used
4520-553: The Interstate Highway System . Monorails in particular may have suffered from the reluctance of public transit authorities to invest in the perceived high cost of un-proven technology when faced with cheaper mature alternatives. There were also many competing monorail technologies, splitting their case further. One notable example of a public monorail is the AMF Monorail that was used as transportation around
4633-609: The Lartigue Monorail , used steam locomotives. Magnetic levitation train (maglev) systems such as the German Transrapid were built as straddle-type monorails. The Shanghai Maglev Train runs in commercial operation at 430 km/h (270 mph), and there are also slower maglev monorails intended for urban transport in Japan ( Linimo ), Korea ( Incheon Airport Maglev ) and China ( Beijing Subway Line S1 and
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4746-802: The Lausanne Metro has grades of up to 12% and the Montreal Metro up to 6.5%, while VAL systems can handle 7% grades. Manufacturers of monorail rolling stock with operating systems include Hitachi Monorail , BYD , Bombardier Transportation (now Alstom ), Scomi , PBTS (a joint venture of CRRC Nanjing Puzhen & Bombardier), Intamin and EMTC. Other developers include CRRC Qingdao Sifang , China Railway Science and Industry Group , Zhongtang Air Rail Technology, Woojin and SkyWay Group . François Truffaut 's 1966 film adaptation of Ray Bradbury 's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 contains suspended monorail exterior scenes filmed at
4859-541: The Mass transit expansion pack of 2017, Planet Zoo and a rideable elevated monorail system in the 2020 video game Cyberpunk 2077 . From 1950 to 1980, the monorail concept may have suffered, as with all public transport systems, from competition with the automobile . At the time, the post–World War II optimism in America was riding high and people were buying automobiles in large numbers due to suburbanization and
4972-484: The Seattle Center Monorail . Current monorails are capable of more efficient switching than in the past. With suspended monorails, switching may be accomplished by moving flanges inside the beamway to shift trains to one line or another. Straddle-beam monorails require that the beam moves for switching, which was an almost prohibitively ponderous procedure. Now the most common way of achieving this
5085-631: The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) was planning to build a streetcar line serving the city's eastern district of Scarborough , but the Ontario provincial government convinced it, by threatening to withhold funding, to switch to the Innovia ART 100 technology. This would act as a demonstration system for other transit operators considering buying the trains. In exchange, the government agreed to pay for any cost overruns over
5198-695: The Transrapid and Linimo . Maglevs differ from other monorails in that they do not physically contact the beam while moving. The first monorail prototype was made in Russia in 1820 by Ivan Elmanov . Attempts at creating monorail alternatives to conventional railways have been made since the early part of the 19th century. The Centennial Monorail was featured at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Based on its design
5311-494: The elevated train systems of New York, Chicago, and elsewhere, a monorail beamway casts a narrow shadow. Conversely, monorails can be more expensive than light-rail systems that do not include tunnels. In addition, monorails must either remain above ground or use larger tunnels than conventional rail systems, and they require complex track-switching equipment. Under the Monorail Society's beam-width criterion, some, but not all, maglev systems are considered monorails, such as
5424-410: The " GO-Urban " plan. GO-Urban called for a system of three advanced mass transit lines that would be run by the newly formed GO Transit . The idea was to select a system with low capital costs, one that would be cost effective in low-density areas where a traditional subway would be too expensive to build and operate. Designed to have a design capacity half-way between buses and subways, the new system
5537-519: The 1880s. It was built in the twin cities of Barmen and Elberfeld in Wuppertal, Germany, opened in 1901, and is still in operation. The Chiba Urban Monorail is the world's largest suspended network. Almost all modern monorails are powered by electric motors fed by dual third rails , contact wires or electrified channels attached to or enclosed in their guidance beams, but diesel-powered monorail systems also exist. Historically some systems, such as
5650-579: The 1950s, a 40% scale prototype of a system designed for speed of 200 mph (320 km/h) on straight stretches and 90 mph (140 km/h) on curves was built in Germany. There were designs with vehicles supported, suspended or cantilevered from the beams. In the 1950s the ALWEG straddle design emerged, followed by an updated suspended type, the SAFEGE system. Versions of ALWEG's technology are used by
5763-536: The 1980s, most monorail mass transit systems are in Japan , with a few exceptions. Tokyo Monorail , is one of the world's busiest, averages 127,000 passengers per day and has served over 1.5 billion passengers since 1964. China recently started development of monorails in the late 2000s, already home to the world's largest and busiest monorail system and has a number of mass transit monorails under construction in several of cities. A Bombardier Innovia Monorail -based system
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#17327984994145876-515: The 2000s, with the rise of traffic congestion and urbanization, there has been a resurgence of interest in the technology for public transport with a number of cities, such as Malta and Istanbul , today investigating monorails as a possible mass transit solution. In 2004, Chongqing Rail Transit in China adopted a unique ALWEG-based design with rolling stock that is much wider than most monorails, with capacity comparable to heavy rail . This
5989-609: The French SAFEGE test track in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire near Orléans , France (since dismantled). The Thunderbirds February 1966 episode " Brink of Disaster " is about the financing and building of a high speed driverless cross-country monorail project. Two of the Thunderbirds-crew find themselves trapped on board the a monorail train, and with no possibility of escape, when it is discovered it
6102-617: The German government was ending. Ontario was not willing to continue funding development of the system on their own, and cancelled the maglev plans. Instead of returning to their earlier submissions, the OTDC decided to press ahead with many portions of the existing ICTS design. On April 14, 1975, the Ministry of Transportation arranged financing for Phase I and II studies to develop the new version. In June 1975, OTDC announced that it had arranged
6215-463: The Innovia ART 100 car meant that the traditional Toronto solution of taking up the front-right corner of the cab left too little room for the operator to work in, and the entire front of the car had to be used up, reducing seating. Additionally, the Innovia ART 100 control system was based on "dumb" cars and "smart" control centres, so there was no system on the train itself for control or presenting information. These systems had to be retrofitted and were
6328-428: The Innovia ART 100 fleet overdue for replacement and expensive upgrades to the line needed to handle the longer Innovia ART 200 trains, replacement of the line was decided upon. One proposal would have converted the line to use conventional light rail vehicles and seen it extended west by 19 kilometres (11.8 mi), but the city council voted to ask for provincial and federal funding to extend Line 2 Bloor–Danforth ,
6441-433: The Innovia ART 200 design has been updated and Bombardier is currently marketing the third generation as Innovia Metro 300 (retiring the ART branding). While three vehicle orders have been placed, new vehicles are still in the production stage. Vehicle dimensions are similar to the Innovia ART 200 vehicle, but passenger capacity has been increased through redesigned car layout. The vehicles appear sleeker, with larger windows on
6554-489: The Innovia Metro alongside the larger Movia Metro and has touted its system versatility. The first rotary-powered Innovia Metro 300 vehicles were ordered by Riyadh Metro in Saudi Arabia for Line 3 of its new rapid transit network. Those 47 vehicles will be equipped with Bombardier's MITRAC propulsion drives. The ICTS was the original platform for the SelTrac automated control system by Standard Elektrik Lorenz . This system has changed hands several times since then and
6667-402: The Innovia Metro system has a number of competitors in the field of automated light metros , including the VAL technology developed by Matra for the Lille Metro in France (and now owned by Siemens ) and the Météor technology used by Paris Métro Line 14 (which is built to high-capacity, full metro standards). Furthermore, the CITYFLO and SelTrac signaling technologies are not specific to
6780-440: The Innovia Metro, but can also equip most conventional railway lines regardless of propulsion technology or carrying capacity. Innovia Metro lines are designed to run on elevated structures , and indeed the systems that use these trains include such sections, with most being predominantly elevated. Using a grade-separated guideway , though, allows them to perform equally well on ground level and in tunnels , as they in fact do for
6893-405: The United States Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) Downtown People Mover (DPM) program. After ten years, little actual development had taken place and UMTA was mandated to install systems with all possible speed. None of the high-tech developments funded by UMTA had been installed, nor developed to the point where they were ready for service. Instead, the Detroit system was favouring
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#17327984994147006-493: The United States was in New York City in the early 1930s, scrubbed for an elevated train system. The first half of the 20th century saw many further proposed designs that either never left the drawing board or remained short-lived prototypes. One of the most interesting projects created on the layout was the ball-bearing train by Nikolai Grigorievich Yarmolchuk. This train moved on spherical wheels with electric motors embedded in them, which were located in semi-circular chutes under
7119-557: The automatic control system, Dofasco for the bogies , Alcan and Canadair for the design of the car bodies and a set of prototypes, and Canadair as the overall prime contractor. The arrangements, funding and final system definitions were in place by 1976. Between 1976 and 1980, three prototype cars were built. The first immediately demonstrated a problem with the rubber-wheeled bogies. The linear induction motor required very accurate positioning about 15 millimetres (0.59 in) above its "reaction rail" in order to work efficiently and
7232-445: The beam via bogies , allowing curves to be negotiated. Monorails are sometimes used in urban areas alongside conventional parallel railed metro systems. Mumbai Monorail serves alongside Mumbai Metro , while monorail lines are integrated with conventional rail rapid transit lines in Bangkok's MRT network. Unlike some trams and light rail systems, modern monorails are always separated from other traffic and pedestrians due to
7345-439: The cars, as well as adding more internal space for passenger seating. These versions of the Mark II design won several more contracts, and are currently operating on the Kelana Jaya Line in Kuala Lumpur, the Airport Express, Beijing Subway in China (in four-car trains), and the YongIn EverLine near Seoul in South Korea. When Bombardier started marketing ART as part of its Bombardier Innovia family of automated transit systems,
7458-469: The case and in operations at just the wrong conditions close to freezing, the opposite occurred: when the train passed and heated the rail, microscopically thin layers of snow would be melted, and if the rail was below zero as a whole, the water would freeze to the rail and cause ice buildup. Another retrofit was required to solve this problem, by adding wooden covers over the rail, a system used throughout Toronto's subway system. Even with these covers in place,
7571-400: The cause of considerable expense and confusion. Entering operation, the problems continued. The braking system had been designed to be fully automated but was now being operated by manual control, and the brakes were being over-applied. This led to problems with the wheels being rubbed flat in spots when the brakes were applied too strongly, producing buzzing noises when running at speed. Since
7684-489: The cause of the accident to be human error by both the driver and controller, contributed to by a lack of standard operating procedures. São Paulo , Brazil, is building two high-capacity monorail lines as part of its public transportation network. Line 15 was partially opened in 2014, will be 27 km (17 mi) long when completed in 2022 and has a capacity of 40,000 pphpd using Bombardier Innovia Monorail trains. Line 17 will be 17.7 km (11.0 mi) long and
7797-547: The company for only CAD$ 50 million, less than the $ 70 million spent on the UTDC by the government up to 1981. The sale was highly controversial at the time, due to several non-performance payments due to the early problems on the ICTS that had to be paid out by the government, to the tune of $ 39 million. Soon after, Hawker Siddeley announced that they were selling their remaining interest in Can-Car to Lavalin as well. A series of financial difficulties caused by Lavalin's rapid expansion led to its bankruptcy. A clause in
7910-529: The first monorail locomotive was a 0-3-0 steam locomotive on this line. A high-speed monorail using the Lartigue system was proposed in 1901 between Liverpool and Manchester. The Boynton Bicycle Railroad was a steam-powered monorail in Brooklyn on Long Island , New York . It ran on a single load-bearing rail at ground level, but with a wooden overhead stabilising rail engaged by a pair of horizontally opposed wheels. The railway operated for only two years beginning in 1890. The Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad
8023-428: The first systems put into practical use was that of French engineer Charles Lartigue, who built a line between Ballybunion and Listowel in Ireland, opened in 1888 and lasting 36 years, being closed in 1924 (due to damage from Ireland's Civil War). It used a load-bearing single rail and two lower, external rails for balance, the three carried on triangular supports. It was cheap to construct but tricky to operate. Possibly
8136-597: The five cities ended their development plans, but Detroit and Miami (using a different design) decided to press ahead with their deployments. Construction of the Toronto and Vancouver systems proceeded apace, with the Scarborough RT opening for service on March 22, 1985, followed by the SkyTrain on December 11, 1985, with passenger service starting in January. Sales of additional ICTS systems went nowhere, and
8249-554: The flange and track that caused the screeching noise. UTDC bought two modern articulated bogie patents from a private developer in the United States, which were further developed by Dofasco . A dedicated test facility was desired; modelled after the similar Transit Testing Center set up in the US as part of their own mass transit developments, the site would be open to use for any company that wanted to test new technologies without
8362-574: The geometry of the rail. They are both guided and supported via interaction with the same single beam, in contrast to other guided systems like rubber-tyred metros , such as the Sapporo Municipal Subway ; or guided buses or trams, such as Translohr . Monorails can also use pantographs . As with other grade-separated transit systems, monorails avoid red lights, intersection turns, and traffic jams. Surface-level trains, buses, automobiles, and pedestrians can collide each one with
8475-426: The government began to worry about UTDC's continued successes. The government pushed any potential deployment to buy from UTDC, but with only one product, and that product having many problems in Toronto, there was little interest from other cities. At the same time, the buy-UTDC clause locked Hawker Siddeley Canada out of many local projects, and they had formerly been a major supplier in the local market. The solution
8588-659: The growth of the suburbs led to a flight of capital from the city cores, resulting in the urban decay being seen throughout the US leading to freeway revolts across North America. Activists inspired by urbanist Jane Jacobs rallied to oppose development of the Spadina Expressway project. The government reconsidered and cancelled the construction of the Spadina Expressway and other planned expressways. Instead of expressways, Bill Davis and his new Minister of Transport, Charles MacNaughton , outlined
8701-458: The hand-operated monorails gradually disappeared and were replaced by narrow-gauge railways with steam locomotives as forest utilization changed. In the 1920s the Port of Hamburg used a petrol powered, suspended monorail to transport luggage and freight from ocean-going vessels to a passenger depot. Bombardier Advanced Rapid Transit Upcoming: Former: Former: Innovia Metro
8814-499: The late 1970s, it appeared there were no more technology issues to overcome and efforts turned to debugging the system and developing methods for mass production. As this process started, UTDC started its own efforts to market the design. Toronto, the inspiration for the system, was an obvious target, but the company also found interest in the system in Ottawa , Hamilton , Vancouver , Detroit and Los Angeles . A test system in Toronto
8927-534: The later proposed subway system faced criticism by famed author Ray Bradbury as it had yet to reach the scale of the proposed monorail. Several monorails initially conceived as transport systems survive on revenues generated from tourism , benefiting from the unique views offered from the largely elevated installations. Monorails have been used for number of applications other than passenger transportation. Small suspended monorail are also widely used in factories either as part of moveable assembly lines. Inspired by
9040-486: The latest Innovia Metro technology have been made by transit authorities in Kuala Lumpur and Riyadh. During the 1950s, Toronto experienced the same sort of urban sprawl that was sweeping through the United States. This caused enormous traffic problems within the city, and a network of new highways to address the problem became part of the Official Plan in 1959. By the mid-1960s, there was a growing awareness that
9153-497: The legacy systems in use today. However, monorails gained little foothold compared to conventional transport systems. In March 1972, Alejandro Goicoechea-Omar had patent DE1755198 published, on a 'Vertebrate Train', build as experimental track in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. Niche private enterprise uses for monorails emerged, with the emergence of air travel and shopping malls , with shuttle-type systems being built. From
9266-472: The line can be shut down by any heavy snowfall that covers the fourth rail to a depth that fills the distance between the rail and the linear motor. Only two of Line 3's stations have ridership comparable to those of the TTC's conventional subway lines , and most passengers see it merely as an extra transfer they must make in order to get onto a subway line running downtown. Although there had been proposals to extend Line 3, none of these gained traction. With
9379-594: The local office to handle all sales efforts in North America – a stipulation most US companies were not willing to agree to. Local testing, construction and sales were centralized in the newly created "Ontario Transportation Development Corporation" (OTDC). Construction of a test track on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition started in late 1975, but shortly after this Krauss-Maffei announced that development funding provided by
9492-409: The main line. The now-closed Sydney Monorail had a traverser at the depot, which allowed a train on the main line to be exchanged with another from the depot. There were about six lines in the depot, including one for maintenance. Rubber-tired monorails are typically designed to cope with a 6% grade . Rubber-tired light rail or metro lines can cope with similar or greater grades – for example,
9605-596: The monorail car. A surviving suspended version is the oldest still in service system: the Wuppertal monorail in Germany. Also in the early 1900s, Gyro monorails with cars gyroscopically balanced on top of a single rail were tested, but never developed beyond the prototype stage. The Ewing System , used in the Patiala State Monorail Trainways in Punjab, India , relies on a hybrid model with
9718-473: The name Advanced Rapid Transit ( ART ) after its acquisition of the technology. The company was much more active in developing and promoting this system, introducing a major new revision and winning several additional sales in New York City , Beijing , Kuala Lumpur and Yongin , near Seoul . Bombardier would later be purchased by Alstom, which continues to market the technology. The latest version
9831-601: The need to build out their own testing sites. A 480-acre (190 ha) site in Millhaven, outside of Kingston, Ontario , was selected for the new test centre. Kingston had been home to the Canadian Locomotive Company that closed its doors in 1969, and the city lobbied hard for the new company to locate to their city. The site was officially opened on September 29, 1978, by James Snow , the Minister of Transportation and Communications. The site included
9944-515: The new Al Ittihad Park Station in between. Construction began on the 5.45-kilometre (3.39 mi) monorail line in March 2006, under the supervision of Marubeni Corporation , with the monorail track completed in July 2008 and vehicle testing beginning in November 2008. Originally planned to open by December 2008, the opening was delayed to April 30, 2009. In 2010, day-to-day operations were taken over by
10057-521: The number of times the polarity changed. Additional fine-tuning was available via a wheel rotation counter, which was used for positioning in stations. The Toronto Transit Commission union, ATU Local 113, rejected automated control as they felt this was the start of a switch to automating the entire fleet, thereby cutting some of the highest paid jobs in the TTC. This led to the Scarborough Rapid Transit vehicles being modified at
10170-411: The original LRT costs. The 7-kilometre (4.3 mi) six-station Scarborough RT (now called Line 3 Scarborough ) line opened in March 1985. Although its Innovia ART 100 trains are capable of driving themselves, the TTC chose to run them semi-automatically with operators on board in order to keep peace with their main union. This conversion proved much more difficult than imagined; the small confines of
10283-400: The original sales contract returned UTDC to Ontario crown control, and they quickly sold it to Bombardier in 1991. Bombardier started a redesign effort for the ICTS, resulting in the larger, advanced rapid transit (ART) Mark II vehicle. Compared to the original ICTS (retroactively named Mark I), the newer ART cars are longer with more seating, and have a more open layout inside. ART technology
10396-429: The original streetcar budget. Construction of the internal streetcar platform and a turn-around loop had already been completed at the station. The platform had to be raised to the higher floor height of the ICTS, but UTDC claimed the vehicle would be able to make its way around the existing 18-metre (59 ft) radius loop at 10 km/h (6.2 mph) without additional modification. Vancouver proved very interested in
10509-488: The other, while vehicles on dedicated, grade-separated rights-of-way such as monorails can collide only with other vehicles on the same system, with much fewer opportunities for collision. As with other elevated transit systems, monorail passengers receive sunlight and views. Monorails can be quieter than diesel buses and trains. They obtain electricity from the track structure, whereas other modes of transit may use either third rail or overhead power lines and poles. Compared to
10622-547: The sides of the train, and redesigned windows and headlights on the ends of the cars. The linear motors and steerable axles used in Innovia Metro trains are relatively rare, although similar Japanese designed linear motor propulsion technologies are also used on a number of subway lines in East Asia, such as the Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi Line , Toei Ōedo Line and Guangzhou Metro Line 5 . However,
10735-402: The slight give in the wheels was enough to make this a problem. The obvious solution to this would be to use steel wheels instead, but that would re-introduce the noise problem as the trains rounded curves in the tracks. A new solution was selected, using steel wheels with an articulated bogie that would steer each wheel set into the direction of the track and thereby avoid the rubbing between
10848-405: The suburbs. Construction had already started on the streetcar system at the eastern end of the line at Kennedy station . The provincial government asked the TTC to switch the streetcar line to the ICTS. The TTC was uninterested until the government threatened to pull their financing, which accounted for 75% of its capital budget. In exchange, the government agreed to pay for any cost overruns above
10961-522: The system on its own merits. As early as 1978, the city had been planning a transportation-themed event for its centennial in 1986, and in 1980 they won the rights to host the Expo '86 World's Fair, giving it the theme "Transportation and Communications". The city is newer than Toronto and more spread out, making a traditional subway unattractive – precisely the problem that the ICTS had been designed to solve. The ICTS vehicle design, with shorter vehicle heights,
11074-517: The technology was rebranded as the Innovia ART 100 for the Mark I and Innovia ART 200 for the Mark II. Vancouver continues to be the largest operator of an Innovia ART system, with 49.5 km (30.8 mi) of operational lines in its SkyTrain network (Expo Line and Millennium Line). This network increased in 2016 with the opening of a 10.9-kilometre (6.8 mi) extension of the Millennium Line, named
11187-695: The two largest monorail manufacturers, Hitachi Monorail and Bombardier . In 1956, the first monorail to operate in the US began test operations in Houston, Texas. Disneyland in Anaheim, California , opened the United States' first daily operating monorail system in 1959. Later during this period, additional monorails were installed at Walt Disney World in Florida , Seattle , and in Japan . Monorails were promoted as futuristic technology with exhibition installations and amusement park purchases, as seen by
11300-449: The vehicles were brand-new, the TTC did not have a machine capable of grinding the small-diameter wheels, and one had to be purchased for $ 1.5 million. Another $ 250,000 was needed for a rail grinder to remove "totally unexpected rail corrugations". Additionally, the cars were found to be incapable of turning the short radius , 18-metre (59 ft 1 in) turning loop at one end of the line, in spite of UTDC's claims it could, which
11413-523: The world. Prior to a change in approach to marketing and the introduction of the "Metro" branding, Innovia ART 100 and 200 technologies were sometimes referred to as " light rail ", especially in Asia. Because of their use of automated operation and third-rail power, however, they are unsuitable for the unprotected , street-level trams that the term usually indicates in Europe and North America. In 1981,
11526-482: Was a monorail on which a matching pedal bicycle could be ridden. The first example was built between Smithville and Mount Holly , New Jersey, in 1892. It closed in 1897. Other examples were built in Norfolk from 1895 to 1909, Great Yarmouth , and Blackpool , UK from 1896. Early designs used a double- flanged single metal rail alternative to the double rail of conventional railways, both guiding and supporting
11639-509: Was also ideal, as the old heavy-rail Dunsmuir Tunnel in downtown Vancouver could be easily modified and split into two stacked tunnels. With UTDC interested in showcasing the system at the Expo, and the Expo backers interested in a transit solution that could be open in time for the show, a deal was quickly arranged that was attractive to both parties. At the time, it was a somewhat controversial project and had its detractors. Detroit had been one of six cities selected for rapid development under
11752-544: Was also prominent in the unreleased Seatron Space line and prototype Wild West sets. Its popularity has still endured over thirty years later, where Lego has paid homage in promotional sets and fans have manufactured compatible components. The fourth season of the American animated television show The Simpsons features the episode " Marge vs. the Monorail ", in which the town of Springfield impulsively purchases
11865-426: Was going to have to be re-built at a cost of about $ 6 million. Instead, this portion of the track was simply abandoned. Over $ 1 million was originally budgeted to heat the third rail to prevent ice buildup but this feature was later removed as a cost-cutting move. It was believed that the rapid operation (short headways ) would keep the rail free of snow as the passing cars heated the rail. This proved not to be
11978-451: Was opened on July 3, 2017. Nakheel Mall station opened on November 28, 2019. The Palm Monorail uses Hitachi Monorail straddle-type technology. The electro-mechanical works are carried out by ETA-Dubai in joint venture with Hitachi-Japan. Omron Electronics Company will provide the train equipment electronic system which will works by using the smart card technique. Each carriage has 70 seats and can accommodate 232 standing passengers, for
12091-505: Was originally developed in the 1970s by the Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC), a Government of Ontario –owned crown corporation . It was designed as a system that would provide economic rapid transit service in the suburbs , which would have ridership levels between what a bus could serve at the low-end, or a subway at the high-end. During development, the system was known as
12204-568: Was referred to as the Intermediate Capacity Transit System or ICTS. The space age automated guideway transit (AGT) systems being designed in the late 1960s seemed like the right solution. Toronto was not the only city looking for such a solution, and there appeared to be a large market for automated transit systems in the 1970s and 80s. As GO-Urban was larger than most networks being considered, practically every company working on an AGT, or hoping to, submitted
12317-550: Was selected for the AirTrain JFK project, which is widely considered a great success in spite of predictions to the contrary. After winning the SkyTrain Millennium Line contract in Vancouver, Bombardier further improved the design by introducing an articulating section between adjacent cars, replacing the coupling and doors of the older Mark I design. The articulation allows passengers to move freely between
12430-498: Was that without a manufacturing business, UTDC would find it difficult to make enough income to justify its Kingston operations. If the company did start a manufacturing side, it would be inappropriate for the company to remain government owned. The Can-Car deal put this on hold for a time. In 1986 the new Ontario government announced their intention to sell UTDC to Lavalin , a large engineering company in Montreal. Lavalin purchased
12543-508: Was the primary concern. With the GO-Urban concept having since been cancelled, and GO Transit having turned to conventional heavy rail systems, the only suitable local market was the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). The TTC had recently extended the east–west Bloor-Danforth subway line with the addition of another station on each end of the line, and had planned to further extend the line with streetcars running from those stations into
12656-432: Was to form a 50–50 combined company, Can-Car Rail, who marketed the combined product line. Hawker had a number of successful products, notably their Bombardier BiLevel Coach , and as these other products were selling well through this period, interest in actively selling ICTS waned. In spite of Can-Car's success in other markets, as early as 1981 the government had considered selling UTDC to the private sector. Their concern
12769-463: Was too heavy and crashed through the track on its third trip. The third locomotive again had twin boilers. On a trial run one of the boilers ran dry and exploded, killing six people. The railway was closed soon after. Monorails in Central Java were used to transport timber from the forests of Central Java located in the mountains to the rivers. In 1908 and 1909, the forester H. J. L. Beck built
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