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102-424: The Boynton Bicycle Railroad was a monorail in southern Brooklyn , New York, within what is now New York City . It ran on a single load-bearing rail at ground level, but with a wooden overhead stabilizing rail engaged by a pair of horizontally opposed wheels. The railway operated for only two years, from 1889 to 1890. The concept was invented by Eben Moody Boynton , who hoped that this would eventually replace

204-423: 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

306-461: A double-ended boiler , with one firebox in the centre and a smokebox at each end. Fairlie was not the first engineer to design and build a double-engine. In 1850, the Belgian company John Cockerill & Co built a double-boiler locomotive called Seraing which featured two independently articulated driving bogies. It had several differences from Fairlie's design, notably the buffers were fixed to

408-556: 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

510-630: 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

612-544: 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,

714-801: 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

816-551: A shifting section of the guide rail, whereby, on the moving of the track rail and the setting of the signal, the guide rail was simultaneously moved, the adjustment being effected and both being locked in position according to the methods usual in ordinary railway practice. The passenger cars were each two stories in height, each story being divided lengthwise into nine separate compartments, each of which seated comfortably four passengers, thus providing seats for 72 passengers in each car. Each compartment had its own sliding door, and all

918-426: A tender that did nothing but carry fuel and water without contributing to the locomotive's adhesive weight . Furthermore, the standard locomotive had a front and back, and was not intended for prolonged driving in reverse, thus requiring a turntable or wye at every terminus. Fairlie's answer was a double-ended steam locomotive, carrying all its fuel and water aboard the locomotive and with every axle driven. It had

1020-541: A total of five Fairlie locomotives, one of which is on display in the UK National Collection . Since the reopening of the railway in presentation, their Boston Lodge workshops have built three new Double Fairlies, the most recent being James Spooner II which entered service in 2023 to replace Earl of Merioneth . The locomotive sold in the US was ordered for the newly built Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in 1872, and

1122-457: 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

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1224-412: A works photograph showing the engine in new condition and there are rectangular tanks on top of the boilers, which was the usual arrangement on oil-fired Fairlies. Heat from the boilers kept the oil warm and prevented it from becoming too viscous in cold weather. In New Zealand, the R class and S class single Fairlies and the B class and E class double Fairlies were ordered in the 1870s for use on

1326-438: 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

1428-586: Is of typically British appearance apart from the sanding dome which, curiously, is provided at one end only. This photograph of FCM number 183 [1] Archived 11 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine shows a locomotive of distinctly American appearance. If it is one of the VF engines, it has certainly been heavily re-built. The VF engines were almost certainly built as oil-fired . The photograph in Durrant's book looks like

1530-552: Is recorded by Rolt that difficulties encountered in 1909 with the design and construction of steam-tight flexible steam connections for the Garratt locomotive were solved by Beyer, Peacock & Company 's designers after studying the spherical steam joints on a Fairlie locomotive built for the Ffestiniog Railway. Unpowered wheels on a steam locomotive reduce its tendency to wander or 'hunt' when rolling on straight track, and lead

1632-472: 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

1734-477: 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

1836-465: 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

1938-694: Is unclear how many were actually built. The freight locomotive resembles a Double Fairlie . 40°34′32″N 73°57′34″W  /  40.575437°N 73.959450°W  / 40.575437; -73.959450 Monorail The term possibly originated in 1897 from German engineer Eugen Langen , who called an elevated railway system with wagons suspended 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,

2040-559: 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

2142-682: 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

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2244-543: 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

2346-579: 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

2448-449: 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

2550-522: 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

2652-508: 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

2754-698: 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

2856-736: The Great Southern & Western Railway in 1869. The design was especially popular with William Mason , Fairlie's licensee in the United States , who built 146 or so Mason Bogie locomotives , which were a variant on this design. In the UK , a single Fairlie 0-4-4 T was used by the Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway and three 0-6-4 T s by the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways . As well as their iconic double Fairlies,

2958-536: 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

3060-589: 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

3162-788: 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

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3264-532: 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

3366-470: The Nilgiri Mountain Railway in 1907. The Nilgiri locomotives worked there until at least 1914. Capacity for fuel and water is limited by the layout of the locomotive. Fairlie's design has less room for fuel supplies than a normal tank locomotive , that can be fitted with a bunker at the back of the cab. Solid fuel can't be carried in a tender because there is no access from the central cab. As

3468-474: 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

3570-670: 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

3672-515: The driving wheels on bogies . The locomotive may be double-ended (a double Fairlie) or single ended (a single Fairlie). Most double-ended Fairlies had wheel arrangements of 0-4-4-0T or 0-6-6-0T . While the Fairlie locomotives are now used only on heritage railways , the vast majority of diesel and electric locomotives in the world today follow a form not very different from the Fairlie — two power trucks with all axles driven, and many also follow

3774-553: 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

3876-531: The fireboxes and ashpans were not restricted by frame or track width, but only by the overall loading gauge . Little Wonder was such a success that Fairlie gave the Festiniog Railway Company a perpetual licence to use his locomotive patent without restriction, in return for using the line and the success of its Fairlie locomotives in his publicity. During its original operation, the Ffestiniog owned

3978-498: The narrow gauge ( 3 ft 6 in or 1,067 mm ) system built under Julius Vogel 's 1870 "Great Public Works" programme to open up the country. Three of the S class Fairlies were sold to Western Australian Government Railways in 1891. In Russia, Fairlies were used on a line between Tambov and Saratov (1871–1887) and on Surami Pass of the Transcaucasian Railway (since 1872). These locomotives, like

4080-514: 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

4182-566: 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

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4284-532: 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

4386-511: 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

4488-802: The American Baldwin Locomotive Works . Two examples are preserved, one in Frankfurter Feldbahnmuseum on loan from Dresden Transport Museum , Germany , and one in Serbia at Pozega Railway Museum. A 1:32 scale model of the Péchot-Bourdon locomotive is produced by Scalelink. The Modified Fairlie was introduced by the North British Locomotive Company to the South African Railways in 1924. It

4590-619: The Fairlie locomotive, other than on the Ffestiniog Railway, were in Mexico , New Zealand , and Russia (on the Transcaucasian Railway ). In 1869, Robert Fairlie's company built a locomotive named Little Wonder for the Ffestiniog Railway , a narrow gauge slate railway in North Wales . The Ffestiniog was the first 1 ft  11 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 597 mm ) gauge railway to use locomotives. The Fairlie design meant that

4692-418: The Fairlie's double-ended concept, capable of being driven equally well in both directions. The Scottish engineer Robert Francis Fairlie patented his design in 1864. He had become convinced that the conventional pattern of locomotive was seriously deficient; they wasted weight on unpowered wheels (the maximum tractive effort a locomotive can exert is a function of the weight on its driving wheels ) and on

4794-721: The Festinog's Taliesin is a replica built in 1999. The remains of another, R class number 271, was dumped at Oamaru to protect the railway yards against coastal erosion in 1930, and has since passed into the ownership of the Oamaru Steam & Rail Restoration Society . Two more R class boilers, and two power bogies from one each B and E class double Fairlies are held by the Canterbury Railway Society at its Ferrymead Railway in Christchurch . A double Fairlie tramway type engine

4896-554: The Ffestiniog railway also has a 0-4-4 T single Fairlie loco, the power bogie of which is essentially the same as those used by their double Fairlies. In both the UK and the USA, single Fairlies were the first locomotives in each country to use the European Walschaerts valve gear . The Stephenson link gear , which was usual at the time, used multiple eccentrics between the frames but

4998-585: 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

5100-485: The Mexicano Railway...Despite their impressive proportions, these engines were devoid of superheaters or modern valve arrangements and were soon replaced by electrification ." This table shows brief details of the locomotives. Detailed specifications can be found at steamlocomotive.com Key: Durrant shows a photograph (credited to English Electric ) of FCM number 184, built by Vulcan Foundry (VF) in 1911. This

5202-452: 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 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

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5304-674: The Reserve, and will be disposed of as old junk. The machinists who took them apart say it was the hardest job they ever tackled, as the engines were very strongly built and the parts mostly forge-made'." In Mexico, the Ferrocarril Mexicano (FCM) used Fairlies on a mountainous stretch of line between Mexico City and Veracruz , where 49 enormous 0-6-6-0 T Fairlies weighing about 125 short tons (112 long tons; 113 t) apiece were imported from England. The largest and most powerful locomotives built there up to then, they were used until

5406-605: 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

5508-652: The Walschaerts gear was mounted outboard of the frames and connecting rods. This was advantageous because the Fairlie system required this space between the frames for the bogie pivot. The Péchot-Bourdon locomotive was the final development of the Fairlie type. The Péchot-Bourdon was developed by Captain Péchot of the French artillery to operate on 600 mm ( 1 ft  11 + 5 ⁄ 8  in ) gauge railways associated with field artillery and fortresses . The design

5610-495: 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

5712-402: The bidirectional nature of the double Fairlie but gained back the ability to have a large bunker and water tank behind the cab, and the possibility of using a trailing tender if necessary. The single conventional boiler made maintenance cheaper and did away with the crew's separation. The first Single Fairlie locomotive was an 0-4-4 T designed and constructed by Alexander McDonnell for

5814-426: The boiler through one firebox was unsuccessful. There was a tendency for most of the hot gases from the fire to go through one half of the boiler, so the other half made little contribution to steam-raising and was inefficient. The first, Festiniog Railway Little Wonder , had separate fireboxes with a water jacket between them and proved far more successful. The locomotive driver (US: engineer ) worked on one side of

5916-467: The carrying frame, not the bogies, and the bogies were attached to the frame using four carrying pins, which restricted the degree of articulation. Seraing was a failure and Robert Fairlie was likely unaware of it when he produced his design in the 1860s. In the early 1860s, Archibald Sturrock , the locomotive superintendent of the Great Northern Railway , experimented with powered bogies under

6018-489: 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

6120-411: The conventional rail road, because it was cheaper to build than a conventional two-rail track and could be used for a double track on the space available for a conventional single track right of way. According to the Scientific American of March 28, 1891, the steam locomotive and cars were in regular and continuous operation for passenger service during several weeks in the summer of 1890. The service

6222-434: The doors on the same floor of the car were connected by rods at the top and bottom with a lever in convenient reach of the brakeman, by whom the doors are all opened and closed simultaneously. The compartments were each four feet wide and five feet long, the seats facing each other. Only one rail of the old single track was used, as only one guide rail had been erected, except at the ends of the route, for switching purposes, but

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6324-529: 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

6426-428: 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

6528-498: 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

6630-399: The guide rail shall be arranged in the exact line of the true center of gravity of the cars and locomotive. The standards were bolted to six-inch wide strap iron attached to and extending across the top of the car. In addition to an ordinary track switch, in which, however, the switch bar is made to throw only one rail, a connection was made by means of a vertical rod and upper switch bar with

6732-414: 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. Double Fairlie A Fairlie locomotive is a type of articulated steam locomotive that has

6834-425: The indications of wear upon the traction wheels, and upon the guide rail and trolley wheels, were hardly perceptible. During a portion of the season, when the summer travel to Coney Island was at its height, trains were run on regular schedule time, 50 three-car-trains daily each way, carrying up to 300 passengers per trip. At least four different locomotive designs for the Boynton Bicycle Railroad were produced but it

6936-534: 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

7038-438: 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

7140-503: The line through Surami pass was electrified . In 1879, the Avonside Engine Company built 25 Double Fairlies intended for service in the Third Anglo-Afghan War . The order was cancelled in 1880, but 17 locomotives had already been built and they were purchased by India, though one was lost at sea during transit to India. The remaining locomotives worked on the Bolān Pass Railway but were not successful and were put into storage in 1887. Ten went to Burma in 1896 and four others were sent to

7242-406: The line was electrified in the 1920s. The tractive effort figures (see table below) are notably high compared to relatively modern locomotives (such as the BR Standard Class 9F ). Rolt wrote: "...it was the Mexican Railway that became Fairlie's most devoted adherent. Three twelve-wheeled Avonside Fairlies were built for this Company in 1871 to work traffic on the steeply graded section of

7344-524: The locomotive ends. Couplers and buffers (where fitted) were mounted on the bogies, not on the locomotive frame, so that they swivelled with the curvature of the track. Steam was delivered to the cylinders via flexible tubing. Initially, this was a coiled copper tube but this would fracture after a period of use. Later locomotives had rigid connecting tubes with the necessary flexibility provided by metal ball-and-socket joints similar to those used in laboratory glassware . Fuel and water were carried on

7446-402: The locomotive into curves, thereby reducing derailments. Early Fairlies had a tendency to be rough on the track, and more prone to derailment than they should have been. The Festiniog Railway's first Fairlie Little Wonder was worn out after less than twenty years' use. To a large extent the problem was not the use of power bogies but faults in their design and especially the absence of weights on

7548-453: The locomotive, and the fireman on the other; the fireboxes separated them. The regulators for both power bogies were located above the centre of the fireboxes, with the steam brake valve at one end. Underneath, the locomotive was supported on two swivelling powered bogies (US: trucks), with all wheels driven; smaller locomotives had four-wheel bogies, while larger had six-wheel. The cylinders on each power bogie pointed outward, towards

7650-455: The locomotive, in side tanks beside each boiler for the water, and bunkers for the fuel above them. Armed with the success of Little Wonder on the Ffestiniog, Fairlie staged a series of very successful demonstrations on the Ffestiniog line in February 1870 to high-powered delegations from the many parts of the world. This sold his invention (and the concept of the narrow gauge railway on which it

7752-520: The main line between Cordoba and the 7,923 ft (2,415 m). Boca del Monte, Mexico summit in the Orizaba mountains , a distance of 108 miles (174 km). So successful were they that they were the forerunners of no less than fifty Fairlies supplied to Mexico by Avonside and other British builders over a period of forty years." Durrant took a more sceptical view: "The largest Fairlies built were...102-short-ton (91-long-ton; 93 t) examples for

7854-409: 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,

7956-574: 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

8058-724: The ones used in Mexico were an 0-6-6-0 T configuration. The first of them were built in England ( Avonside Engine Company , Yorkshire Engine Company and Sharp, Stewart and Company ), the second tranche were made by German factories (1879), the last – 17 for the Russian State Railways by the Kolomensky Works, Kolomna (1884) under licence. The largest locomotives weighed 90 tons and were oil-fired . In 1912 all Fairlies in Russia were included in series F and used until 1934, when

8160-488: 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

8262-414: The other. These wheels had double flanges, to contact with either side of the track rail, as also had similarly arranged pairs of 38 inch wheels arranged under and housed in the floors near each end of the passenger cars.” A heavier locomotive was especially designed for this method of traction, and built for use on a street railway. It weighed 16 tons and had a pair of 5 feet (1.5 m) drivers. The crank

8364-405: The other. This potentially reduces the visibility of signals. A variation of the Fairlie that enjoyed some popularity, especially in the United States, was the single Fairlie, essentially half a double Fairlie, with one boiler, a cab at one end, and a single articulated power bogie combined with an unpowered bogie under the cab, maintaining the ability to negotiate sharp turns. This design abandoned

8466-456: The summer season. Double Fairlie locomotive The Earl of Merioneth is now preserved, at Boston Lodge works where it was built in 1979. It was withdrawn from service on the 8 April 2018. Double Fairlie Josephine (Dunedin & Port Chalmers Railway #2, NZR E 175, PWD #504) is preserved at Dunedin , New Zealand's, Otago Settlers' Museum , and R 28 a single Fairlie, at Reefton . R 28 is the only original British Single Fairlie to have survived,

8568-594: The tenders of GNR steam locomotives. While these were not ultimately successful, Fairlie was influenced by Sturrock's work, and by the use of back-to-back locomotives on the Bhor Ghat incline on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway starting in 1856. The first locomotive was The Progress , built in 1865 by James Cross and Company for the Neath and Brecon Railway . However, having the draught from both halves of

8670-400: The top of the locomotive and the cars. The guide rail was a simple stringer of yellow pine, 4¼ by 8 inches in section, and the standards on which the wheels are journaled were placed far enough apart to allow a space of 6 inches between the continuous faces of each pair of wheels, thus affording 1¾ inches for lateral play, or sidewise movement toward or from the guard rail, it being designed that

8772-431: The trailing ends of the bogies to counterbalance the cylinders. Subsequent FR engines were much easier on the track. All FR Fairlies have had a reputation for a smooth footplate ride when compared with the original George England and Co. built 0-4-0 engines. The driver is on one side of the firebox and the fireman on the other. As a result, the locomotive is left-hand drive going in one direction and right-hand drive in

8874-680: 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

8976-449: The width of the cars and motor was such that it only required the erection of another guide rail, for the utilizing of the other track rail, to form a regular double-track road of the Boynton pattern. The section of railroad on which this system has been operated was only 2-mile (3.2 km) long, in which distance the curves were considerable, but, although they were mostly in one direction,

9078-728: Was converted to 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) standard gauge in 1883. The Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway of Ontario also used one 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) gauge Fairlie locomotive, delivered in 1872. In Cape Breton Island , three 3 ft ( 914 mm ) gauge Fairlie Patent locomotives built by Bristol's Avonside Company were used to haul coal between Sydney and Reserve Mines from 1872 until 1902. Herb MacDonald's book "Cape Breton Railways: An Illustrated History" (Cape Breton University Press, 2012) states that "a railway industry journal published early in 1903 stated that 'the old double-end locomotives... have recently been taken apart at

9180-477: 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

9282-534: 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

9384-524: Was based) around the world. Locomotives were built for many British colonies, for the Russian Empire , and even one example for the United States . In 1879, the first government railway line in Western Australia from Geraldton to Northampton utilised two double Fairlies as its third and fourth items of motive power, respectively, but without much success. The only really successful uses of

9486-638: Was built by the Mason Machine Works in Taunton, Massachusetts and worked on the Lehigh Valley Railroad . Five narrow-gauge Fairlie Patent locomotives were built by the Avonside Engine Company , Bristol in the early 1870s for use by Canadian railways. The Toronto and Nipissing Railway used a single 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) gauge Fairlie from 1871 until the line

9588-604: Was built in 2023 in the Ffestiniog's Boston Lodge works on the 153th anniversary of Little Wonder' s trials of 1870. Merddin Emrys of 1879 was the first engine to be built at Boston Lodge. The Ffestiniog also owned and operated Taliesin , a single Fairlie, from 1876 to 1927. It was scrapped in 1935 but a replica was built at Boston Lodge in 1999. The Fairlies on the Ffestiniog Railway were designed to burn coal. Following trials in 1971, in common with most other Ffestiniog engines, they were modified to burn oil. In 2005, Earl of Merioneth

9690-412: Was chosen with the belief that if one boiler or set of valve gear was damaged by enemy fire, the loco could continue to operate. The primary difference between a Fairlie and the Péchot-Bourdon is that the latter only had one steam dome . Only one design was constructed, an 0-4-4-0 T . About fifty examples were constructed in 1906, and a further 280 were constructed during World War I , some by

9792-637: Was converted to coal having been built as an oil burner. The success of this conversion resulted in Merddin Emrys , the oldest of the FR Fairlies, being converted back to coal burning in 2007. The oldest Fairlie still in operation is a Mason Bogie preserved at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan . The 0-6-4 T locomotive was built in 1873 and still hauls passengers on a tourist train during

9894-459: Was later the case with Bulleid's Leader class locomotives, limited fuel supplies would not have been a problem if fuel oil had been used instead of coal. Some of the large Fairlies for Mexico (see above) were oil-fired and oil-firing has, in recent times, been used on the Ffestiniog Railway. The flexible steam pipes to and from the cylinders of each swivelling engine were prone to leakage which wasted power. These problems were partially solved. It

9996-483: Was named "Mountaineer". It was the only Double Fairlie to operate on an American narrow gauge railway. This was a smaller locomotive with four-wheel bogies, giving it a 0-4-4-0 T configuration. The railroad's experience with the locomotive was typical, and an indication of the fact that, though Fairlie had eliminated several problems of the conventional locomotive, he had introduced new ones of his own. At least one double Fairlie 0-6-6-0 T Janus (pictured)

10098-465: Was only seven inches in length, and the engine was designed to readily make 600 revolutions a minute, and maintain a speed of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) with a full train of passenger cars. In a true line with, and fifteen feet directly above, the face of the track rail was the lower face of a guide rail, supported from posts arranged along the side of the track, and on the sides of this guide rail run pairs of rubber-faced trolley wheels attached to

10200-589: Was provided between the Gravesend and Coney Island areas of Brooklyn , on an abandoned section of an old standard-gauge railway track of the Sea Beach and Brighton Railroad . The first locomotive weighed nine tons, and had two 10 by 12 inches (250 by 300 mm) cylinders, the piston rods of both being connected with cranks on each side the single 6 foot driving wheel, and the front of the locomotive being also supported by two 38-inch (970 mm) pony wheels, one behind

10302-538: Was similar in appearance to a Garratt locomotive but the boiler, fuel and water tanks were all mounted on a single frame which was pivoted on the power bogies. This arrangement differs from the Garratt in which the fuel and water tanks are mounted directly on the power bogies. The Ffestiniog Railway in Wales still uses Fairlie locomotives. It has three double Fairlies in running condition. The most recent of these, James Spooner ,

10404-457: 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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