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88-519: The Dashaveyor was an automated guideway transit (AGT) system developed during the 1960s and '70s. Originally developed by the Dashaveyor Company for moving cargo, the system used motorized pallets that could be routed on the fly to any destination in an extended network. The pallets could run at high speeds between stations, climb steep grades at slower speeds, and even climb vertically. They were designed to replace several manned vehicles with

176-401: A diesel locomotive or electric locomotive , the steam locomotive only works when its powerplant (the boiler, in this case) is fairly level. The locomotive boiler requires water to cover the boiler tubes and firebox sheets at all times, particularly the crown sheet , the metal top of the firebox. If this is not covered with water, the heat of the fire will soften it enough to give way under

264-500: A monorail . Twenty-four vehicles were purchased for the system, sometimes operating in four-car trains during periods of increased demand. Known as the Toronto Zoo Domain Ride , the system opened in 1976. In March 1991 nine people were injured when two trains collided. In spite of a warning that major maintenance was needed to fix problems in the brakes and motors, in 1994 another accident occurred that injured thirty. The zoo

352-491: A PRT system, known as ULTra , to connect Terminal 5 with the long-term carpark; its full operation began in September 2011. Rack railway A rack railway (also rack-and-pinion railway , cog railway , or cogwheel railway ) is a steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail , usually between the running rails . The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with this rack rail. This allows

440-440: A continuous rack. So long as the breaks in the rack were shorter than the distance between the drive pinions on the locomotive, the rack rail could be interrupted wherever there was need to cross over a running rail. Turnouts are far more complex when the rack is at or below the level of the running rails. Marsh's first rack patent shows such an arrangement, and the original Mount Washington Cog Railway he built had no turnouts. It

528-642: A fixture of a number of amusement parks, notably the Walt Disney World Monorail System and the Toronto Zoo Domain Ride . The Getty Center in Los Angeles uses a unique vertically oriented AGT to bring visitors from a parking lot off Interstate 405 to the Center at the top of a hill in Brentwood ; this system places the motor outside the vehicle at the top of the guideway to reduce the weight lifted up

616-445: A gradient. This is one of the reasons why rack railways were among the first to be electrified and most of today's rack railways are electrically powered. In some cases, a vertical boiler can be used that is less sensitive for the track gradient. On a rack-only railroad, locomotives are always downward of their passenger cars for safety reasons: the locomotive is fitted with powerful brakes, often including hooks or clamps that grip

704-436: A means of providing mass transit services aimed at serving rider loads higher than those that could be served by buses or trams, but smaller than those served by conventional subways . Subways were too expensive to build in areas of lower density, such as smaller cities or the suburbs of larger ones, which often suffer the same gridlock problems as larger cities. Buses could be easily introduced in these areas, but did not offer

792-586: A network of tracks. Most competing AGT systems operated at a fixed speed that was much lower than the Dashaveyor, and normally followed fixed routes. They purchased the company and turned it into a subsidiary, developing the AGT versions in Ann Arbor, Michigan . Conversion to an AGT system was relatively straightforward. The steel wheels were replaced with rubber ones, which ran in a narrow concrete guideway structure instead of

880-468: A simplified but compatible rack, where the teeth on the engine pinions engaged square holes punched in a bar-shaped center rail. J. H. Morgan patented several alternative turnout designs for use with this rack system. Curiously, Morgan recommended an off-center rack in order to allow clear passage for pedestrians and animals walking along the tracks. Some photos of early Morgan installations show this. A simplified rack mounting system could be used when

968-545: A single automated one, controlled from a central operating station. One such system was installed and operated at the White Pine mine from 1968 to 1972, but was considered a failure. Bendix Corporation purchased the rights to the basic Dashaveyor system in order to use it as the basis for an AGT system during the heyday of urban transport research in the late 1960s. Often referred to as the Bendix-Dashaveyor in this form,

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1056-414: A solution, but as they traveled in traffic their speeds were not comparable to separated rail systems. They key appeared to be to use smaller vehicles, which reduced the size of the entire system; stations, tracks and switches all took up less room and cost less to build. However, smaller vehicles also have lower passenger capacities, a problem for rush hour periods. In the 1960s a solution to this problem

1144-429: A traction gear that engaged rack gears between the running rails that allowed them to climb high grades at lower speeds. Optional elevator -like systems allowed the cars to move vertically as well. The idea was to build an offshore terminal with docks equipped with Dashaveyor tracks instead of a conventional container shipping port on land. An operator would load containers onto Dashaveyor cars, which would then enter

1232-535: A tunnel to move them at high speed to the shore. There they would exit the tunnel and automatically drive the container to its storage location, and optionally lift it to stack them. In a Dashaveyor equipped port, a single vehicle would pick up, move and stack the containers. Normally each of these steps required a separate, manned, vehicle. Additionally, the ships never had to enter port, which had major advantages in terms of siting and construction. The system would also be useful for similar roles where any sort of freight

1320-508: A way to serve outlying areas or as feeders to a metro system. Kobe 's Port Liner is the world's first mass transit AGT, which began operating in 1981. It connects Kobe's main rail station, Sannomiya Station , with the dockyard areas and Kobe Airport to the south. Many similar systems have been built elsewhere in Japan. The Véhicule Automatique Léger (VAL) system in Lille , France , opened in 1983,

1408-410: A wheel or slider that was pressed against the guideway rail and steered the running wheels through a linkage. A suspension-like system is needed to smooth out the imperfections in the guideway and provide a comfortable ride. More modern systems can eliminate the rail and replace it with a "virtual" one that is read by sensors on the vehicle without the need for any mechanical connection. AGT systems, and

1496-421: Is continuous, and the cog-drive is used throughout, are described as pure-rack lines. Other lines, which use the cog drive only on the steepest sections and elsewhere operate as a regular railway, are described as rack-and-adhesion lines. On rack-and-adhesion lines, trains are equipped with propulsion and braking systems capable of acting both through the running rail wheels and the cog wheels, depending on whether

1584-469: Is exclusively done through the cog wheels. Pure-rack lines have no need of transitioning systems, as the cog wheels remain engaged with the rack rail at all times, but all track, including sidings and depots, must be equipped with rack rail irrespective of gradient. A number of different designs of rack rail and matching cog wheel have been developed over the years. With the exception of some early Morgan and Blenkinsop rack installations, rack systems place

1672-421: Is not strictly speaking a rack railway, since there are no cogs with teeth. Rather, this system uses a smooth raised centre rail between the two running rails on steep sections of lines that is gripped on both sides to improve friction. Trains are propelled by wheels or braked by shoes pressed horizontally onto the centre rail, as well as by means of the normal running wheels. The first successful rack railway in

1760-705: Is often cited as the first AGT installed to serve an existing urban area. Larger scale INNOVIA advanced rapid transit (ART) systems in Toronto , and Vancouver followed in the next few years, and then the Docklands Light Railway in London . VAL and ART systems have seen continued installations around the world such as in Airport Express in Beijing and have been joined by a variety of new systems with similar features, like

1848-408: Is sometimes used, although this distinction is relatively rare because most people movers are automated. Larger systems span a variety of conceptual designs, from subway-like advanced rapid transit (ART) systems to smaller (typically two to six passengers) vehicles known as personal rapid transit (PRT) which offer direct point-to-point travel along a switched network. AGT was originally developed as

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1936-560: Is very low, generally from 9 to 25 kilometres per hour (5.6 to 15.5 mph) depending on gradient and propulsion method. Because the Skitube has gentler gradients than typical, its speeds are higher than typical. The Culdee Fell Railway is a fictional cog railway on the Island of Sodor in The Railway Series by Rev. W. Awdry . Its operation, locomotives and history are based on those of

2024-758: The AnsaldoBreda Driverless Metro . Automated monorail systems, such as the Innovia Monorail 200 system in Las Vegas , are becoming more common AGT systems. Monorails are less obtrusive because they only require a single, narrow guidebeam. Once limited to larger airports and a small number of metro systems, AGT have undergone something of a renaissance since the late 1990s. Lower capital costs compared to conventional metros have allowed AGT systems to expand quickly, and many of these "small" systems now rival their larger counterparts in any measure. For instance,

2112-530: The Nilgiri Mountain Railway . The Agudio rack system was invented by Tommaso Agudio. Its only long-lived application was on the Sassi–Superga tramway which opened in 1884. It used a vertical rack with cog wheels on each side of the central rack. Its unique feature, however, was that the 'locomotive' was propelled by means of an endless cable driven from an engine house at the foot of the incline. It

2200-601: The Vancouver SkyTrain started operations in 1986, but has expanded so rapidly that its track length roughly matches the Toronto subway which pre-dates it by 30 years. Although the original introduction of PRT systems did not result in the widespread adoption as expected, Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit in West Virginia's success, along with a renewed interest in new forms of transit, has led to several new PRT projects since 2000. London Heathrow Airport has installed

2288-621: The Vietnam War and Project Apollo , leaving the aerospace industry with a sudden lack of projects. Many of the HUD research funds were directed towards aerospace companies, and a wide variety of AGT programs followed. One of these companies was the Bendix Corporation , who found the Dashaveyor concept and decided it would make the basis for a competitive AGT system. Its main advantages in this role were its high speed and its ability to switch among

2376-562: The personal rapid transit concept (or "dial-a-cab"), became a major area of research after the publication of the HUD reports in 1968, and subsequent funding by the US Department of Transportation . Political support was particularity strong in states with large concentrations of aerospace companies; with the ending of Project Apollo and the winding down of the Vietnam War , there was concern that these companies would be left with few projects in

2464-458: The 1970s and 80s. Expecting widespread deployment of PRT systems through the late 1970s and 80s, many of the major US aerospace companies entered the AGT market, including Boeing , LTV and Rohr . Car companies followed suit, including General Motors and Ford . This, in turn, sparked off a wave of similar developments around the world. However, the market for these systems proved to be overestimated, and only one of these US-designed small AGT's

2552-759: The Abt system was on the Harzbahn in Germany, which opened in 1885. The Abt system was also used for the construction of the Snowdon Mountain Railway in Wales from 1894 to 1896. The pinion wheels can be mounted on the same axle as the rail wheels, or driven separately. The steam locomotives on the West Coast Wilderness Railway have separate cylinders driving the pinion wheel, as do the "X"-class locomotives on

2640-627: The Abt system, but typically wider than a single Abt bar. The Lamella rack can be used by locomotives designed for use on the Riggenbach or the Strub systems, so long as the safety-jaws that were a feature of the original Strub system are not used. Some railways use racks from multiple systems; for example, the St. Gallen Gais Appenzell Railway in Switzerland has sections of Riggenbach, Strub, and Lamella rack. Most of

2728-841: The British market. Between 1903 and 1909, the McKell Coal and Coke company in Raleigh County, West Virginia, installed 35,000 feet (10,700 m) of Morgan rack/third-rail track in its mines. Between 1905 and 1906, the Mammoth Vein Coal Company installed 8,200 feet (2,500 m) of powered rack in two of its mines in Everist, Iowa , with a maximum grade of 16%. The Donohoe Coke Co. of Greenwald, Pennsylvania had 10,000 feet (3,050 m) of Goodman rack in its mine in 1906. The Morgan system saw limited use on one common carrier railroad in

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2816-494: The GO-Urban decision. For the zoo deployment, a greatly simplified operating system was needed. Since the schedules were relatively slow, on the order of 10 minutes between trains, the automated system was not needed. The cars were modified to place a small operator cabin at the front of some of them, entered through a separate door. Trains normally operated in four-car units, with the cabins facing front and rear. The rear-facing cabin

2904-484: The I-beam rails. The guideway was roughly the size and shape of a pedestrian sidewalk, with short vertical extension on either side to form a U-shape. Small horizontal wheels at the front of the cars pressed against the vertical sections and guided the main wheels around corners. Power was provided via a third rail system attached to the top of the right vertical extension (as seen in the direction of travel). The vehicle body

2992-488: The Leitner Group, better known for their ski lift systems, provide AGT systems for the airport market. Although the smaller vehicle systems were not successful in the marketplace, larger AGT were simpler to integrate into existing mass transit systems. Many higher capacity AGT systems that looked and operated in a fashion similar to a small subway have since become a common fixture of many existing metro systems, often as

3080-526: The Morgan rack was not used for third-rail power and the Morgan rack offered interesting possibilities for street railways. The Morgan rack was good for grades of up to 16 percent . The Goodman Equipment Company began marketing the Morgan system for mine railways , and it saw widespread use, particularly where steep grades were encountered underground. By 1907, Goodman had offices in Cardiff, Wales , to serve

3168-541: The Strub system is on the Jungfraubahn in Switzerland. Strub is the simplest rack system to maintain and has become increasingly popular. In 1900, E. C. Morgan of Chicago received a patent on a rack railway system that was mechanically similar to the Riggenbach rack, but where the rack was also used as a third rail to power the electric locomotive. Morgan went on to develop heavier locomotives and with J. H. Morgan, turnouts for this system. In 1904, he patented

3256-632: The United States was the Mount Washington Cog Railway, developed by Sylvester Marsh . Marsh was issued a U.S. patent for the general idea of a rack railway in September 1861, and in January 1867 for a practical rack where the rack teeth take the form of rollers arranged like the rungs of a ladder between two L-shaped wrought-iron rails. The first public trial of the Marsh rack on Mount Washington

3344-628: The United States, the Chicago Tunnel Company , a narrow gauge freight carrier that had one steep grade in the line up to their surface disposal station on the Chicago lakefront. The Lamella system (also known as the Von Roll system) was developed by the Von Roll company after the rolled steel rails used in the Strub system became unavailable. It is formed from a single blade cut in a similar shape to

3432-606: The airport to increase capacity without spreading out. The LTV Airtrans was another early AGT systems which was installed at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and went into operation in January 1975 (later replaced by the DFW Skylink system in 2005). Similar systems followed at airports around the world, and today they are relatively universal at larger airports, often connecting terminals with distant long-term parking lots. Similar systems were also

3520-401: The boiler pressure, leading to a catastrophic failure. On rack systems with extreme gradients, the boiler, cab, and general superstructure of the locomotive are tilted forward relative to the wheels so that they are more or less horizontal when on the steeply graded track. These locomotives often cannot function on level track, and so the entire line, including maintenance shops, must be laid on

3608-428: The capacities or speeds that made them an attractive alternative to car ownership. Cars drive directly from origin to destination, while buses generally work on a hub-and-spoke model that can increase trip times. AGT offered a solution that fit between these extremes. Much of the cost of a subway system is due to the large vehicle sizes, which demand large tunnels, large stations and considerable infrastructure throughout

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3696-464: The cars to climb higher graded areas. The cars sat between the rails, hanging down between them, with doors on top that opened and closed automatically to keep the ore from falling out when in motion. Major portions of the network were enclosed in rectangular tubes to protect them from the elements, especially snow. The cars could be loaded at 5 mph (8.0 km/h) without stopping, and traveled at up to 52 mph (84 km/h) on straight sections of

3784-403: The construction of turnouts. If the rack is elevated above the running rails, there is no need to interrupt the running rails to allow passage of the driving pinions of the engines. Strub explicitly documented this in his U.S. patent. Strub used a complex set of bell-cranks and push-rods linking the throw-rod for the points to the two throw-rods for the moving rack sections. One break in the rack

3872-607: The earliest major sales efforts for the Dashaveyor AGT was a system for the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport . Bendix and Varo both received parts of a $ 1 million grant from the new Urban Mass Transit Administration to study the system. Both bids came in well over the airport's budget, and in the end it was won by the Vought Airtrans . A similar system for Newark International Airport ended when

3960-403: The early 1880s, Abt worked to devise an improved rack system that overcame the limitations of the Riggenbach system. In particular, the Riggenbach rack was expensive to manufacture and maintain and the switches were complex. In 1882, Abt designed a new rack using solid bars with vertical teeth machined into them. Two or three of these bars are mounted centrally between the rails, with the teeth of

4048-602: The embossing machines used to produce the BankAmericard, the first plastic bank credit card system, which later evolved into Visa . Dashew moved into the area of offshore oil loading in the 1960s, and was instrumental in the creation of the single-point mooring systems used in modern terminals, as well as the omnidirectional thrusters used to maneuver the ships up to the moors. As a part of these developments, Dashew became interested in using similar offshore mooring to handle bulk freight as well, especially container shipping which

4136-501: The entire project was put on hold. In 1972, the company displayed the Dashaveyor as one of four major deployments shown at the Transpo '72 show in Washington, D.C. Like the other vendors, Bendix found little third-party interest in the AGT market, and was one of the first vendors to withdraw from the market, inactive by 1975. Bendix had found a customer willing to act as a prototype site,

4224-504: The government commissioned Riggenbach to build a rack railway up Mount Rigi . Following the construction of a prototype locomotive and test track in a quarry near Bern , the Vitznau–Rigi railway opened on 22 May 1871. The Riggenbach system is similar in design to the Marsh system. It uses a ladder rack, formed of steel plates or channels connected by round or square rods at regular intervals. The Riggenbach system suffers from

4312-557: The hill and thus improve efficiency. Small AGT systems are also used as circulator or feeder systems within urban centers. The city of Miami installed its Metromover system in 1986 and later extended it by 4.4 miles and added 12 new stations it in 1994. Similar INNOVIA APM 100 systems operate in Singapore's Bukit Panjang district and in Guangzhou , China. Over time, the aerospace firms that had initially designed most of these systems left

4400-400: The industry and sold off the AGT divisions to other companies. Most of these were picked up by existing transportation conglomerates, and through additional mergers and buyouts, many of these are today owned by either Siemens or Bombardier . During the same period, a number of new companies entered the field with systems designed solely for these smaller installations. Poma , Doppelmayr and

4488-545: The large tracks needed present a major visual barrier, and the steel-wheels-on-steel-rails are very noisy rounding bends. Headway can be reduced via automation, a technique that was becoming feasible in the 1960s. As the headway is decreased, the size of vehicle needed to transport a given number of passengers per hour also decreases, which, in turn, decreases the infrastructure needed to support these smaller vehicles. Everything from track supports to station size can be reduced, with similar reductions in capital costs. Additionally,

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4576-400: The lighter vehicles allow for a wider variety of suspension methods, from conventional steel wheels, to rubber tires, air cushion vehicles and maglevs . Since the system has to be automated in order to reduce the headways enough to be worthwhile, by automating the steering as well the operational costs can also be reduced compared to crewed vehicles. One key problem in an automated system is

4664-443: The mooring points were so far offshore that the movement from the ship to the land-side terminal would be a significant delay. The system they designed operated at speeds up to 80 mph (130 km/h) in order to reduce these delays. A variety of options were available to improve flexibility. The cars were normally powered by two electric motors spinning steel wheels that ran on steel rails at high speeds, but could optionally include

4752-466: The most common rack system in Switzerland at the time – was limited to a maximum gradient of 1 in 4 (25%). Locher showed that on steeper grade, the Abt system was prone to the driving pinion over-riding the rack, causing potentially catastrophic derailments, as predicted by Dr. Abt. To overcome this problem and allow a rack line up the steep sides of Mt. Pilatus , Locher developed a rack system where

4840-424: The nearby mill. They reached an agreement with Dashaveyor in 1966 to install a pilot system, and when this proved successful, the two companies signed a contract for a complete system. Starting in 1967, workers laid 27,000 feet (8,200 m) of guideway rail for about $ 2.5 million. The rails consisted of two I-beams for the running wheels, with an optional rack gear on the bottom that could be engaged to allow

4928-503: The new Toronto Zoo that would be opening in 1974. The zoo covered 700 acres (2.8 km), which made walking the site a difficult proposition. Boeing also entered a bid based on their new version of the Alden staRRcar . At the same time, the provincial government was in the midst of planning a major AGT system known as GO-Urban , and Bendix was one of many companies to bid for that project. The Zoo system would be an excellent demonstration for

5016-416: The ore to the original shaft. The new shaft was used for ventilation after this point. In 1968 the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a series of reports, known simply as the HUD reports , that described the problems in modern cities due to the rapid expansion of suburbs in the 1950s. The rise of the suburbs led to a flight of capital from the city centres, which in turn led to

5104-467: The outer side of the rail, the metal "fishbelly" edge rail with its side rack being cast all in one piece, in 3-foot (1 yd; 914 mm) lengths. Blenkinsop's system remained in use for 25 years on the Middleton Railway, but it became a curiosity because simple friction was found to be sufficient for railroads operating on level ground. The Fell mountain railway system, developed in the 1860s,

5192-414: The pinions rotationally offset from each other to match. The use of multiple bars with offset teeth ensures that the pinions on the locomotive driving wheels are constantly engaged with the rack. The Abt system is cheaper to build than the Riggenbach because it requires a lower weight of rack over a given length. However the Riggenbach system exhibits greater wear resistance than the Abt. The first use of

5280-713: The problem that its fixed ladder rack is more complex and expensive to build than the other systems. Following the success of the Vitznau–Rigi railway, Riggenbach established the Maschinenfabrik der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Bergbahnen (IGB) – a company that produced rack locomotives to his design. The Abt system was devised by Carl Roman Abt , a Swiss locomotive engineer. Abt worked for Riggenbach at his works in Olten and later at his IGB rack locomotive company. In 1885, he founded his own civil engineering company. During

5368-607: The rack for driving (with the conventional rail wheels undriven) such as the Dolderbahn in Zürich , Štrbské Pleso in Slovakia and the Schynige Platte rack railway instead must switch the rack rail. The Dolderbahn switch works by bending all three rails, an operation that is performed every trip as the two trains pass in the middle. The geometry of the rack system has a large impact on

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5456-470: The rack is a flat bar with symmetrical, horizontal teeth. Horizontal pinions with flanges below the rack engage the centrally-mounted bar, both driving the locomotive and keeping it centered on the track. This system provides very stable attachment to the track, also protecting the car from toppling over even under the most severe crosswinds. Such gears are also capable of leading the car, so even flanges on running wheels are optional. The biggest shortcoming of

5544-492: The rack rail halfway between the running rails, mounted on the same sleepers or ties as the running rails. John Blenkinsop thought that the friction would be too low from metal wheels on metal rails even on level ground, so he built his steam locomotives for the Middleton Railway in 1812 with a 20- tooth , 3-foot (914 mm) diameter cog wheel (pinion) on the left side that engaged in rack teeth (two teeth per foot) on

5632-444: The rack rail is present or not. Rack-and-adhesion lines also need to use a system for smoothing the transition from friction to rack traction, with a spring-mounted rack section to bring the pinion teeth gradually into engagement. This was invented by Roman Abt, who also invented the Abt rack system. On pure-rack lines, the train's running rail wheels are only used to carry the train and do not contribute to propulsion or braking, which

5720-401: The rack rail solidly. Some locomotives are fitted with automatic brakes that apply if the speed gets too high, preventing runaways. Often there is no coupler between locomotive and train since gravity will always push the passenger car down against the locomotive. Electrically powered vehicles often have electromagnetic track brakes as well. The maximum speed of trains operating on a cog railway

5808-565: The rack railways built from the late 20th century onwards have used the Lamella system. Rack railway switches are as varied as rack railway technologies, for optional rack lines such as the Zentralbahn in Switzerland and the West Coast Wilderness Railway in Tasmania it is convenient to only use switches on sections flat enough for adhesion (for example, on a pass summit). Other systems which rely on

5896-415: The steering system's negotiation of turns in the right-of-way. The simplest solution is to use a rigid guideway, like conventional rails or steel rollercoasters . For lighter AGTs, these solutions were over-specified given the size of the vehicle, so the guideway was often separate from the running surface. Typical solutions used a single light rail embedded in the ground or attached to the guideway wall, with

5984-531: The system is that the standard railway switch is not usable, and a transfer table or other complex device must be used where branching of the track is needed. Following tests, the Locher system was deployed on the Pilatus Railway, which opened in 1889. No other public railway uses the Locher system, although some European coal mines use a similar system on steeply graded underground lines. The Strub rack system

6072-459: The system used the basic design of the cargo system, but with a larger passenger body running on rubber wheels. Only one such system was installed, the 5 km long Toronto Zoo Domain Ride which operated from 1976 until a lack of proper maintenance led to an accident that forced its closure in 1994. The Dashaveyor concept started with Stanley Dashew , a prolific inventor who is best known for building

6160-419: The system. The large vehicles are a side-effect of the need to have considerable space between the vehicles, known as " headway ", for safety reasons due to the limited sightlines in tunnels. Given large headways and limited average speed due to stops, the only way to increase passenger capacity is to increase the size of the vehicle. Capital costs can be reduced by elevating the tracks instead of burying them, but

6248-435: The track. Cars were normally linked to form small trains to increase route capacity, but could be detached to operate independently, all under the control of a single operator. In 1972 Copper Range stated that "Design problems could not be solved" and that they were ending experiments with the system. This left the mine with no way to haul the ore from the new shaft to the mill, and they fell back on underground systems to bring

6336-431: The trains to operate on steep gradients of 100% (45 degrees) or more, well above the 10% maximum for friction-based rail . The rack and pinion mechanism also provides more controlled braking and reduces the effects of snow or ice on the rails. Most rack railways are mountain railways , although a few are transit railways or tramways built to overcome a steep gradient in an urban environment. The first cog railway

6424-509: The widespread urban decay seen in the 1960s. The reports noted that cities with well-developed mass transportation systems avoided the worse of these problems. However, these systems were very expensive, and were only suitable for the densely populated areas of large cities. The reports called for a government-supported development project to design mass transit systems with greatly reduced capital and operating costs, making them suitable for less-dense environments. Busses and streetcars offered

6512-450: Was becoming practical; using automated guideway transit (AGT) technologies, the cars could be made to run much closer together to improve capacity. Their small size and lack of a driver would improve economics; payrolls amount to 60% to 70% of the operating costs of traditional transportation systems. When funding was announced in 1968, the US was in the midst of winding down construction for both

6600-521: Was being moved from point to point using custom vehicles; the company advertised the system for mining, trans-shipping, large factory automation and warehousing. In 1965 the Copper Range company decided to dig a new shaft at their White Pine mine in Michigan. Copper Range was involved in a number of different technology projects, and for the new shaft they decided to experiment with automated ore hauling to

6688-468: Was completed to reach the summit of Mount Washington in 1869. The first mountain rack railway in continental Europe was the Vitznau-Rigi-Bahn on Mount Rigi in Switzerland , which opened in 1871. Both lines are still running. As well as the rack system used, lines using rack systems fall into one of two categories depending on whether the rack rail is continuous or not. Lines where the rack rail

6776-490: Was constructed as a mass transit system, the Morgantown PRT . Small scaled AGT systems are also known as people movers. Although the mass transit world showed a lack of interest, AGT systems quickly found a number of niche roles that they have continued to fill to this day. Tampa International Airport was the world's first to incorporate an AGT system as an inter-terminal connector in 1971. Its landside/airside set up allows

6864-541: Was converted to use the Strub rack system in 1934. The Locher rack system, invented by Eduard Locher , has gear teeth cut in the sides rather than the top of the rail, engaged by two cog wheels on the locomotive. This system allows use on steeper grades than the other systems, whose teeth could jump out of the rack. It is used on the Pilatus Railway . Locher set out to design a rack system that could be used on gradients as steep as 1 in 2 (50%). The Abt system –

6952-570: Was extended upward and generally enlarged to form a van-like structure holding 31 passengers. An image of the vehicle was published in Popular Science in its November 1971 edition in a story about personal rapid transit Each car had three sets of automated doors, entering into a set of facing seats. This divided the internal area into sections; it was not possible to walk the length of the vehicle, nor were there provisions for standing. They were normally operated in trains of two or four cars. One of

7040-415: Was fined $ 43,000, and instead of fixing the system the board of directors decided to close the system, and operations ended that year. Automated guideway transit AGT covers a wide variety of systems, from limited people mover systems commonly found at airports, to more complex automated train systems like the Vancouver SkyTrain . In the people mover role the term "automated people mover" (APM)

7128-433: Was invented by Emil Strub in 1896. It uses a rolled flat-bottom rail with rack teeth machined into the head approximately 100 mm (3.9 inches) apart. Safety jaws fitted to the locomotive engage with the underside of the head to prevent derailments and serve as a brake. Strub's U.S. patent, granted in 1898, also includes details of how the rack rail is integrated with the mechanism of a turnout . The best-known use of

7216-526: Was invented by Niklaus Riggenbach working at about the same time as, but independently from Marsh. Riggenbach was granted a French patent in 1863 based on a working model which he used to interest potential Swiss backers. During this time, the Swiss Consul to the United States visited Marsh's Mount Washington Cog Railway and reported back with enthusiasm to the Swiss government. Eager to boost tourism in Switzerland,

7304-422: Was made on August 29, 1866, when only one quarter of a mile (402 meters) of track had been completed. The Mount Washington railway opened to the public on August 14, 1868. The pinion wheels on the locomotives have deep teeth that ensure that at least two teeth are engaged with the rack at all times; this measure helps reduce the possibility of the pinions riding up and out of the rack. The Riggenbach rack system

7392-734: Was not until 1941 that a turnout was constructed on this line. There were more turnouts built for the line but all were hand operated. In 2003, a new automatic hydraulic turnout was developed and built at the base as a prototype. With the success of the new turnout, more new automatic hydraulic turnouts were built to replace the hand-operated ones. The new turnouts installed on the Mount Washington line in 2007 are essentially transfer tables . The Locher rack also requires transfer tables. Originally almost all cog railways were powered by steam locomotives . The steam locomotive needs to be extensively modified to work effectively in this environment. Unlike

7480-521: Was rapidly dominating the industry. After consulting with experts in the automated warehousing field for several months, he incorporated the Dashveyor Company in 1963 in California to develop these ideas. The company's solution to this problem was an automated conveyor, similar to the track-based systems being introduced for industrial automation and warehousing systems. Unlike those systems, however,

7568-460: Was required to select between the two routes, and a second break was required where the rack rails cross the running rails. Turnouts for the Morgan Rack system were similar, with the rack elevated above the running rails. Most of the Morgan turnout patents included movable rack sections to avoid breaks in the rack, but because all Morgan locomotives had two linked drive pinions, there was no need for

7656-587: Was the Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds in West Yorkshire , England, United Kingdom , where the first commercially successful steam locomotive , Salamanca , ran in 1812. This used a rack and pinion system designed and patented in 1811 by John Blenkinsop . The first mountain cog railway was the Mount Washington Cog Railway in the U.S. state of New Hampshire , which carried its first fare-paying passengers in 1868. The track

7744-400: Was used while backing up the trains. The operator also doubled as the tour guide. Three miles of track wound around the site, with a spur running to a maintenance depot at the northern end of the zoo. Most of the track was laid at ground level, although there were elevated portions above terrain features. In spite of operating on four wheels similar to a bus, the system was often referred to as

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