The AirTrain automated monorail system that connects the Newark Airport terminals with the airport’s rail station still seems fairly new to me, having been completed in 2001, but apparently the system already needs to be replaced. When it often takes at least 20 years to get these systems built, you would hope they’d last a lot longer than 20 years once in service!
I’ve ridden the Seattle Center Monorail which is still using the original Alweg trains from the early 1960s I believe, as well as the Disney World monorail which dates back to the 1970s. The Disney system has gone through various iterations of monorail vehicles but using the same guideways. I believe Bombardier built the newer Disney vehicles and more recently the Las Vegas monorail vehicles. I don’t know why they can’t build new vehicles for the existing guideways on the Newark system, but it sounds like they want to replace it with something more like the JFK AirTrain (which is a more conventional steel rail system that runs on elevated tracks and, like the Newark AirTrain, is fully automated).
Monorails are cool, though they never expanded beyond very niche applications. When I was in Mumbai in 2013 they were nearing completion of that city’s new monorail system. I think it has had limited success. One concern I have with them is emergency egress. Obviously that can be an issue with conventional rail as well on elevated tracks or in tunnels, but it is especially true with monorails. It does look like they included a walkway for the entire length here. Magnetic levitation might bring new life to the monorail concept, though maglev has not proven widely viable either. Germany gave up on it but Japan is still moving forward with its high speed maglev development and China has taken the German Transrapid system (which operates in Shanghai on the world’s fastest train) and used it as the basis for its own maglev effort. I’m not sold on maglev but I think it has more potential than Elon Musk’s hyperloop fantasy (which is really an old idea that he re-marketed – more hype than substance). At the velocities maglev is capable of (300+ mph), accident prevention is paramount as survivability will be zero for most accident scenarios.
Also, why does the Newark monorail have a windshield wiper when it’s fully automated?
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I hear those things are awfully loud
I worked as a contractor at Newark for years. I remember hearing that the construction of the monorail caused 5 construction companies to bankrupt to get out of that deal. What a mess that was from start to finish.