The Regent's Canal Monorail



The attempt to create a British-style Wuppertal monorail. Or should that be Irish-style?

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40 thoughts on “The Regent's Canal Monorail”

  1. Mention should be made of the Bradford & Foster Brook, a monorail in Bradford PA that operated for a few months ca. 1880, shut down after a boiler explosion of a new locomotive they were building. Based on the Lartigue-type concept monorail operated at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Also the Epsom Salts monorail, a Lartigue-like monorail operated in California 1924-6 to haul Epsom salts from a mine that was internal-combustion propelled.

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  2. Railway companies buying up canals was not uncommon in the mid-19th century, sometimes to gain the rights of way, sometimes to shut down competition, and sometimes because the canal terminals often consisted of large areas of city centres which might have potential as stations or goods yards.

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  3. So it was kind of like those concept pitches for something utterly unprofitable but cool sounding that occasionally pop up every now and then, like a commercial airliner being converted to have staterooms used as a kind of flying cruise ship.

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  4. Obviosly this is no monorail because the 2 guiding rails on the lower part of the A frame. The only true old monorail was in India were there was one steel rail and a guiding wheel running on an concrete path beside the rail.

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  5. Honestly, monorails are ridiculous. The only real implementation of a MONO-rail in transit IMO is the Schwebebahn in Wuppertal. One rail and one wheel for support and traction.
    The Lartigue system is a TRI-rail. This system seems to at least successfully address the engineering problem of installation costs.
    ALWEG type monorails (Seattle, Disney, Bombardier INNOVIA) are all really HEX-rails. Two rubber wheels on top of a beam and multiple rubber wheels top and bottom on either side for stability. SAFEGE is similar, just with the multi-wheeled electric bogie above the cabin. Overly complicated guided electric busses.
    The Schwebebahn was invented to address the very limited space for transit and the sweeping curves required (over a river in a narrow valley).
    The SAFEGE system was designed to get the running gear out of the elements.
    ALWEG? Looks cool. The vehicles are an engineering work-around to make 1950's futurism a reality.
    It's odd that if the idea for an over-the-canal network was inspired by Wuppertal that a Schwebebahn system wasn't the choice made for the implementation.

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  6. As you say, probably for the best.
    There is (was?) a mono rail in the centre of sydney. Mostly a tourist attraction, it runs on a rail elevated above the pavement, about first floor level. The train straddles the rail, but the passenger compartments are full above the rail.
    Quite a cool way to have a look around that bit of Sydney, but otherwise, not much use

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  7. Our local shipping centre in Dudley, Merry Hill built a monorail to provide a transport link from the centre itself, the retail park and a business site.
    It was not a success
    It opened in 1991, hardly ever ran and closed in 1996. It had so many technical problems and many a time broke down, stranding shoppers over the carparks
    However to an 8 year old it was brilliant

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  8. Hi from Green Bay. GO PACKERS!!! LOL!!! MONORAILS are quite popular in science fiction and anime. Because in the cartoon "GALAXY RANGERS" in the 1990s , they had a Super Futuristic monorail that basically playing the role of a Transcontinental rr opening the last frontier of the alien world ๐ŸŒŽ and alien thugs were trying to remove the settlers from their houses to grab the land. Even the Galaxy Rangers had problems. And the main character of DOC who is an African-American Cyber doctor is captured and tied to the guideway, remember, not tracks!! Along with the other settlers!! As the steam powered monorail express carreens toward a large bridge that is about to be blown up by a space bomb. But what hapoens????? I ain't telling here. Lol!!! You can see for yourself of YT, at GALAXY RANGERS, the episode is called "FIRE AND IRON", PLUS+ for anime fans it has some early 1990s C.G.I. of Vector Graphics as seen on the special effects of the computer monitors. Hope you enjoy the show!!!!!! GOD BLESS THE ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ ๐Ÿ™Œ ๐Ÿ™ โค AND PEACE ON EARTH FOR EVERYPONY, LOL!!! And, PLEASE, PRAY FOR PEACE IN UKRAINE ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ ๐Ÿ™ ๐Ÿ˜ข AND ALL THE OPPRESSED AND INNOCENT VICTIMS AND CHILDREN AROUND THE WORLD ๐ŸŒŽ ๐Ÿ™ โค!!!!! BUT CURSES TO THE TYRANTS AND DICTATORS AND MURDERERS OF THE LITTLE CHILDREN. PLEASE…GOD BLESS THE SOULS OF THE INNOCENT VICTIMS ๐Ÿ™ โœจ ๐Ÿ˜Œ ๐Ÿ™Œ โค!!!!! ALLELUIA!!!!! AMEN ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฑ ๐Ÿ™!!!!! MON. APRIL 4, 2022A.D!

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  9. Interesting video ๐Ÿ‘
    One question I would ask about monorails is what's the point ?
    From what I can see, they don't serve any purpose, other than what a conventional railway can already do

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  10. Having just got back from Dubai; I discovered and travelled on a monorail their! It runs along the centre of Palm Island. It struck me as rather odd and old looking compared to the โ€˜flashโ€™ and luxury image of Dubai. The carriages were very wide and laid out in an odd configuration. Though it seemed worth of investment as they were adding more stations to it alone its route.

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  11. haha, I always have to chuckle when people use i.e. in speech, because it safes you no time and just makes it funny to pronounce! ๐Ÿ˜€

    Great video nontheless don't get me wrong ๐Ÿ™‚

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  12. Monorails have been far more successful as amusement rides, or as short-range tourist transportation with a novelty aspect, and that actually makes sense–they're cool-looking, and such rides are usually a simple loop or shuttle without many switches (except for transfer tracks for maintenance and such). So there is a niche, it's just not the one that advocates imagined.

    The last monorail I rode was the one in Singapore that goes from the roof of the VivoCity shopping center to Sentosa Island, a land of amusement parks and other tourist attractions. It's generally crowded because it's the least expensive way over aside from walking the causeway in the tropical steam heat (come to think of it, there might be buses that are cheaper, but it's only a few bucks). As an attraction, it's somewhat overshadowed by the far more expensive cable cars overhead.

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  13. Listowel and Bally B railway was over shifting bog and sand , (no kerryman jokes) old saying in Ireland was the Further west you go the narrower the tracks get ๐Ÿค”๐Ÿค”

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  14. I suspect that another main cause of monorail failure is … the mono wheel.
    In this I am referring to the need for a single double flanged wheel guided on the single rail … which inherently fails to self steer leading to much screeching and wear.
    The dual rail system with conical wheels neatly overcomes this in most rail curves and straights.

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