Monorail
A monorail is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover.[1] More accurately, the term refers to the style of track.[note 1] Monorail systems are most frequently implemented in large cities, airports, and theme parks.
For other uses, see Monorail (disambiguation).Etymology[edit]
The term possibly originated in 1897[2] 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).[3]
In popular culture[edit]
François Truffaut's 1966 film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 contains suspended monorail exterior scenes filmed at 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 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 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),[55] 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 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.[56][57]
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 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,[58] 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?"[59]
The 2005 feature film Batman Begins features 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 the Mass transit expansion pack of 2017, Planet Zoo and a non-operating monorail system in the 2020 Cyberpunk 2077.[60]