Monorails

One of the new ideas and inventions put forward in the last quarter of the 19^th century was the idea of the monorail railroad. This idea was lugged at by many, but some people believed that it was promising.

One of the first monorails appeared in 1882 when L. Brennan, an Irishman, built an experimental monorail car. The inventor designed his car as military vehicle for the speed at which a single rail could be laid made it ideal foe military purposes. According to Brennan, these cars were to be worked by steam, petrol, or electricity.

The late 19^th-early 20 centuries saw many attempts to apply monorails.

There exist a number of monorails operating in the world today, most of them experimental. Among them it should be mentioned the oldest practical monorail which was built in Germany in 1901 and which is still in operation. Its 16-km track serves the city Wuppertal handling 55,000 passengers a day.

There are two different types of monorails – a suspended type when a monorail car is suspended from an overhead single rail and a supported type when a vehicle is supported by the track. The choice of the monorail type depends on climatic conditions, the territory where the monorail is to be built, the number of passengers, etc.

The supported type monorail is considered by many the most effective type used. But its problem is instability because the center of gravity of the vehicle is above the rail. Without help the balance cannot be kept. The means used to provide balance divide the supported monorails into four groups.

The first group uses the gyroscope, a device based on a principle of rotation which helps the vehicle keep its balance. The Brennan car is an example of a monorail vehicle of this group. However, this method of keeping balance is of little interest today because the passengers are in constant fear that the gyroscope may stop rotating.

The second way to keep balance is by guide rail. The monorail of that group had a single guide rail suspended above the vehicle. This type, however, lacked safety and after some accidents the idea was dropped.

Other monorails balance the cars by two guide rails. The system was noisy and could not provide the smooth running because the stability of the car was difficult to control. As a result, the wear of track and equipment made the system inconvenient for modern high-speed monorails. A new method of balancing monorail vehicle was designed in Germany in the early 50s of the 20^th century. Under this system, the car is moving on a concrete beamway, which carries notches for guide wheels. This type of supported system is most promising since it is operating safer and smoother that the first three types.

Дати письмову відповідь на запитання

1. How was the idea of monorails first taken by the public?

2. Why did Brennan design his monorail as military transport?

3. What are the two types of monorail railroads?

4. What does the choice of the monorail type depend on?

5. What are the examples of the most successful monorails?

6. What are the most promising uses of monorails?