Initially, Monorail was invented to carry raw materials and agricultural products, there was the opportunity to carry passengers as well, it was implemented later.
Palmer builds a single-track railway, for special purposes. A monorail replaces the more conventional 2-way transport system with only one track.
In the first type of pillars, the rail can be of different heights and allow to cross difficult terrains at a lower cost. In the second type, the rail can be suspended over channels and rivers, occupying little valuable land.
In June 1825, Henry Robinson Palmer opened a monorail suspended at Cheshunt, (London). Although designed to transport bricks, it could also transport passengers.
In 1876, United States Centennial Exposition, General Le-Roy stone built a demonstration pillar monorail in Philadelphia. Other pillar monorail systems have been built to transport agricultural and mineral ores.
The most famous monorail carrying passengers is the Listowel Irish Railway and Ballybunion, with a length of 14.5 km, which ran from 1888 to 1924.
A German suspended monorail in Wuppertal has started its service in 1901 and is still regularly used for passenger transport.
In 1903, Louis Brenan patented a ground-level monorail with vehicles held upright by 2 large spinning gyroscopes. The fear of gyroscopic failure made this system short-lived.
A conventional two-way rail system is a problem: at high speed, the train tends to turn from one side to the other, a phenomenon called hunting. This does not happen on a monorail, which speeds up the trains.
Swedish industrialist Dr. Alex Lennart Wenner-Gren (ALWEG) designed a modern version of the pillar monorail. The ALWEG monorails were built in Florida, Japan, and Australia.
In 1888, the Listowel and Ballybunion railway in Ireland was the first monorail of its kind in the world.
Also, read Fountain Pen Invention
How Monorail Works?
Modern monorails are based on a single solid beam that supports and guides the train; The carriages are suspended under the track or sitting on the top, their wheels overlap with electricity, which is transported in a “third rail”, inside the beam or connected to it.
Monorail in India
In 2008, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, approved the project and in 2009 his successor, Ashok Chavan, laid the foundation for Monorail.
On February 2, 2014, the Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan commissioned Phase I of the project between Chembur and the Wadala Depot (8.26 km).
