List of monorail systems

Monorail systems have been built in many countries around the world, many of them on elevated tracks through crowded areas that would otherwise require the construction of expensive underground lines or have the disadvantages of surface lines.

Operational monorails

This is a listing of monorails that are presently operating and open to the public. Only true monorails (self-propelled, vehicle wider than track) are included; see People mover for a list of "monorail-like" systems.

Africa

South Africa

• The Expo Centre in Nasrec, Johannesburg (located next to the 2010 FIFA World Cup Soccer City) hosts a monorail that is operated during major events such as the Rand Easter Show
• Sun City casino resort, linking day visitor parking area to main complex.

Asia

People's Republic of China

• Chongqing Metro line 2, Chongqing
• Shanghai Maglev Train, Shanghai
• Happy Line, Shenzhen, Guangdong
• Window of the World Monorail, at the Window of the World amusement park, Shenzhen, Guangdong
• Castfast Hotel, Fenggang, Dongguan, Guangdong

India

• Mumbai Monorail (under construction)

Japan

Tama Toshi Monorail Line, Tokyo, Japan

Main article: Monorails in Japan

Japan employs monorails in many cities, including:

• Chiba Urban Monorail (Townliner) in Chiba, a satellite city of Tokyo
• Disney Resort Line
• Kitakyūshū Monorail in Kitakyūshū
• Okinawa Monorail (Yui Rail) in Naha, Okinawa
• Osaka Monorail, the longest monorail in the world
• Shōnan Monorail in Kanagawa Prefecture, in the southern outskirts of Tokyo
• Skyrail Midorizaka Line, a commuter line in a residential development suburb of Hiroshima
• Tama Toshi Monorail Line in and around Tama, west Tokyo
• Tokyo Monorail is the world's busiest and most commercially successful monorail line, carrying around 100 million passengers yearly.
• Ueno Zoo Monorail which links the two sectors of the zoo in Ueno park, again in Tokyo

Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur Monorail

Main article: Monorails in Malaysia

• Kuala Lumpur Monorail - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Genting Monorail - linking the Genting Outdoor Theme Park with the indoor one in First World Plaza.
• Malacca Monorail - runs along Malacca River in Malacca City, Malacca. Service suspended.

Singapore

• Jurong BirdPark Panorail. Three-station Von Roll monorail in Jurong BirdPark.
• Sentosa Express. Four-station Hitachi "Small" monorail.

South Korea

• Lotte World, two station amusement park monorail.
• Taedok Science Town Monorail, site of the Taejŏn Expo '93.

Thailand

• Chiang Mai Zoo Monorail, Chiang Mai Zoo.
• Dream World Theme Park in the northern side of Bangkok has a monorail attraction in Adventure Land.
• Pattaya Park Resort in Chon Buri province has an operating monorail transit.

United Arab Emirates

• Palm Jumeirah Monorail, Dubai.

Europe

The Moscow monorail

Von Roll monorail at Alton Towers, UK, originally built for Expo 86 in Canada

• Belgium: There are monorails in the Bobbejaanland theme park.
• Finland has a monorail in the Linnanmäki amusement park.
• Germany has several monorail systems:
  • a suspended monorail in Wuppertal, the Schwebebahn Wuppertal, dating back to 1901.
  • Dresden's Schwebebahn uses a similar system.
  • There are monorails in the Europa-Park, Heide Park and Phantasialand theme parks.
  • There is a smaller type of suspended Monorail (H-Bahn, "Hängebahn" or "hanging railway") at the campus of the university of Dortmund.
  • The H-Bahn system is also used for the Düsseldorf SkyTrain, which operates at Düsseldorf International Airport.
  • Panorama Railway de:Panoramabahn, an Alweg train system, which was in use on IGA 1993 in Stuttgart, on Federal Garden Exhibition 1997 in Gelsenkirchen and which is since 1999 in operation in Magdeburg Elbauenpark.
  • There is also the experimental Transrapid Maglev ("magnetic levitation") railway system built in Emsland. This prototype was subsequently developed by a German consortium into the world's first commercial Maglev railway: the Shanghai Maglev Train which runs from the Longyang Road station on the Shanghai Metro to Shanghai's International Airport.
• Ireland: Listowel was the site of the world's first commercial monorail, named the Lartigue system after Charles Lartigue who constructed this railway in 1888. A straddle-type monorail on a triangular beam, it was perhaps the only passenger monorail to also regularly carry freight and cattle. An historical recreation now exists and carries passengers as an entertainment.
• Italy: Ravenna Amusement Park in Savio, 2 stations, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi).
• Netherlands: there is a monorail located at the Slagharen amusement park and one located at Ouwehands Zoo.
• Russia: The history of monorails in Russia dates back to 1820. The Moscow Monorail opened in 2004 has 6 stations, 4.7 kilometres (2.9 mi).
• Spain: Plaza Imperial Monorail in Zaragoza (Aragon), opened in 2008, 2 stations, 0.6 kilometres (0.37 mi).
• United Kingdom: monorail systems operate at:
  • Chester Zoo
  • Alton Towers
  • Blackpool Pleasure Beach (relocated from 1964 Lausanne fair in Switzerland)
  • Flamingoland theme parks
  • National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, Hampshire.
  • A monorail system opened at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre near Dudley, West Midlands in 1991, but closed five years later due to health and safety concerns as well as a series of mechanical problems.

North America

The Mexico City International Airport.

The Walt Disney World Monorail System.

Monorails can be found in the following places in North America:

• Disneyland Monorail System, Disneyland, Anaheim, California - Known as the "First daily operating Monorail system in the Western Hemisphere"
• Niles Monorail in Fremont, California. This fully-operational, homebuilt, backyard monorail was constructed by monorail enthusiast, Kim Pedersen
• Walt Disney World Monorail System, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida - Serves over fifty million passengers yearly
• Zoo Miami, in Miami, Florida - Connects major exhibits at the zoo
• JTA Skyway, in Jacksonville, Florida - Connects the main JTA bus terminal to the convention center and other downtown destinations, as well as a Park and ride garage
• Pearlridge Center in Aiea, HI, near Honolulu. The monorail is named "Skycab," and connects the Uptown part of the mall to the Downtown part of the mall. It is the only monorail system in Hawaii.
• Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, Minnesota
• Las Vegas Monorail, Las Vegas, Nevada - public transit
• Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey - AirTrain Newark connects terminals, parking lots, and Amtrak/NJ Transit Northeast Corridor rail station
• Hershey, Pennsylvania - amusement monorail at Hersheypark
• Lancaster, Pennsylvania - amusement monorail at Dutch Wonderland [6]
• Ocean City, New Jersey - amusement monorail at Gillians Wonderland Pier
• Memphis, Tennessee - a short suspended monorail connects Mud Island in the Mississippi River to Memphis.
• Dallas, Texas - Amusement ride at Dallas Zoo
• Seattle, Washington - short monorail (Seattle Center Monorail) built for the Century 21 Exposition in 1962
• Six Flags La Ronde in Montreal, Quebec - once part of a larger monorail systems built for Expo 67
• Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida - installed in 1991 for transportation between the parking garage and different Airsides. It was the first monorail in that cars are completely computer operated.
• Bronx Zoo in Bronx, New York City to visit Wild Asia exhibit in the Bronx Zoo
• California State Fair monorail in Sacramento, California on the fairgrounds at CalExpo
• Mexico City International Airport monorail. This monorail connects terminals 1 & 2.
• Jungle Jim's International Market monorail in Fairfield, OH brings riders from a remote parking lot to the Oscar Events Center; cars were originally used at nearby Kings Island. [7]

South America

• Poços de Caldas, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais have a monorail since 1990. It has not been successful as a mass transit system, and nowadays is mostly used as a tourist attraction. It extends for 6 km, comprising 11 stations. There is a second monorail in the city of Poços de Caldas that is now decommissioned due to a failure in the track. The train sits on display at the station in the city center.

Australia

Sydney Monorail

• Metro Monorail, Sydney, Australia
• The Gold Coast, Queensland has two monorails:
  • A 2 km monorail around the Sea World Theme Park which was the first monorail in Australia.
  • A link between Conrad Jupiters Casino and the nearby Oasis Shopping Centre in Broadbeach.

Monorails under construction

Physical construction work has started on the following monorails:

• Jakarta Monorail, Jakarta, Indonesia. Construction suspended, officially abandoned by developers in 2008.
• Makkah Monorail, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
• Mumbai Monorail, India.
• Calabar Monorail, Nigeria
• Putrajaya Monorail, Malaysia. Construction suspended in 2004.
• Skybus Metro, Margao, Goa, India. 1.6 km test track built, construction of 10.5 km public track suspended.
• Tehran Monorail, Iran. Project cancelled after completion of 3% of construction work.
• Wolmido Monorail, Incheon, South Korea. [8]
• Line 2 Green Monorail, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Under construction 23 km.

Proposed monorails

Africa

• Fez, Morocco (Skybus)
• Lagos, Nigeria
• Port Harcourt / Enugu , Nigeria
• Johannesburg, South Africa
• Cape Town, South Africa
• Accra, Ghana http://www.idc-world.com/news http://www.newtimes.com.gh/story/2042

North America

• Sherbourne Conference Center Monorail, Saint Michael, Barbados
• Los Angeles - Las Vegas - Maglev
• Atlanta - Nashville - Maglev
• Washington - Baltimore - Maglev
• As part of the DestiNY USA project in Syracuse, a monorail from Syracuse University to Syracuse Hancock International Airport via downtown and the DestiNY complexes is planned.
• New York - Stony Brook University
• Pittsburgh International Airport - Pittsburgh - Greensburg, Pennsylvania - Maglev
• Tampa-Orlando, Florida, United States. Proposed, currently suspended. Unified monorail system to link major Florida cities and suburbs. Extensive networks are planned in Tampa, and possibly Orlando, for the purposes of intra-metro transport.
• Austin, Texas, United States.
• Wasaga Beach, Ontario, Canada

South America

• Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, proposed as part of development plan for the FIFA World Cup 2014. The project has been suspended. * São Paulo, Brazil has a project to build a monorail that will connect Congonhas Airport to Morumbi and Jabaquara districts.
• Vargas, Venezuela. Proposed. The system would be part of state of Vargas new governor's transportation plan. The project would connect 5 cities: Catia La Mar, Maiquetia, La Guaira, Macuto and Caraballeda. The Swiss corporation Intamil presented the proposal. The trains will ride around 80 km/h and will translate about 60.000 passenger per hour.

Asia

• West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong, linking the WKCD with Tsim Sha Tsui
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, four new lines in addition to the current one: Petaling Jaya monorail, Subang Jaya monorail, Sungei Buloh monorail and Cheras monorail.
• Malacca Monorail, Malacca, Malaysia
• Penang Monorail, Malaysia
• JB Monorail in Johor Bahru, Malaysia
• Lahore, Pakistan
• Karachi, Pakistan
• Islamabad, Pakistan
• Daegu, South Korea
• Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
• Bangkok Monorails, Bangkok, Thailand. Bangkok Metropolitan Administration plan to build eight monorail lines around the city to support downtown area that have a small road network. And the new monorails also support a mainline metro too.
• Kai Tak Monorail and Kowloon Bay Monorail, New Kowloon, Hong Kong
• West Kowloon Cultural District Monorail, Kowloon, Hong Kong

India

• Chennai - Announced in 2011 Governor's Address
• Madurai,Trichy,Coimbatore - Action plan in 2011 Gov Address
• Delhi Monorail, New Delhi
• Kolkata Monorail, India. Approved by the Government.
• Bangalore Monorail, Bangalore, India. Awaiting formal government approval.
• Amritsar, India. Connecting the Raja Sansi International Airport to the Golden Temple,was approved in September 2007 and is designed to cut pollution and possibly connect other important links in city.
• Chandigarh Monorail, India. Currently awaiting final designs and approvals.

Europe

• Istanbul Monorail, Turkey
• Birmingham Monorail, United Kingdom
• Preston Monorail, United Kingdom
• Uppsala, Sweden (this proposed monorail only carries 1-5 passengers, and needs no drivers).
• Liverpool Monorail, United Kingdom (to be create as part of the Liverpool Waters project with link to John Lennon Airport
• Thessaloniki Monorail, Greece, proposed extension of the Thessaloniki Metro from Mikra Depot to Makedonia International Airport via monorail.

Oceania

• Geelong-Melbourne-Frankston, Australia Proposed to combat the rapidly growing population around Port Philip Bay. The proposal will feature a monorail linking the regional city of Geelong to Melbourne and on to the south-east suburb of Frankston while passing through Avalon Airport and Tullamarine. Travel time between Geelong and Melbourne will be around 20 mins.

• Wellington, New Zealand [9]

Decommissioned monorails

Asia

Patiala State Monorail System at National Rail Museum, New Delhi

Hong Kong

• Monorail in Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park, Hong Kong
• Monorail in Kai Tak Amusement Park, Hong Kong

India

• Kundala Valley Railway, Munnar, Kerala, India (1890–1908)
• Patiala State Monorail Trainways, Punjab, India (1910–1927)

Japan

• Himeji City Monorail Line, Himeji, Hyōgo, Japan (1966–1974)
• Odakyu Mukogaokayuen Monorail Line, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan (1966–2001)
• Monkey Park Monorail Line, Inuyama, Aichi, Japan (1962–2008)
• Nara Dreamland Monorail, Nara Dreamland, Japan (1961–2006)
• Drean Land Monorail Line, Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan (1966–1967)
• Nagoya City Higashiyama Park Monorail Line, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan (1964–1974)

Malaysia

• Sunway Monorail, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. Served Sunway City, including Sunway Pyramid mall and Sunway Lagoon theme park and the surrounding. Decommissioned and partly dismantled to allow mall expansion.

Singapore

• Sentosa Monorail, Singapore (1982–2005). Replaced by the Sentosa Express monorail.

Thailand

• Fashion Island Monorail, Bangkok, Thailand. Short indoor amusement park monorail in Fashion Island shopping center. Decommissioned due to an accident which killed 2 riders.
• Tuk-Tuk Monorail, Bangkok. Half indoor-outdoor monorail tour operated between LeoLand amusement park and the water park. The track is still located in the 6th floor of Central City Bang Na.

Australia

• Brisbane, Queensland once had a Von Roll Type II monorail, which was built for World Expo '88. Four sets, consisting of nine carriages each, operated in a continuous loop throughout the Expo site. A single train set was sold to Sea World, Gold Coast, for expansion of its monorail system. It is unknown where the other sets and track were relocated to.

Europe

• Milngavie, near Glasgow, had an experimental high-speed propellor-powered monorail, the Bennie Rail Plane, built during 1929-30 and abandoned during the Great Depression.
• Butlins Skegness Camp, Skegness, United Kingdom (1964–2003) — the first commercial monorail in the UK
• Birmingham Airport had a magnetic levitation train which had to be closed down due it becoming life expired and a lack of spare parts. It was later rebuilt as a more conventional elevated rail system.
• Merry Hill Shopping Centre, Brierley Hill, West Midlands had a Von Roll Mk III Series monorail which opened in June 1991 but only worked for a short while before finally being sold off in 1996. The rolling stock now operates in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia. Reasons for the closure of this system include a combination of technical problems and safety concerns (especially the difficulty of evacuation), exacerbated by a dispute between the owners of Merry Hill and The Waterfront which at this time were owned separately.
• Seville Expo '92
• France has two abandoned test tracks for the Aérotrain, which can be considered monorails. One is between Limours and Gometz-la-Ville and the other between Saran and Artenay. France also had a suspended monorail the SAFEGE that featured in the film Fahrenheit 451.
• Russia had one suspended monorail build in 1899 at a leisure park. A horse-pulled monorail was already been built in 1820 in Myachkove near Moscow.

North America

• Busch Gardens Africa also had a monorail, the Veldt Monorail. It shut down in 1999 due to upkeep cost.
• Busch Gardens Europe had a monorail, Eagle One, that connected the theme park with the nearby Anheuser-Busch brewery. Park visitors could tour the brewery and return via monorail. The setup lost money; the tours were discontinued and Eagle One dismantled in the 1990s.
• Carowinds operated the Carowinds Monorail from 1973 through 1994.
• Expo 86 in Vancouver, British Columbia had a monorail that was moved to Alton Towers in the United Kingdom.
• Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, Michigan (outside of Detroit) had a shuttle monorail that connected to the Dearborn Hyatt Regency Hotel to the Fairlane shopping mall.
• Jetrail, a suspended monorail, was the world's first fully automated monorail system during operation at Dallas Love Field (1969–1974)
• Trailblazer monorail ran from Oct 6, 1956 until the mid-1960s at Fair Park Texas State Fair in Dallas, Texas. It had a Green and Silver paint scheme and hung under the track, rather than perched atop it. The monorail cars were used in Houston prior to this.
• Kings Dominion near Richmond, Virginia had a monorail as the conveyance for visitors to its Lion Country Safari attraction, which was removed after the 1993 season.
• Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (1964–2005)
• The Ontario Southern Railway operated one of the earliest North American monorails between the amusement park at Crystal Beach, Ontario and the main line railway station (1896–1898)
• The Pelham Park and City Island Railroad in the Bronx, New York, New York operated a short-lived monorail system in 1910. It ceased operation after an accident.
• The Philadelphia Zoo had a monorail in the 1970s and 1980s, but was discontinued in the 1990s.
• Toronto Zoo Domain Ride, Toronto (1976–1994)
• Miami Seaquarium Spacerail, Miami Seaquarium (1963–1991)
• The Wgasa Bush Line at the San Diego Wild Animal Park near Escondido, California was shut down in March 2007. It was a five mile (eight km) long, one hour tour around the large area devoted to animal environments.
• Flushing Meadow Park New York, New York had a monorail during the 1964 New York World's Fair
• Jungle Jim's International Grocery Store near Cincinnati, Ohio maintained a monorail circulator purchased from King's Island Theme Park. However, plans are in motion to bring the monorail back online in the future to shuttle people from the grocery store's hotel to the store.
• Six Flags Magic Mountain operated a monorail since the park's opening in 1971 and shut down several years ago due to lack of parts.
• Fairplex operated a monorail built by the American Crane and Hoist company. The middle 90s saw a new station and new cars built by Arrow Dynamics. The new cars were far heavier than the original and caused it to last only a couple of years more until it was dismantled. Today, very little to no traces exist of it.
• Santa's Village in Skyforest had another American Crane and Hoist monorail that shut down when the park went defunct.

South America

• Brazil had a monorail in Rio de Janeiro that linked the large Barra Shopping mall to its parking lot. After its destruction, only one part of the track and the platform still remain in the parking lot (second floor, behind the Fnac dome).

External links

• [10] The Monorail Society
• [11] Light Rail Transit Association fact sheet on Monorails.