I just happened to be passing through downtown Seattle, and since I rode the famous monorail once about sixty years ago, it seemed like a good opportunity to visit it again...
The monorail is an idea whose time has come and gone, I would say. But it's still a rail-way, although one that would be particularly difficult to preserve in operation. Downtown Seattle has the only original Alweg system, still running in daily service.
Incidentally, I hadn't realized that "ALWEG" is actually the Swedish inventor's initials. I would have guessed it was a German abbreviation -- Anhangs-Linie-Weg or some such thing.
The system consists of two parallel tracks about a mile long, each with one four-car articulated train. There are no switches or anything; each train runs back and forth on its own track. The track is just a large concrete beam. Power is collected from two third rails, so to speak.
Maintenance must be a real headache.
One end of the line is at the famous Space Needle.
Anyway, let's go for a ride!
Well, that was fun. Just be glad we'll never have to maintain something like this!
The Seattle Monorail now connects to the light rail system so it's no longer a "no place to somewhere" system.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, and we also rode the light-rail line which is quite heavily built and very active.
ReplyDeleteEven for a non-controversial comment, you should be identifying yourself.
Randy, I am sorry to have missed you guys on your trip to the North Wet. (Good timing for weather, by the way.) I guess you know about the local historic trolley stuff that can be skipped for seeing it earlier, but still it would have been nice to cross paths. Sounds like you had a good trip. O Anderson
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite sure where I should be asking this. But... I have a question about the Rock Island Southern Northern Division. I know that the routes from Preemption to Cable and from Preemption to Sherrard weren't electrified. But was the route from Southern Junction to Preemption electrified or was it just a steam route like those to Cable and Sherrard?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good question, and at least it made me go back and review what we wrote about the RIS so long ago. There's no reference to any such thing, so I have to think the answer is no. The distance from South Jct. to Preemption is not great, and any trains on that branch went on to Cable or Sherrard, so electrification wouldn't be worth it -- especially for a company that was always operating on the brink of insolvency. That's just my guess.
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