HAVE DECISION MAKERS CONSIDERED MONORAIL ?

Transportation planners need to understand that monorail, with its small footprint, is ideally suited for conditions in Florida, and would resolve at one stroke such issues as interference with rail freight traffic, lack of available right-of-way, and construction in environmentally sensitive flood zones and wetlands, by elevating vulnerable transportation infrastructure well above ground level.

Monorail can be designed, built, and supported with minimal regard for the operation of freight railroads, road construction, or traffic underneath its superstructure. Infrastructure can be kept well out of the way of traffic on divided highways, essentially all major Florida roads, by placing monorail’s support pylons in the median between the lanes. This eliminates congestion, safety hazards, and interference with automobile and truck traffic. Construction has minimal impact on road traffic --- unlike lane widening --- and zero impact on rail freight operations. A monorail system can even be constructed above so-called Rails-to-Trails linear parks, as the two uses do not interfere with each other, and might even serve as mutual synergies. Indeed, that might be wind up being the highest and best use of the Trail.

To compare monorail’s costs fairly with other means of transportation, its many benefits should be monetized and factored into the equation. If analysts are going to perform a Cost-Benefit Analysis, they shoould take into account

1. tourist dollars that a visitor attraction like monorail brings to the economy;

2. the value of human lives save through the reduction in traffic accidents, including the reduction in insurance premiums due to favorable experience when calculating those premiums and the resulting saving of human lives;

3. the real costs of congestion in our cities, including the reduced air pollution

4. reduction in gasoline usage, fuel costs; dependence on foreign oil ;

5. more livable cities;

6. reduced travel time;

These are just some of the benefits which need to be evaluated in dollars and factored into those analyses.

Monorail is not just for theme parks and, indeed, never has been. The original monorail, in the Wuppertal Valley in Germany, has been successfully and continually operating for over 100 years. The only accident in its entire history was due to a careless workman, not to its monorail design. This is in stark contrast to the safety record of automobiles, which are accident-prone as well as dependent on foreign oil.

Planners unwilling to try what may seem like an untested or unfamiliar modality need to familiarize themselves with the burgeoning construction of monorails worldwide, especially in the Pacific Rim, where authorities are not hidebound by precedent or constrained by lack of imagination. Countries like Japan, Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia have begun to design and build monorail systems to alleviate many of the same problems that the Tampa Bay Region is experiencing. Ironically, some of those countries are funding this construction by using capital they’ve earned by selling us oil.

We don’t need to make decisions obscured by a fog of misinformation or a lack of data. The Monorail Society, a national membership, organization, provides technical support for these decision processes by making available an extraordinary collection of technical material, video tapes and CD's, news stories, manufacturers' specifications, and history to those who want to know the facts. They are not an advocacy organization, but a large membership group with expertise in advanced transportation technologies. We highly recommend them as reference and background for any serious discussion of monorail as a transportation medium. Valuable material can be found online at www.monorails.org and utilizing the excellent index to this website.

Two other thoughts:

1. Model monorails:
     We are really surprised that more modellers have not climbed aboard the     bandwagon and built a modern model railway layout featuring a monorail running through it. Gee whiz ! We've seen some pretty specialized layouts, including mining roads, military feldbahns, Brooklyn street scenes with elevated transit lines, and many more. We would think that some people with imagination would have risen to the challenge and ventured a model monorail system.

2. Advantages in flooding areas
     Regarding the many advantages of prototype monorails in those areas which are prone to flooding: We have seen many video clips on TV news programs of areas that are low-lying or have naturally poor drainage, particularly after the spate of tropical storms during the past few years. Monorails that rise entirely above the flood plain are immune from high water; one would think that local officials would see and understand the great advantage this bestows on a monorail transit system.
Indeed, with the current concern over climate change and the possibility of rising sea levels, a few programs have featured scare stories showing completely flooded subway tunnels and the way that this can bring major cities like New York City to a complete halt. Think monorail !

FORCED PERSPECTIVE IN TROLLEY DIORAMAS

Even in this unenlightened age, many model traction fans --- when they become bored with running their trolleys in a circle around a perpetual, virtual Christmas tree --- use backdrops from Walthers and Backdrop Warehouse as wall coverings in back of the layout. They are printed in a scale much smaller than the trolleys running in the foreground --- often very detailed, very nicely printed or photographed city backgrounds by commercial firms like Walthers and Backdrop Warehouse.

This key concept of using different scales for different sections of a diorama, where the scales differ and descend in size from front to back, is called 'forced perspective.

I would like to quote from a “thread” --- a list of comments in chronological, conversational order from an Internet forum on model airplanes. Because so many model airplane hobbyists, like model railroaders and live steamers, are interested primarily in operating their models, we found it surprising that any of them would be interested in building dioramas, usually a rather static display. It also was interesting that many people in that hobby --- and we're confident that holds true for model traction and transit as well --- had never heard of forced perspective, and had never realized that picturing a moment frozen in time of their otherwise very active, moving hobby was a valid, fascinating option for extending the time factor in order to appreciate the original historical scene or activity. You just wouldn’t think that there were valid static aspects of a hobby based on movement, like ours. What some British model railroaders, the fiddle yard modelers working in a very restricted area --- and French and German modelers who have built Feldbahns and industrial layouts, have demonstrated, is the satisfaction that can be derived through portraying the railroad experience in a very small area over some brief period of time. NO ! Ya doesn’t hafta just run ‘em around and around !!

The other advantage is that one can focus the audience’s attention on some small, evocative aspect of what electric traction railroading really felt like, looked like, and even sounded like, that extends far beyond running a trolley at speed and sounding the horn.

It also opens a major avenue for modeling in the really large scales --- Jimmy Sparkman’s and British trams ¾ inch to the foot, live steam's one inch and 1½ inch scale, and even in the size we're currently beating a drum for --- 2 inches to the foot, the scale utilized by action figures and Barbie dolls.

And lest you turn up your nose at the latter (Mattel calls it Playscale; our call is that it should be dubbed DisPlayscale), consider the possibility for realistic displays if you bring forced perspective into play :
DisPlayscale in the foreground --- it could be just a static moment captured for the viewer, with realistic figures engaged in typical railroad activity; immediately behind it at a small distance, a 1.5-inch-to-the-foot live steam locomotive or string of railcars; right behind that, at the appropriate distance, one-inch scale; next, some F Scale (1:20.3) or G scale (1:22.5 to 1:32), with their detail and outstanding visuals; and, finally, background flats in 0 scale (1:48), displaying a rich industrial or metropolitan background. We think it would take spectators’ breath away. If people asked what the diorama’s scale was, you could ingenuously say “All of them”.

Following is a set of relevant quotes from a model airplane forum:

“One further note, You might want to have several possibilities where your piece will or can be displayed other than a contest.

Museums.
Hobby Shops,
Libraries,
Private or permanent hangars where real aircraft are housed and repaired,
Tech schools,
Corporate headquarters Like trolley and model rail publishing co.,
Large malls
Government buildings, etc.
N.B. This list emended to reflect traction vice aviation interests

Finding a permanent home is not difficult if it’s well done. The first place my Staaken Diorama went on display was the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It has been on temporary loan to the Wings Over the Rockies Aviation Museum for 4 years. If you do a club-sponsored contest entry, the post-contest and ultimate location should be established first and one person should be in charge of its disposition. This person would then answer to the club.

While there is more on the topic, it can all be gleaned from Shep Paynes great work. “How to build Dioramas”. Verlinden has great scenes and ideas. Don't discard any possibilities.”

Tool guys advise : Lefty Loosy, Righty Tighty
Diorama builders might say : Closey Largey, Farthey Smalley

SIZE MATTERS : NOT YOUR FATHER’S ELECTRIC TRAINS

This is a site --- and a blog --- about Mega-Gauge railroad models, very large modeling in the size customarily called “live steam” or “miniature railways”. Our interest lies in those models that
1. are powered by electricity RATHER THAN by live steam and small gasoline engines AND
2. represent prototypes --- the original full-size rail transportation on which the models are based --- that were electrically powered:
a. trolleys, trams, and street cars
b. interurban trains
c. boxcab electric locomotives
d. urban subways and elevated rail
e. light rail and rapid transit AND
f. heavy traction (main line) electric locomotives
because we believe that electricity is by far the most sensible means of propulsion for many reasons, which we will outline in future blogs.

The subject of these Internet pages --- web logs --- generally run on rail with a gauge (distance between the rails) greater than 7 inches. This latter distance was not chosen arbitrarily.
7¼ inches and 7½ inches are the gauges of the two most popular “live steam” gauges in this country, the former being popular in the Northeastern U.S. and Britain, the latter being by far the more popular throughout the rest of the U.S.
BUT, given any degree of interest in gauges smaller than 7 inches, we will explain, discuss, and promote other scales, also. The two that stand out are 1” to the foot (dollhouse scale and also the subject of interest among some live steamers) and ¾” scale. The latter scale is carried forward principally by Jimmy Sparkman of the East Penn Traction Club, who builds beautiful ¾ inch models of elevated third rail trains (“els”) running on aluminum elevated trestles and exhibited at many of the special events that occur in the Philadelphia area.

We will discuss and advocate these giant electric trains, knowing very well the dual definition of the phrase in the vocabulary of both full size railroading and models. We will recommend that commercial manufacturers and amateur builders broaden the range of models in this size; suggest that a wide range of model buildings and accessories in that size would be welcome and marketable; advocate that the entire hobby become oriented toward true model railroading, as it is in the smaller gauges (H0, 0 gauge, and the misnamed G scale); and provide arguments (in the legal broad meaning, not the usual sense of “quarreling”) for the use of Forced Perspective as practiced in stagecraft.