Build Your Own Monorail

jpatokal writes "Building your own roller coaster may be fun, but how about something a little more practical -- like a monorail in your back yard? Kim Petersen designed his from scratch, building the elevated track from wood, scavenging the engine from a motorized walker and handcrafting the train from sheet metal. Total cost: $4000! See the photo tour and the construction history."

Comments

Zoning etc?

[bagel2ooo]

I'm not to certain as I haven't had my own house or type of place where I could build something "in the back." Are there any guidelines/regulations one would have to meet with the city to do this? I mean it seems there could be a lot of safety/security issues with this. I mean there's lots of litigations just over people having a pool in their backyard let alone this. :)

That guy is pretty brave

[Edmund Blackadder]

He made raised his track a good tree meters off the ground. If he made it half a m off the ground it would still be a monorail. He must really trust his engineering abilities.

Of course the guy with a roller coaster was much more brave. His creation would do loops and stuff and looked much less solid.

Building a monorail in Seattle...

[realyendor]

We're working on plans to build an expanded monorail system in Seattle. True, compared to Kim's backyard monorail, it's a little longer (14 miles) and a little pricier ($970M-$1.7B), but it'll haul about 60,000 people per day, and likely turn an operational profit. And it's probably the only transit system in the country created by a citizens' initiative...yes, that's right, no monorail salesman or catchy jingle needed--just a good grassroots campaign! For more info, visit The Elevated Transportation Company. The plan goes to the voters November 2002.

For info on the campaign (which I'm helping out with--yes, this is a shameless plug), visit Rise Above It All

Re:Maglev..

[Rhinobird]

How about a back yard space port?

Sideways forces

[kievit]

Looking at the photos I wonder how the construction can be robust against the sideways movements of the 100-150kg person+train. The rail just rests on the pylons, there is no reinforcement that prevents it from toppling sideways. Also the pylons themselves are just pricked into the ground, I see no sideways support bars or so. Apparently these sideways forces are absorbed by the railtrack as a whole. But for a long straight section I would worry that that does not work any more.

Maybe a mechanical engineer in the audience can enlighten me?

And, on a side note: can somebody explain to me his remark at the last page of the Tour: This picture just screams "only in America," doesn't it? I find his project very beautiful, but what's so American about it? Is it really unimaginable for US citizens that this kind of impressive creative tinkering also happens in other countries?

What I wanna see now....

[Racine]

We have a roller coaster. We have a monorail.

I wanna see someone build thier own Subway, complete with two stops and a building over each one.