A monorail is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, the term refers to the style of track. Monorails are single-rail systems often found in airport transfers and medium-capacity metros. Monorails differ from trams and light rail systems by always being separated from other traffic and pedestrians.
Rail transport is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed.
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels.
A geared steam locomotive is a type of steam locomotive which uses gearing, usually reduction gearing, in the drivetrain, as opposed to the common directly driven design.
A Fairlie locomotive is a type of articulated steam locomotive that has the driving wheels on bogies. The locomotive may be double-ended or single ended. Fairlies are most famously associated with the Ffestiniog Railway in North Wales.
A tender or coal-car is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing its fuel and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, so their tenders are necessary to keep them running over long distances. A locomotive that pulls a tender is called a tender locomotive. Locomotives that do not have tenders and carry all their fuel and water on board the locomotive itself are called tank locomotives or tank engines.
The British Railways Standard Class 9F2-10-0 is a class of steam locomotive designed for British Railways by Robert Riddles. The Class 9F was the last in a series of standardised locomotive classes designed for British Railways during the 1950s, and was intended for use on fast, heavy freight trains over long distances. It was one of the most powerful steam locomotive types ever built for British Railways, and successfully performed its intended duties. The 9F class was given the nickname of 'Spaceship', due to its size and shape.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-6-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This arrangement is commonly called a Mogul.
The Lartigue Monorail system was developed by the French engineer Charles Lartigue (1834–1907). He further developed a horse drawn monorail system, which had been invented by Henry Robinson Palmer in 1821.
The term monorail or industrial monorail is used to describe any number of transport systems in which a chair or carrier is suspended from, or rides on, an overhead rail structure. Unlike the well-known duo-rail system, there are many rail-guided transport options which have been described as monorails, so that tracing the history presents a demarcation problem regarding what should be included and what should be omitted.
An oil burner engine is a steam engine that uses oil as its fuel. The term is usually applied to a locomotive or ship engine that burns oil to heat water, to produce the steam which drives the pistons, or turbines, from which the power is derived.
The WAGR P and Pr classes were two classes of 4-6-2 steam locomotives designed for express passenger service on the Western Australian Government Railways mainline network. The initial designs were prepared by E.S. Race and together the two classes had a total build number of thirty-five locomotives, the P and Pr classes entering service in 1924 and 1938 respectively. Both classes were used on express passenger services, greatly improving the economy and speed of long-distance passenger travel in Western Australia, the results of which were most visible on the Western Australian stage of the Trans-Australian Railway and Westland Express.
The Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh Railway was one of the more than ten thousand railroad companies founded in North America. It lasted much longer than most, serving communities from the shore of Lake Ontario to the center of western Pennsylvania.
Córas Iompair Éireann No. CC1, generally known as the Turf Burner, was a prototype 0-6-6-0 articulated steam locomotive designed by Oliver Bulleid to burn turf and built at CIÉ's Inchicore Works in Dublin. CC1 shared some, but not all, of the characteristics of Bulleid's previous attempt to develop a modern steam locomotive, the Leader. Like the one completed Leader, CC1 had a relatively short career and was never used in front-line service. It was the last steam locomotive to be constructed for an Irish railway.
The Russian locomotive class Ye, and subclasses Yea, Yek, Yel, Yef, Yem, Yemv and Yes were a series of 2-10-0 locomotives built by American builders for the Russian railways in World War I and again in World War II. They were lightweight engines with relatively low axle loadings.
General Roy Stone's Centennial Monorail was demonstrated at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the U.S., which was held in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
The Boynton Bicycle Railroad was a monorail in Brooklyn on Long Island, New York. It ran on a single load-bearing rail at ground level, but with a wooden overhead stabilising rail engaged by a pair of horizontally opposed wheels. The railway operated for only two years, but the design was adopted elsewhere.
Henry Roe Campbell was an American surveyor and civil engineer. Campbell contributed to American railroading and bridge-building in the first half of the 19th century. Campbell patented his 4-4-0 design in February 1836, just a few months before the patent law was changed to require that claims include proof of originality or novelty.
Pennsylvania Railroad 5550 is a mainline duplex drive steam locomotive under construction in the United States. With an estimated completion by 2030, the locomotive will become the 53rd example of the Pennsylvania Railroad's T1 steam locomotive class and the only operational locomotive of its type, as well as the largest steam locomotive built in the United States since 1952. The estimated cost of PRR 5550 was originally $10 million, but an updated projected cost of $7 million was released with the acquisition of an existing long-haul tender from the Western New York Railway Historical Society in August 2017. Construction began in 2014 with the casting of the locomotive's keystone-shaped number plate. Major components, including two Boxpok drivers, the prow, the cab, third-course boiler, and fire door have been completed.
