@@MarkMcCluney Of course the buildup of sand would be very very quick anyway, so the monorail would not work in Sahara as designed (apart from the rocky parts of course). It is basically a snow fence (or in this case a sand fence) making sure the sand is deposited where the train line is.
Ahahaha... The lamp is a clear message from the engineers to aliens. Beam us up, we are bored with logical solutions to simple problems. We invented double redundancy. If the boiler on the right fails, we have a spare on the left. But let's be honest, unlike conventional rails, nobody was killed while walking down the track
LOVED the anecdote about the soap! :D Sounds exactly like the sort of thing "youths" would do, and listening to it in that wonderful Irish accent only made it better! I was cracking up the whole time! :D
Thing is, it's exactly the type of thing that Irish youth has got up to over the last couple of centuries - never ones to take life seriously. Nowadays, of course, there are things like antisocial media, recreational drugs and fast vehicles available, but that's another story.....!
Hilarious story. 'Boys will be boys' was never truer. When I was a boy, we used to stand on the local railway footbridge and try to drop pebbles down the chimneys of pass passing steam locom locomotives. But those naughty boys on the Lartigue line had wonderful imaginations, bless them.
I must say you inspired me and when I was in western Ireland recently I dragged my two unknowing friends along to Listowel. :)) I knew the railway was closed due to Covid but had to see it anyway. :)
There was a similar monorail, the Larmanjat Monorail, it got even a network of about 80 km in Portugal between Lisbon, Sintra and Torres Vedras. It last only 4 years from 1873 to 1877.
Super!! We want to come see. And ride. But mostly see. Beer would also be nice. But a video of this would help round out the offerings on our channel. A bit far to travel, we would need to fly. They need a chunnel to New York. No matter. This would also be a fun model. I wonder if the NMRA has standards for a 3 rail steam monorail with sand resistant tall tracks.
I don't know if you have looked it up by now, but there are some cities in Japan, that have monorail systems for public transport: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorails_in_Japan. And they use the same junction system you showed in this video.
I frequented this area in the mid 90’s.......this wasn’t there then......if you had explored further there is some infrastructure on the road to Ballybunion, embankments, a water tower for inst.
Breaks my heart that they make barely enough money every year to keep the thing running :( Especially since covid has probably taken all their money away...
Trust a Frenchman to do something completely different to everyone else. Citroën, Panhard, although he was almost normal as the Systeme Panhard became the normal arrangement for a car although he did embrace front wheel drive before Citroën did and bought his car company. His company carried on with Military and Commercial Vehicles.
Thank God, a travel channel that is not car centric. How can you be a true traveler in Europe if you go by car.? I can't think of a stupider thing to do. No no no no no. I reject the auto centric system. Public transport for me. I'm free!
Really interesting, I found it very funny, it made me laugh several times, esspecialy when you started pointing out the problems lol, great presentation and the last comment about never once facing the roblem of sand, the very reason this was all started was a killer lol
Monorail engineers: Well, I guess we're just going to have to build an entire draw bridge system to pass traffic over it Me: ....couldn't you just dig under it instead?
One of the main problems with Lartigue's monorail was the necessity of balancing both sides of the carriage. There was a story about the railway transporting a piano, which necessitated borrowing a couple of calves to weigh down the other side of the carriage...
I heard this although the story suggested that a cow was used initially to balance the piano. Then they realised they needed two calves at the other end to bring the cow back!
Hey RU-vid algorithm, would you please rank this video higher in the trends and recommend it more often and to more people. This is a very good, very interesting, insightful and very educating video about the History not only of Transport not only on Ireland, the British Isles and Europe, but the whole World. Thx
youtube should ALSO stop making the vids buffer-out, when it takes 12 hours to see a vid 10 mins or less, people lose interest and no longer want to see the vid. youtube blames this on high traffic, but the times of the day it happens to me, people are at work or are getting ready to leave their house for work, truth is, youtube can do this to viewers with a keystroke of their computers.
@@angusmacgyver3673 or just came back from there work or are at lunch or what ever happen. take in account that at all time of the day somewhere for someone the day is starting and for a other it is ending. RU-vid is catering to all around the world. but they are always trying to get it faster and faster. for me the video was instant no buffer at all.
And this was built by the engineers that built the majority of the great railways round the world. Most of the amazing steam innovation came from Britain. Those practical, hard headed engineers got it wrong this time. Ahahaha. 😱
We showed up yesterday a few minutes from closing. They kept the place open so we could have our ride. It was quite amazing, and they were a great bunch of folks. Thanks for the recommendation Tim!
Shhh, you're not supposed to notice that! Yes you're absolutely correct, it could be argued that it's a tri-rail because of the two extra rails (and sets of wheels) that are used for stabilising. I think the counter-argument is that, well, only one rail is used for traction, so it's a monorail. Tbh I was thinking about mentioning this in the video but then realised that if we started talking about the exact definition of monorails, it could quickly become more controversial than Brexit.
The Tim Traveller Most modern monorails have wheels that run on the top, and sides of the box beam, same general idea, the top is traction and the sides are to stabilize the cars.
@@TheTimTraveller You've hit upon the solution I think- Brexit is allowed to proceed, the only stipulation is that all rail lines in Britain must be replaced with monorails.
@@TheTimTraveller I love your sense of the ridiculous. Well I suppose it hasn't come off the rails like many international politicians. (The English don't have a monopoly on political farce). Ahahaha 😈 😈
No need! The Lartigue used to transport sand from the beach at Ballybunion to Listowel. I think it was also involved in transporting construction material for Marconi's Radio Transmitter in Ballybunion for the first transatlantic radio transmissions.
Quite interesting - and what I particularly appreciate is that you are urging people to go there. Many a museum these days struggles to get by, which to me is really sad to see.
Same here. When people ask me why I bother with RU-vid I point out several truly interesting items I never would have seen if not for them. Sure, it has a lot to complain about, but "good with the bad" and all that...
I lived and worked in Tralee for 10 years. This was never open when I passed. Listowel has super night life in winter with sometimes old ladies telling "very mischevious" jokes. I miss Ireland.
This is a museum piece, Wuppertal is the back bone of a working public transport system. "Still runs" is not really true here because _everything_ is a reconstruction and the track is 400 meters long. Still of course a fun thing to see, and there is some history that makes it more than just another fair ground monorail.
The locos were the only 0-3-0s ever built! It was said that to transport a cow it had to be counterbalanced by 2 calves which travelled back one to each side
Interesting, at around the same time we had a somewhat similar system in Lisbon, also invented by a Frenchman, the 'Larmanjat'. The rail was at ground level, so the load balancing issues would cause it to derail. Passengers algo had to get out and push it over grades whenever it rained!
@@TheTimTraveller No, the company's quick failure was an embarassment to government figures so it was promptly scrapped. No part of the line could be preserved anyway, as it was laid on existing roads.
To those who consider that this should be called a trirail due to the use of two stabilising rails on either side of the main beam. If you can find a wheeled beam/straddle type monorail that doesn't employ wheeled stabilisers below the main carrying beam, I'd be interested to know. There are a lot of concrete monobeam monorails in Japan (e.g. Hamamatsucho-Haneda) and they all have stabilising wheels bearing on the sides of the monobeam. The Lartigue system uses a steel rail version of that arrangement - they're not truly load bearing.
Easy. The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn, opened in 1901 and of course still in regular operation today. It tilts up to a maximum of 15° while travelling and up to 7° in stations. It's a very comfortable ride. Have a look: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HQH4TS01Jt4.html Technical detail: the beam is straddled by the wheels, which are flanged on both sides. There are no other wheels for sideward stablization.
I wonder if the suspension of those carriages quite fits the intent of Brian's comment. Yes technically I suppose you are right - it is a monorail and it doesn't have load bearing stabilising wheels. It is a completely different design ethic when the COG is manipulated in this way.
I live in Dublin. About 20 years ago a lot of cars were covered in a light orange dust. It was Sahara sand blown high into the atmosphere and deposited here in Ireland.
I could not feel anything disappointing about the video nor about the train at all. Maybe you should start to be grateful about things you did not contribute to at all but you find interesting anyway?
For those who are confused about the monorail having three rails there not, those are called guide rail's so the fecking thing doesn't completely tip over the train still only uses one rail for traction much like a modern rollercoaster
I feel like to most people a really old oddly designed train would be the most boring tourist attraction ever, but you've made it seem like one of most most interesting trains in the world!
I am revisiting this video after months and I realise how big a fool I have been not to have subscribed back then. Being a person having avid interest in railways I guess that's why RU-vid had recommended it to me the first time.
As a monorail lover - this especially interested me. BTW - I have seen 4 of your videos so far and a I REALLY appreciate the history/background of the things/places you are talking about, included. Thanks for this charming video.
I and my family travelled on this wonderful Monorail a few years ago. It was great fun and the staff were very friendly. I can recommend the experience.
You know, we Americans, lost as we are over here on the other side of the pond, don't get around very much, and we take our ques from what we see on the television, what you would call the "telle," or something. The other day I was watching SPIKE MILLILGAN, and he had that skit going titled "Irish Astronauts." After seeing THAT, I was afraid to find out what an "Irish Monorail" would look like. Spike is my hero!
I think this railway has not become a full-scale spread around the world. Because it is very difficult to make locomotives and cars structurally. And also make crossings for other modes of transport through the rails.
So the original goal was to build a track that wouldn't get clogged with sand - what if they just built conventional rails a meter above the ground on trestles? Might have been slightly more expensive, but would have avoided many of the issues and allowed the use of conventional trains.
I have heard about this railway/momrail and even though I have been to Ireland once I have never been on it and I would really like to so it is great to see this line from a different angle and even have a ride and learn about the history. Well Informative and Interesting. I will ride it, just you wait MONORAIL.
