TRAIN WI: World Adopts The Brennan Monorail

GuildedAgeNostalgia


1. Apparently in the early 1900s, a guy had the idea of putting two gyroscopes inside of a train. By doing so, the train could be built on a single track without having any balancing issues, meaning:

- It could go faster
- It could take sharper turns
- Railroad track could be built for half the cost
- You could operate these on already built track, but only use a single rail
- Train is less likely to tip or derail

2. Unfortunately investors at the time were too hesitant to pick up on the design but what if investors did adopt the self balancing Monorail? What would be the impact today?
 

oberdada

I doubt the half cost.
Cheaper maybe.

Another positive: gauges become irrelevant

But on the other hand, will trains have to become lighter to use existing lines? ( Using only one track)
 

DougM

I actually suspect it would be MORE expensive.
the width of the track is mostly irrelevant for cost of a railroad, ties are wood wood is cheep.
The width of the EQUIPMENT determines how wide a right of way you need to cut. You tunnels and cuts and shelves all have yo accommodate the width of the widest part of the train hang over
the reason narrow gauge is cheeper is ot because it is narr it is because it is smaller. Smaller means smaller engines which are cheeper, shorter cars which are cheeper and small cars and engines means you can get tighter turns and steeper grades and that means it is a lot cheeper to build in mountainous terrain as you can follow the existing grade of the land with less work.
This mono rail is mot getting most of that advantage.
Curves will probably have to be wider or the momentum of the car in the curve will tip it over and ther is only so much you can do to offset this with gyroscopes, And you can only bank/tilt the curve so much as if you take different weighted trains and or differential speed trains through the same banked curve then they will try to fall inwards if you have yo much banking. Plus any banking at ALL will just fight the gyroscopes as they don’t know they are banking.

Then we get into issues that gyroscopes are very delicate complicated components and complicated delicate components do VERY BADLY on trains. Even today much less back then. So the cost of maintaining those is going yo more then offset any other savings.
Add in what do you do when you want to run down the gyros? You need special location Or equipment to held the thing upright.
Then you have a few other problems. What if the gyros stop out in the middle of mow where? You turn a mechanical breakdown into a derailment and a big derailment that sees the equipment to roll over.
oh and what happens if the gyros sud freeze up”. That momentum has yo go somewhere and that is going yo be catastrophic.
Oh and most monorails are much harder to build dependable turnouts/switches.
And you can’t really do freight so that makes it worse. As you can’t just drop off a box car or flat car, as the cars need gyros as well.

And all of this is supposed to be set off by basically saving the cost of one rail?
 

YYJ

DougM said:
I actually suspect it would be MORE expensive.
the width of the track is mostly irrelevant for cost of a railroad, ties are wood wood is cheep.
The width of the EQUIPMENT determines how wide a right of way you need to cut. You tunnels and cuts and shelves all have yo accommodate the width of the widest part of the train hang over
the reason narrow gauge is cheeper is ot because it is narr it is because it is smaller. Smaller means smaller engines which are cheeper, shorter cars which are cheeper and small cars and engines means you can get tighter turns and steeper grades and that means it is a lot cheeper to build in mountainous terrain as you can follow the existing grade of the land with less work.
This mono rail is mot getting most of that advantage.
Curves will probably have to be wider or the momentum of the car in the curve will tip it over and ther is only so much you can do to offset this with gyroscopes, And you can only bank/tilt the curve so much as if you take different weighted trains and or differential speed trains through the same banked curve then they will try to fall inwards if you have yo much banking. Plus any banking at ALL will just fight the gyroscopes as they don’t know they are banking.

Then we get into issues that gyroscopes are very delicate complicated components and complicated delicate components do VERY BADLY on trains. Even today much less back then. So the cost of maintaining those is going yo more then offset any other savings.
Add in what do you do when you want to run down the gyros? You need special location Or equipment to held the thing upright.
Then you have a few other problems. What if the gyros stop out in the middle of mow where? You turn a mechanical breakdown into a derailment and a big derailment that sees the equipment to roll over.
oh and what happens if the gyros sud freeze up”. That momentum has yo go somewhere and that is going yo be catastrophic.
Oh and most monorails are much harder to build dependable turnouts/switches.
And you can’t really do freight so that makes it worse. As you can’t just drop off a box car or flat car, as the cars need gyros as well.

And all of this is supposed to be set off by basically saving the cost of one rail?
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The gyros would take a while to spin down, and so would allow for a controlled stop. Presumably the train has some kind of kickstand for when the gyros are powered down. The pneumatic feedback system seems like a more likely point of failure, if a line breaks, then the train would fall over. The pneumatic feedback system seems like it wants some multiple redundancy, like airliner hydraulic systems.

If a gyro had a catastrophic failure that would mess things up. But if you look at other trains of the day, the boiler failures, runaways, collisions, and derailments tell that conventional rail had its hazards too.

I think the big problem is that each car would need to have its own gyro system. so conventional rail retains the advantage of expensive engine pulling cheap cars.

They thing that makes it look cool to us, i expect made it look scary to the general public of the day. It may find some niche for specialty applications. I think its best use would be in steampunk and dieselpunk anime films, racing beside a monowheel.

monowheel-1933.jpg

forwhomthegearturns.com

Monowheel 1933

Monowheel 1933
forwhomthegearturns.com forwhomthegearturns.com
 

DougM

You have yo pay for this gyro system in two ways. 1) when you buy the equipment. And 2) when you keep the Gyros running, this cost energy and maintenance. Neither are free.
So this system is going to cost more then the known technology of steam engines, and will NEVER get the power level of steam engines at their peak.

First off they have half the wheels and these wheels are not locked to those on the other rail. So when frost, ice, water, bugs (i kid you not) or leaves land on said rail you will instantly slip that rails wheel. On a steam engine often the wheel on the other rail will not lose traction so less of an issue.
And this thing is never going to evolve to something like say a 4-8–8-4 or a 2-6-6-6 or even a 4-8-4 or 2-8-4.
As for boilers exploding. This happened but not very often post 1900 as it was known how to prevent this so if it happened it was the equival of say a plane crash. Something was done wrong, typically more than one thing, as you need at least two mechanical failures and a botched job on the Fireman‘s side. Or 4 mechanical issues.
And what is powering this thing? Overhead electric? If so ANY savings is gone and then some. There is a reason why so little overhead electric is used in the US as it cost a fortune to run lines on long stretches of railroad in the middle of now where. Europe generally had much shorter rail lines that were much closer to a town that probably had or needed an electric power plant. A power plant in the middle of nowhere in the Uzs is 100% an expense of the railroad. And you can only send electricity so far over a line. And that was shorter back in the late 1800s through the 1930s. So that is an issue. Besides if you build an electrification system for this thing then you could for a regular railroad.

And yes you will get catastrophic failure of gyros. And a lot more often than a boiler explosion. And not much you can do about it. You cant easily pull the power out of it if it goes bad,
And the power will be a LOT more than you probably think it is. I worked with an engineer (mechanical) when we were looking at rebuilding a water wheel. A metal wheel. If you look up the Grist Mill in WV it is much the same wheel. The wheel was located about 150’ from the road and about 8’ below the grade of the road. On the other side of the road was a car wash, The wheel was never run at very high speed as it was by the 2000s simply a historical item for display so it just was given enough water to spin it At maybe 15 percent max speed. A nice slow spin.
The engineer ran the numbers of what would happen if the wheel support system failed and it went rolling off. It had enough momentum built into the wheel that it would have climbed the hill, crossed the 3 lane road, then the parking lot and slammed full tilt into the car wash with more energy behind it at that point then a car hitting the building at 10 mph.
And this is a slow speed water wheel.
A gyro going fast enough yo keep a train with passengers upright will be catastrophic to the tune of being a bomb,

Also someone is losing track of the passenger problem. In the late 1800#s through the 1940s passenger cars had an issue. If they made the springs on a passenger car soft enough yo be comfortable with a few passengers then it was bottomed out if you filled the whole car. Add in that passengers move so the weight shifts and if you make the springs hard enough yo handle the movement then it is stiff and bounces the passengers and so on and so forth. The technology was not available to fix the problem with a better suspension for passenger cars. So what did they do? They made theses steel 80’ long cars even heavier than they had to be. Often with concrete filled chambers in the floor. This allowed the passengers weight to be such a small percentage of the weight of the car that the passengers didn’t matter to the suspension system.
This was why lightweight cars really took a while. It started in the 30s but it was the 50s by the time the lightweight cars really where both practical and economical.

So this thing is going yo have a tone of issues, And will simply not work.

Sorry for the negativity and the long post, but this is a topic in my wheelhouse as I have been into trains for decades and belong to more then a couple historical and technical societies over the years, and have a pretty large library about trains and how they work and how they were built and what have you.

So while a cool concept for a steampunk world this concept belongs right next to that air plane from the other post. Not only should it not get off the drafting board it‘s first concept sketch belongs in the junk can.
 

BlueTrousers

DougM said:
There is a reason why so little overhead electric is used in the US as it cost a fortune to run lines on long stretches of railroad in the middle of now where.
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Not entirely true - every study has found that overhead electrification is cheaper over the lifecycle of the equipment than diesel haulage, including in the United States. It's perfectly feasible over long distances in large countries - about 50% of Russian track mileage, including the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and two-thirds of Chinese track milage is electrified.

What makes it unattractive to American railroads is that it's capital-intensive. For a private company motivated by profit, that's a showstopper. For a state-owned asset, that's not a big problem.
 

mtpalmer1

Wow, I really didn't expect people would even try and defend this one.

The problem is that if the propulsion unit (or whatever you'd call this garbage) fails, the rolling stock fails with it. If a conventional locomotive, steam, diesel or other, suffers a simple traction failure, the brakes fail ON and the passengers are able to shelter in place until help can come to them. On this contraption, a power failure, assuming some constriction doesn't spin it down immediately, results in a mandatory evacuation every time. In any weather, no matter how rustic the terrain.

Else-wise, it will need to carry it's own support rig with it, where-ever it goes. This is hardly going to be a kick-stand. You could probably rely on gravity to drop it but it would need to be raised pneumatically (hydraulic or steam would be too heavy). It is going to have to be substantial and will be heavy - on a vehicle that would already be pushing weight-distribution limits of conventional rail. Many civil engineers of that period would veto it because of excessive weight per wheel. It is going to be (unnecessarily) harsh on the infrastructure, bridges, banks and viaducts etc. Forget it in coal-mining country! Far from saving money compared with twin-rail, this could be more expensive!

If it were to fail, out in the sticks/boondocks, you couldn't drag it dead to a depot for repairs, as with conventional locomotives & rolling stock. You would need all gyros operational before setting off. Could another power unit energize it's own gyros and all of the gyros of the dead unit or would you need dedicated "Thunderbird" engines? Hauling around replacement gyros and fitting them in situ sounds both fun and profitable.

This is a monumentally bad, indefensible concept.
 
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Geekhis Khan

Um...wow. This is right up there with the Airspeed A.S. 33 someone posted in the WTF School of Engineering. I didn't know Crack was so widely available back then. Laudanum, maybe? Plenty of others have pointed out the limitations of the gyros from an economic and engineering standpoint, but I'm surprised nobody mentioned the pneumatic system that kept the gyros in sync. Clever idea from a developmental standpoint, but one blown gasket, improperly screwed-down fitting, compressor issue, imperfect cylinder seal, or broken pneumatic line and the whole system quickly loses any and all stability. Even the slightest imbalance in air pressure between the two sides of the piston would destroy the careful balance between the gyros and could result in catastrophe.

Forget catastrophic gyro failure. Catastrophic gasket failure, something that seems not just likely but inevitable given the vibrations, shocks, and temperature swings the train would encounter, would lead to disaster.

Now multiply that risk by every car in the train, any one of which would take the rest with it if it failed.

Yeah, definitely good stuff for a steampunk setting alongside coal-powered mecha and vacuum airships, but not really practical for anything but a clever demonstrator.
 

DougM

Umm… Being to expensive to build capital wise IS by definition uneconomical.
In the US (and elsewhere) the railroads were built by private companies in order to make a profit.
The Argument for this crazy design is it would be “cheaper ”. But if you have to build an electrical system.. not so much.

As for those studies, I would like to see them, yes it is cheaper in some location, but in the middle of Montana or Nebraska…. Not so much. You are putting you power supply out in the middle of nowhere in that you need to build and maintain the power lines and the supply lines and possibly the power plant out in the country side. Normally with steam or diesel your maintenance located in one or more hubs. Much easier to support and maintain and keep employees.

BTW if electric was so affordable why did more than one railroad that HAD overhead electric take the system down once diesels were powerful enough to get the job done? They HAD the electric system and REMOVED it. Instead of maintaining it.

Also almost all overhead systems are on government railroad systems… may be a reason for that.

And you absolutely missed my point. Tgis system REQUIRES an electric system as steam or even dessiel prime movers are going to be to heavy for any gyro to hold up which drives the cost for a cheep system through the roof.

BTW where is the gyros at? They have to be taking up a rather large area. And weigh a lot.
And that brings up another issue. If this thing leans in then it is going yo complicate overhead electrification as you have to somehow account for that lean. Yes it can be done but.. each unit is likely to lean differently and that Blake the system have yo accommodate this which complicates construction of the system as well as it maintenance and as noted that is not inexpensive to start with.

Sy why anyone EVER thought this was a good idea outside a steam punk fantasy I have NO idea.
it is going to cost more to build, cost more to maintain , it will haul less as it is smaller weaker and each car as to take up space with the gyro system and the leg system for when the gyros run down. and each car is a potential bomb. it would look cool in a steampunk or diesel-punk movie

Oh and another issue, if a car sits long enough to run down you have to take time to spin the gyros back up. This is not going to be fast so your time is going to be eaten. Alternatively you could keep the gyros powered up but. That cost a LOT of electricity to do. Remember these are not some random gyro that is not going anything. These gyros are going to lose momentum as the energy is sucked off the gyro keeping the car balanced. And with freight cars that is going yo be hard to do if it is not loaded balanced much less during loading. And good luck if you passengers rush to one side to get on or off or to look at the view. And if you want yo keep your passengers in assigned seats that defeats a lot of the advantage of trains,
Oh and keep these gyros in motion under power and using said power to counter the car falling over is going yo eat your gyro system, bearings motors seals etc so you maintenance is going through the roof

So no this is a horrible idea and will cost more to build and to run and do less.
 

BlueTrousers

DougM said:
Umm… Being to expensive to build capital wise IS by definition uneconomical.
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The return on that capital is good. But electrifying a small portion of a rail network then stopping doesn't realise that return - you lose more money changing engines than you save with cheaper operation. You have to go big, or not bother. Because US railroads need to get working capital from shareholders and banks, they don't have ready access to the funds needed to do large-scale electrification.
DougM said:
BTW if electric was so affordable why did more than one railroad that HAD overhead electric take the system down once diesels were powerful enough to get the job done? They HAD the electric system and REMOVED it. Instead of maintaining it.
Click to expand...
The short-sightedness of corporations. Anyone who's worked for a large company can tell you about a time that management chose to save money this year, and wound up costing themselves money.

The Milwaukee Road (the usual example of this behaviour) found that their electrification was cost effective, even when diesels became available, and even in some pretty remote areas of the northwestern Continental United States. They ran their system until the equipment needed replacing; at that point, they got caught in the same legally-mandated short-sightedness as every other US railroad.
DougM said:
Also almost all overhead systems are on government railroad systems… may be a reason for that..
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The reason is that state-owned systems can take a longer-term view than a Board of Directors that's got a legal obligation to make the stock price go up every year. Publicly-owned railroads also generally have easier access to capital, because the government has deeper pockets, and tools that no private company has.
DougM said:
And you absolutely missed my point. Tgis system REQUIRES an electric system as steam or even dessiel prime movers are going to be to heavy for any gyro to hold up which drives the cost for a cheep system through the roof.
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I didn't miss it, I just chose not to add to it - I see no benefit in beating the monorail up further. The horse being flogged is not merely dead, but the corpse has decomposed into nothingness.
 
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Fulano

This could actually work in those super tiny streets some European towns have. And with minimal change to them, as well.
 

Orcbuster

GuildedAgeNostalgia said:
Any takers? Is there anything engineering wise that would make this actually impractical?
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This idea is unsafe, expensive and stupid.

The gyro will fail at inopportune moments and it will kill people. This is not in question. It cannot be made reliable and safe at the velocities, mass strain and regularity of which trains actually run. Don't even try to argue that it can be. You'll make yourself a liar. Its unacceptable from any reasonable engineering point of view.
 
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