Bangkokians can expect a monorail soon

[Crossy]

My Kingdom for a single, unified mass rail transit system. How many different smart cards am I going to have to buy?

Rest assured there will be a single card for Bangkok transit. It will likely not be Rabbit.

OTP are about to sign a contract with a multi-national consortium to implement the aptly named White Elephant card (OK that was the original naming suggestion, probably not going to go with it).

On topic. Monorail is good and cheap for routes which would normally be the domain of buses and trams rather than heavy rail (BTS and MRT), they are very popular in Japan.

All about monorails http://monorails.org/

[masuk]

The ones interested in a field study may travel to KL to see what a monorail is in real...

They have three types of tracked trains in KL. Gets confusing.

Can't remember what they're called, but what's in a name.

On the Gold Coast in QLD, they've got a 'light rail' system running. In my youth we called them 'trams'.

[jpinx]

Suspended monorails can stop almost anywhere. The floors of the carriages are a single step up to get in. Could even be level with the pavement of a street.

[ExPratt]

If the feasibility study is not done yet then surely that means nothing is rubber stamp

[ExPratt]

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"A feasibility study is already underway to find the pros and cons of the Grey Line. Results are expected to be revealed in the near future."

The Cabinet has already approved the project, prior to the feasibility study. What blithering idiots!

Exactly doesnt make sense

[Crossy]

An interesting concept to have a 26 km line with 31 stations ? That's one less than 1 KM apart. Now Bangkok can become the hub of monorail stations. At that spacing it would be better to have an elevated moving walkway, although guess that concept would not work too well given the proclivity to just stand still and block them if swampy is an example.

Why?

The heavy rail BTS has an average spacing of 1.1km, light rail, tram, bus and of course monorail tend to be closer together, down to <500m in very busy areas.

[White Christmas13]

This is what you call a Monorail

[Regyai]

Will Homer Simpson be driving this one?

[Crossy]

This is what you call a Monorail

IMG_0853.JPG

That is one of the many varieties of monorail, have a look at the monorails.org website I linked to earlier.

[White Christmas13]

This is what you call a Monorail

IMG_0853.JPG

That is one of the many varieties of monorail, have a look at the monorails.org website I linked to earlier.

Crossy I posted that pic because I used it in my holidays in Germany it is in my former home town

and it is called a Suspension Railway running since 1901 the oldest in the world

[White Christmas13]

one more pic

[kennw]

Seems you are all missing the point, you have to have isolated projects or you cannot contain the flow of funds !!

[DP25]

The purpose of a monorail over a standard BTS line is that it is cheaper and smaller and more maneuverable so it can be built in smaller streets. This line is going right down the center of Thonglor. This isn't a new project, it has been in the works for many years. It will link up with existing BTS lines as well as others that have yet to be built, like the orange and yellow lines.

Here is a map of the route

Edited November 20, 2014 by DP25

[CosmicSurfer]

This is the KL Monorail.... Perfect for the Small streets in Bangkok...
The Pillars are smaller... the stations are cheaper to build... the whole system could be installed much faster.
The cars are smaller, but run very frequently!!!


Link to massive image removed, mucks up the page formatting

CS

Edited November 21, 2014 by Crossy
link to large image removed

[CosmicSurfer]

KL Monorail with Station

[Crossy]

CS please could you repost your first image scaled similarly to the later one (actually that's really too big too, how about scaling by 50%)?

I've always considered KL monorail to be a bit toytown, the Japanese systems are much more viable as mass transit.

[natway09]

Monorails are really not very efficient & can carry less passengers than the existing BTS.

Go have a look at the silly thing in Kuala Lumpur.

Stick to the dual track, please

[lust]

The Monorail.

Built by Somsak.

Driven by Somchai.

Are they wizards?

[orosee]

Clearly something needs to be down to alleviate the traffic problem, but some sort of unified transport card would go a long way to encouraging people to switch between the different methods- from MRT to BTS to BRT to... whatever the monorail is going to be called.

Am I the only way who hears this song in my head when they read the word monorail..?

Thank you! Not only did you save me the time, but now I know I'm not the only one who has this reflex reaction upon hearing the word "Monorail".

That Simpson episode basically ruined monorails for the rest of my life :-)