Wuppertal Monorail in HO!

[modelbob]

This company offers a beatiful (or so the photos imply) model of the Wuppertal monorail in HO scale. It's made in Germany and it's not cheap, but take a look at how nice this looks!

The “Wuppertal Overhead Railway” model series was developed and constructed by the Lutz Hielscher company to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the railway in Autumn of 2001.

Because of the precise scale H0 the overhead railway can be integrated perfectly into your existing model railway.

http://www.hielscher-dampfmodelle.d...ategory_id=10&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=38

 

[modelbob]

Lots of other nifty neat toys on that site, including, get this, HO SCALE live steam locomotives! Yes, I'm serious...

They also have a kit that will allow you build a G scale speeder (sort of) powered by a stirling engine. I've never seen a stirling engine used to power a rail vehicle before, not even in model form. This one doesn't resemble anything real, but it's definitely an interesting curiosity. Unfortunately it has a price I'm not interested in...

 

[IronBeltKen]

Yeah Bob I agree, some really fine stuff there - except it wouldn't look quite right on my layout, I never heard of any monorail operations in the lower Great Lakes region...

 

[jbaakko]

Awesome, I wish I had space and a layout that needed one!

 

[modelbob]

Awesome, I wish I had space and a layout that needed one!

Space? It's a monorail, how much space do you need? The whole idea is that it's above the ground, over a street or a river or whatever, and basically doesn't take any space at all. The turn-arounds at the end of the line are also very compact. The prototype was designed specifically to deal with a problem of not having any available space. Much of the line runs above a river.

Basically, you could fit this on just about any layout. Space isn't the problem.

There are two things that are problems though.

1) As you said "A layout that needed one"... This is a model of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn (monorail) located in, logically enough, Wuppertal Germany. There's only one like it in the world. Anyone who knows monorails will immediately know it's out of place on your layout unless you happen to be modeling Wuppertal.

2) This thing isn't cheap. I don't think the price includes the station, and extra track sections are quite expensive.

Here are some links to more info on the real Wuppertal monorail:
http://www.railroaddata.com/cgi-bin/links/search.cgi?query=wuppertal

 

[jbaakko]

Exactly, the SPACE for a layout of the prototype! I have no need for it on Cajon.

 

[modelbob]

Exactly, the SPACE for a layout of the prototype! I have no need for it on Cajon.

That's easy to solve... Simply say that the folks who were building the new high speed monorail connecting Las Angeles to Las Vegas decided to use an established German manufacturer with a proven record of succesful monorail construction.

 

[Steve B]

Josh imagine a monorail for the tourist over a canyon on your layout, nice, not very prototypical but still very nice