Types and Technical Aspects
Modern monorails depend on a large solid beam as the vehicles' running surface. There are a number of competing designs divided into two broad classes, straddle-beam and suspended monorails.
The most common type of monorail in use today is the straddle-beam monorail, in which the train straddles a steel or reinforced concrete beam in the range of two to three feet (~0.6-0.9 m) wide. A rubber-tired carriage contacts the beam on the top and both sides for traction and to stabilize the vehicle. The straddle-beam style was popularized by the German company ALWEG.
The French company SAFEGE offers a monorail system in which the train cars are suspended beneath the wheel carriage. In this design the carriage wheels ride inside the single beam. The Chiba Urban Monorail is presently the world's largest suspended monorail network.
There is also a historical type of suspension monorail developed by German inventors Nicolaus Otto and Eugen Langen in the 1880s. It was built in the twin cities of Barmen and Elberfeld in Wupper Valley, Germany, opened in 1901, and is still in operation.
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