22-06-16 PHOTOS: Las Vegas Monorail

After failing to locate the infamous monorail in Brockway, PA I sat down and thought about where else grifters would be likely to sell Gadgetgahn transit systems. Of course the answer was obvious and I immediately booked a trip to Las Vegas, NV. Now I had been to Vegas twice before, but a variety of circumstances had prevented me from really exploring the local rail transit space. However this time would be different with both the time and opportunity to see what the monorail hype was all about. You can view all the photos here ( mirror ) before or after reading further.

Due to some quirks in flight pricing my trip began at the Greenbelt Metro Station en-route to DCA(irport). The first leg of my trip was via WMATA 3k car #3108 that recently had its carpets removed in favor of a more stain friendly surface.

Due to 8-car trains, I couldn't get a good exterior photo at Greenbelt, but here is one at College Park waiting on a lineup through a single tracking zone.

Crossing the New Long Bridge, which unlike the Old Long Bridge, does not open.

DC Metro integration with DCA is fantastic with the station connecting directly to a TSA checkpoint.

Caught sight of the new Potomac Yards station and development shortly after takeoff.

Fast forward to Texas where my flight crosses above the DART Orange just outside the perimeter fence at DFW.

Arriving at one of the Las Vegas Harry Reid Airport D gates meant a mandatory trip to Terminal 1 via the airport's peoplemover system. Due to the influence of the Taxi Lobby, service from the airport to The Strip is a minimum two seat bus ride, connecting through an out of the way transportation center. Of course the Airport TVM was broken.

In the 1950's and 60's the Welcome to Las Vegas sign was practically the first thing a Southern Californian would encounter along US Highway 91 after departing Barstow. Today the sign site 8 miles from the current Las Vegas outskirts. For this trip I also chose to stay in the Tropicana resort as it was one of the oldest and one of the most likely to face demolition in the near future.

I was hoping to catch some action on the former Southern Pacific Cima Sub at TROPICANA AVE interlocking, but there didn't seem to be much moving on a Sunday afternoon. This was the former route of Amtrak's Desert Wind up through the mid-1990's. Several years ago the line was re-signaled and the old relay house has been converted into low income housing.

At first glance this little guy might look like a monorail, but it actually runs on two I-beams and is therefore a tram, specifically The Mandalay Bay Tram. I had no idea this even existed, but was apparently built by the MGM Mirage group to connect their properties on the south strip including, from north to south, the Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay. Although it does not directly service the flagship MGM Grand, the Excalibur North station is across the Tropicana Ave intersection and connected via elevated walkways.

22-05-26 PHOTOS: Brockway

In the early 1990's there was a minor monorail resurgence in the United States with 4 similar systems being sold to the cities of Brockway, Ogdenville, North Haverbrook and Springfield. While the systems in Ogdenville and Springfield were later shut down, I had had no information regarding fate of the Brockway Monorail and therefore I decided to visit over Memorial Day weekend in 2022 to see what I could find. Brockway is located a few miles off I-80 north of Du Bois, PA and, in addition to the monorail, it features the Buffalo and Pittsburgh main line running through town. The full set of photos, which include additional content from Hancock, MD and Clarion, PA, can be found here ( mirror ).

The trip out to Brockway from the east coast involves I-70 to the PA Turnpike to I-99. I try to time travel using this route so that I will pass by Hancock, WV just in time to catch Amtrak Train 30, the eastbound Capitol Limited. This day I was a few minutes early and managed to snag a surprising amount of CSX action. First up was a westbound manifest freight led by NINE(!) locomotives. The first three were ES44AC's #986, #860 and #3020

These were followed by SD70MACe #4558, one of 7 CSX SD70MAC's that have been so far rebuilt with new AC electronics and a power bump from 4000hp to 4500hp.

Behind them were three "YN" painted C40-9W's, #9012, #9016 and #9019, in tow as part of their reactivation process due to increased traffic levels. The 9000-series C40-9W's are interesting as the 50-strong order was GE's first of the Dash-9 era and had some early installment weirdness including Dash-8 trucks.

Two additional locomotives were behind the C40-9W's, C40-10W #5328 and GP40-3 #6561.

The manifest freight proceeded to pass by a local job waiting to head east with GP40-2 #6483 leading.

Instead of getting a signal, a different local freight with 3 locomotives and 4 cars proceeded west under HANCOCK interlocking's eastbound signal bridge. the units included GP40-2 #6445, GP38-2 #2742 and GP38-3 #2059.

The main attraction soon arrived with Amtrak P42DC #71 pulling a 6 car Train 30 all by itself.

11-06-15 PHOTOS: Seattle Transit

This kicks off the first part of what will probably be a many part series documenting my epic trip on Amtrak's Empire builder last year. The first part of this series will focus on the various Transit alternatives in the Seattle area. These include the SoundTransit Light Rail, the South Lake Union Streetcar, the King County Metro trolleybuses, the now defunct Waterfront Streetcar and of course the Seattle Monorail. I'll also throw in any photos of other non-heavy rail transportation items such as ferry boats, container ships, elevators and retractable rooftops.

You can find browse the entire gallery of transit related photograph here.

Like most people who travel to Seattle my first experience with their transit system was the shiny new light rail link to SeaTac airport. There was nothing wrong with it as it was clean and had cool station art, but as far as light rail systems go nothing really stood out and it was rather generic. Here we see LRV #135B in the region's typical "Wave" paint scheme accepting passengers at the airport station.

The LRVs are of the low floor articulated 2.5 segment type. Again, completely generic. Here is 117B after having arrived at the SeaTac station.

One cool feature of Seattle is that it has a downtown transit tunnel that also counts as a "fare free" zone. The light rail portion of the tunnel runs from the International District Station (on the site of the old Union Station) to the Westlake Center where one can catch the Monorail. Here we see 144A at the International District station looking along the length of the subterranean platform.

Ah the Mono-D'Oh!, one of Seattle's most iconic institutions and also probably the most overrated. Ask most people and they would tell you that the entire city is covered by monorail lines. In reality the system consists of a single line about a mile line with two stations that connect the downtown area with the site of the 1962 Wo--d F-ir. Fortunately, unlike Knoxville, Seattle was successfully redevelop its fair site so it is actually still a fairly robust draw featuring such attractions as the Space Needle, a science center, the usual stable of performing arts centers and an arena that hosts a NBA team.

Here we see the monorail beams at the Westlake Center terminal. When the original terminal was moved to make way for a park the replacement made use of the monorail version of a gauntlet track to save money. Only one of the two monorail can platform at a time or badness happens. The monorails use a 4th rail system as there are no actual rails to conduct traction current back through. Current supplied if 700VDC supplying 4 750hp motors per train.

After paying a $2 fare that is not integrated with the rest of the local transportation system you wait to board one of two Monorail vehicles, the Blue Car or the Red Car. Yup, that's all these are, one car per rail to avoid having to deal with things like...switching. And to think that people thought this was somehow going to be the transit system of the future. Here the blue car on the near beam lines up with the platform screen doors.

When the Red Car arrives a system of folding extendable platforms must deploy.

 Most of the Monorail beam was built down the middle of 5th Ave. I did not have a chance to see if typical "under the El" businesses were also present under the Monorail.

On my first day both cars were in operation so I managed to photograph the meet about 2/3rds down the line.

Going through the S-Curves as the monorail approaches the fairgrounds the cars exhibit some crazy tilting that allows the Conductor to maintain speed.

Here's what that looks like in video form.


The vehicles are the original 1960's Alweg products, one of only a few still operating. The insides retain all of their retro future charm.

Near the Seattle Center terminal the beam passes through the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame which was built as a Frank Gehry-designed museum, but now may be some sort of prison.