Right, come the revolution...

[bonj2]

This selfish ,so called "healthy" minority who appear to be propping up the NHS with hospital non- attendance should be encouraged to eat at least 5 portions of lard a day.

Did you hear the newsquiz on R4 yesterday - one of the strands of logic was going along the lines of, in the future 60% of the population will be fat, so anything that appeals to the fat will be a vote-winner - cue taxes on vegetables, government subsidised pies etc.

 

[ufkacbln]

Well you just wouldn't build the supports on (or next to) roads then. This would be easier than it may seem, becuase in my ideal monorailed world there would be fewer roads anyway.

The Portsmouth design is exactly along the road network!

A superb plan with the standard of the average Portsmouth Driver!

 

[mickle]

A monorail is, like, you know, one rail, like the one at Heathrow. A MagLev on the other hand whilst having, usually, you know, like one rail and everything, doesn't use wheels, instead it uses, like the repulsion (or repelancy yeah) of electro magnets to provide both the motive power for the, you know, the train AND though as well yeah; it lifts the train off the rail, thereby reducing its transmissional frictional thingy to like you know zero. So its more faster than like the normal trains. Innit.

 

[bonj2]

The Portsmouth design is exactly along the road network!

A superb plan with the standard of the average Portsmouth Driver!

Well, I don't know - "what if". There's really no point in getting bogged down in 'what if' logic. We can't just not put things near roads just in case cars might veer off and crash into them.

But, interesting you should talk about 'THE portsmouth design'. So someone has actually already come up with a design plan for monorails in portsmouth then? it's not just a pipe dream? maybe you should ask the person that came up with 'THE portsmouth design' how their design manages the risk of cars crashing into the poles?

Maybe it will be that either they will be strong enough to withstand a car impact (what with the 20mph speed limit the momentum should be reduced), or there will be crash barriers/walls in the way, or there will be a certain amount of lateral 'give' so they bounce off, or some combination of those.

As a reason not to even bother continuing to think about monorails it's pretty weak really mate - if anything it's a reason to have less roads and cars.

 

[Jacomus-rides-Gen]

Chicago doesn't have monorails, but there is a lot of train track raised above street level, and they seem to do fine. With the quality of American drivers making the drivers in Portsmouth look like driving Gods, Portsmouth should be fine.

Besides, if anyone did manage to crash into a monorail pillar and balls up the network for the day, as a Facillitator I'd detail a group of my guys to "have a word" with the offending driver. (Providing PC2K was happy it wasn't a freak accident)

 

[laurence]

there's a monorail in Seattle

 

[ufkacbln]

Personally I spent a lot of time and energy fighting against the linked Light Rapid Transit Scheme and Monorail!

The biggest flaw here is this:

It carries 600 bikes an hour at peak, the LRT could promise 5 - 20 in the same time (if any - they never actually decided on cycle carriage), and the loss of the ferry was a major part of revenue protection.

The whole system would have hit cyclists hard,and failed to have any effect or disincentive on road users.

 

[bonj2]

so hang on, where do you actually need to go on this ferry with your bike? isle of wight?

 

[ufkacbln]

Nope - Gosport and Portsmouth are separated by a short stretch of water, about 1/3 of a mile and this takes about 6 minutes by ferry.

Lots of people (see numbers in previous post) use this to cross to Portsmouth and their workplaces. Gosport has the third highest level of cycle commuting in the UK - so this is an important facility.

The option is a fifteen mile detour around the harbour, one which I suspect very few of these cyclists would consider as an alternative.

 

[bonj2]

Nope - Gosport and Portsmouth are separated by a short stretch of water, about 1/3 of a mile and this takes about 6 minutes by ferry.

Lots of people (see numbers in previous post) use this to cross to Portsmouth and their workplaces. Gosport has the third highest level of cycle commuting in the UK - so this is an important facility.

The option is a fifteen mile detour around the harbour, one which I suspect very few of these cyclists would consider as an alternative.

Well why don't you just keep one bike locked up at the ferry port on the other side, and park one at the ferry port on your side?

 

[Arch]

Well why don't you just keep one bike locked up at the ferry port on the other side, and park one at the ferry port on your side?

You've never been to Portsmouth have you? You'd need to park it in a secure bunker with 6' thick walls and 24 hour security...

Sorry Cuno, couldn't resist a jibe. Let's face it, parts of the place ain't nice. But it's probably nicer since I was last there... They've demolished the Tricorn Centre, haven't they?

Also of course, if the ferry carries 600 bikes per hour at peak, that's going to need some pretty huge bike parks if everyone decides to leave a bike at each end...

Back to my ideal world. Monorails/maglevs will be allowed, but only if they can look, and be guaranteed to continue looking, space age and sleek, and be nice and fast.

More ideas?

 

[Carwash]

How would you do points on a monorail track? How would you do points for a maglev, come to that?

 

[Arch]

How would you do points on a monorail track? How would you do points for a maglev, come to that?

I guess on a monorail, it wouldn't be that different to any track, just engineered slightly differently. On rollercoasters, you sometimes see the pieces of track at the side that they swing in and use to remove the cars, so it works for that... With maglev, I guess you selectively energise the appropriate part of the track?

 

[Jacomus-rides-Gen]

http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/switch.htm

 

[Fnaar]

I guess on a monorail, it wouldn't be that different to any track, just engineered slightly differently. On rollercoasters, you sometimes see the pieces of track at the side that they swing in and use to remove the cars, so it works for that... With maglev, I guess you selectively energise the appropriate part of the track?

But you'd have to have a David Essex lookey-likey gyspy/chirpy cockernee standing by on every monorail junction to move the points and pinch your girlfriend's bottom!