[WIP] Lego monorails. [Custom Rail Systems (CRS)]

[XG BC]

small video to prove that it can actually climb: https://flic.kr/p/2oCKLRn

 

 

[blavenn]

Nice new addition to my rail yard.  Finally got my 3-way switch point working without any more issues.  Inspired from @Masao Hidaka's design.  I had to lengthen the switch and change the angle points from 30 degrees to about 15 degrees since the monorail train cars I'm using are each a bit longer.

 

 

Edited June 5, 2023 by blavenn

[XG BC]

looks really good!

[XG BC]

when you wash the airport shuttle too hot...micro shuttle!

 

[Masao Hidaka]

Please check it out! :)

 

[XG BC]

very nice! how long do the batteries last with the elevation?

[Masao Hidaka]

Please check it out! :)

 

On 6/14/2023 at 10:02 PM, XG BC said:

very nice! how long do the batteries last with the elevation?

It's a very difficult question.
The weight of the monorail affects battery life.
At the show, I aim for continuous running within 30 minutes.
In addition to battery life, I think it is also important to allow the motor to rest appropriately.

[Masao Hidaka]

Please check it out!

 

 

[Artanis I]

Nice

[blavenn]

Made a huge layout for fun!

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by blavenn

[Mondo-TRON]

In bricks, how tall can a monorail go before it becomes top heavy? ( using 2 studs wide track)

[XG BC]

good question, depends on placement of battery box and motors.

[Toastie]

Masao Hidaka-type LEGO elevated track for suspended monorail trains

Dear all,

for many years, actually more than two decades ;) I dreamt of a LEGO monorail for operation of suspended trains – I now have one:

Why such weird dreams? Because since 2001, I am working at the University of Wuppertal in Germany and the city of Wuppertal has a public transportation system called “Schwebebahn”, I believe some people here on EB have heard of or actually rode it. It is a monorail operating suspended trains – and a very efficient means of moving thousands of people every day from one location of the city to another. Along the river “Wupper” that is, which in thousands of years has created a valley (“Wuppertal” translates to “valley of the Wupper”). The development of this mass transportation system began as early as 1887, and it came into operation in 1901 – you can read all the details here (press “EN” on the top right of the webpage) https://schwebebahn.de/en/geschichte-der-schwebebahn. Since then, it remains in operation. The Schwebebahn survived WW1 and WW2 (although it was very badly damaged in WW2). Today, it is by far the most efficient way of traveling the 13 km long stretch of the city, mostly over the river Wupper. In other words: I am deeply in love with that ingenious system. Every day when I am biking 15 km to work (we live close to Wuppertal in a town called Gruiten, which is located about 500 m away from the Neanderthal, history hits hard there), I do cross the “Sonnborner Kreuz”, a fairly large Autobahn intersection, over a rather narrow bridge and then descend into Wuppertal Sonnborn, where the Schwebebahn track is directly above me (or I am directly underneath it ;) Upon passing the Schwebebahn station “Zoo/Stadion” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn#/media/File:Wuppertaler_Schwebebahn_Karte.png) I leave the river/valley and climb up to the “Schwarzer Weg” (which provides a very nice view on part of the city) and then finally turn towards the university.

What I experience on this journey: The Schwebebahn trains – nicely swinging in curved sections of the track; the elevated track itself with the beautiful supports and posts; the wonderfully restored stations; and I am always looking at more than 100 years of operation. Every day, I am in awe – it simply does not stop …

Then came the LEGO IDEAS Schwebebahn entry in December 2021 (https://ideas.lego.com/projects/f013b46e-db4d-48f6-bf9f-e8e52ffbd747) – and in no time reached 10k votes. I had a look (of course) and thought: TLG will never approve this entry. Why not? Too big, too many pieces, too nice to be true – and not enough people crazy enough to shell out 300++ Euros. Never. Guess what. It was never happening. Well, two independent startups took on the idea of providing a (of course non-LEGO) brick-built Schwebebahn – and that is a total blast [1) https://wprtal.de/products/klemmbaustein-schwebebahn-gtw72; 2) https://stone-heap.com/b2b-seite-wuppertal/].

EDIT: There is a third one: 3) https://schwuppidieschwebebahn.de/shop/vorbestellung-klemmbausteinset-schwebebahn-schwuppi/

But with these models – something was missing (for me) – I want them to move. The Schwebebahn is all about efficiently moving people, and I had a hard time in figuring out a way to motorize these two nice renditions.

And then, in late 2023, German Youtuber “Steinküste” presented the “Pantasy Steam Punk Railway Station”. Many others have reviewed that set as well, but I saw it for the first time on his channel. This is what Pantasy calls their set: A railway station. Literally “on the side”, even not shown on the front of the box, you also get a suspended monorail Steam Punk train, with one carriage … there simply was a nuclear type of eruption in my head … 1887 – steam – punk – suspended – train – running – on – a – monorail. Believe me, a lot of gears began to turn up there … I tore my X-Mas wish list (yes, old school here) to shreds and just wrote the order number from BlueBrixx (they do sell Pantasy sets in Germany – no hassle with waiting for the order and custom issues, all taken care of by BB) on it. Santa, aka my wife, fulfilled my wish …

BUT: The train and railway station are not the point in this post: This needs to go to the Community Forum as the set is from a Dark Side Company (which is utter nonsense – but read on over there). Here, in the LEGO monorail thread, I want to just briefly present my monorail track approach (for a rather heavy suspended train, which weighs a bit over 700 g of ABS).

The track design is heavily (I’d say 95%) borrowing from @Masao Hidaka’s design, also many others are using. In contrast to his flat top monorails, I am using the (outer) 12V train track rails with the little teeth on the surface for better grip. These rails provide a lot of additional stability. For the curved sections I only need two layers of brick (either all 1x2’s or, as in the photographs below, 1x2’s on top of 2x2’s just because I had not enough 1x2’s) and one layer of 1x2 plates at the bottom. The top layer is secured by the 12V rails. Using this approach, the monorail track needs posts/supports about every two 12V rail sections only. I am dealing with severe space related constraints in my attic – it simply is occupied by ABS all over the place, including vintage computer cases (with the original electronics inside of course ;) – and, well, my office stuff is also in there.

The cool thing of elevated track is – it is elevated. No problems when crossing other tracks, “open (ABS) water” or whatever – just the pedestals need to find some small, but free area on the ground. That was exactly what gave the “go” more than a hundred years ago in Wuppertal: A valley is a valley and when the area is stuffed with streets, buildings, factories etc.: Just open up a new level. And even better, the Schwebebahn did not need any supports interfering with car/street traffic: They secured most of the supports on the riverbanks of the Wupper. On my layout, I just built a small section of elevated track, about 2 m (6 feet) long and U-shaped, see first photograph. There is absolutely no problem in mixing straight sections with right and left turns – but not in my room. I believe switch points are really difficult to realize using this approach, though.

Regarding the supports: These are essentially made from two Technic 1x10 bricks directly integrated into the 1x2/2x2 structure along with some Technic lift arms to fasten them to the posts, see render below. I made the posts from beech wood – as did Ole K. Christiansen when he made his toys back in the 1930s – also the pedestals. The reasons are simple: a) I had not enough LEGO pieces, b) two posts are mounted to a “water” surface and that was too much of a challenge for me, c) when the founder of LEGO used beech wood back then, doesn’t this count as a totally purist approach? I used 15x15 mm2 beech wood strips, almost having the width/depth of a 2x2 brick (16x16 mm2). After cutting them to length, I drilled the holes for two Technic axles; a sharp 5.0 mm metal drill on a drill press does the job quite well. The posts/pedestals are then sanded and coated twice with black acrylic paint. The 16L long straight section, combining the two “90° almost R40” curves, features some gears – Steam Punk is about gears … you turn one, they all move. This needs motorization, of course …

The light gray axles in the render above are used to fasten the support to the wooden post. The axles are black on the real posts.

I made a second “train station” as well – on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 10 though, this one doesn’t even show up, when compared to the Pantasy railway station (which is at 10).

Guess this is it. I will have posted more photographs showing the Pantasy railway station and the motorized train in the Community Forum:

So far, I took a very brief 30 sec video with the suspended train departing from and arriving at the station. Problem is that I can’t film and operate the cell phone at the same time – the train is propelled by a Tenka Circuit Cube/Cubic motor combo. As with the LEGO hubs, it is also controlled by a smart device. This needs to be changed of course …

Best regards,

Thorsten

Edited February 5, 2024 by Toastie

[Murdoch17]

I love the use of Insectoids legs on the station @Toastie!

[Toastie]

Thank you very much!

Me too - but they are from the Mindstorms Mars Mission set. I really had a hard time figuring out what to do with theses when not on Mars ... these trans greenish 2x2 round bricks are from Yoda's light saber

Best,
Thorsten

Edited February 4, 2024 by Toastie

[Feuer Zug]

@Toastie That's quite the monorail setup. I have had the privilege of riding on the Wuppertal Schwebebahn. In fact, when I saw the single grey track piece atop the supports, that's what I instantly thought of. Brilliant work.

[bogieman]

Great work! Love all the gears.

[Toastie]

Thank you very much @Feuer Zug

I remember that you actually took the Schwebebahn - I guess it was when I wrote somewhere here about Wuppertal ;) The 12V rails - other than giving strong support and grip, also lead to rather low rolling resistance. That is why the tiny Tenka Cubic motor sitting next to the wheels has no problem at all moving the quite heavy train hanging down from the monorail.   

And thank you very much, Dave!

Oh yes, the gears - all these Technic sets I took apart when wandering into free-style studded train world about 15 years ago had so many of them. Now a few found a home - no tough forces, just free spinning. I shall operate a second Circuit Cube with the Cubic motors and attach one to this gear "rack". Well, it is a rack of gear, I guess. Programming wise (should I ever understand the really cool code @Asper wrote for the Circuit Cube ...) I plan on: You need to switch on the rack of gears first, before the V10 motor in the train can be fired up, which is needed to be able to let the train move.

All the best,
Thorsten

 

 

[zephyr1934]

Great work and neat to see your multi-layered layout. Though you are actually coming full circle, the idea of using 4.5/12v rail for monorail track is much older than the custom rail system, having appeared in a 1971 idea book.

 

 

[Toastie]

7 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

having appeared in a 1971 idea book.

Yes, true, saw that also before starting to wonder into monorail world.

The two things for me though were: How do I >not< need a support every single 4.5/12V rail connection? My monorail had to cross this LEGO water region ... and secondly: How do I mimic the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn approach, with this doubly flanged wheel running on top of the rail?

In other words: This was not about using 4.5/12V track for a monorail, but rather how to get this Pantasy Steam Punk train moving in Schwebebahn fashion ...

Best,
Thorsten

 

[zephyr1934]

Doing an efficient suspended monorail in real life is hard, doing it in lego might even be harder.

[Toastie]

On 2/11/2024 at 5:08 AM, zephyr1934 said:

Doing an efficient suspended monorail in real life is hard, doing it in lego might even be harder

Oh yes, that maybe be very well true.

Well, I finished my suspended monorail project - using the "12V rail + slightly modified Masao Hidaka" design. I must say, this turns out to be really sturdy! Also, the Cubic motors and the Circuit Cube (BLE version) are a miracle! As I used a third party suspended train, I report on my project in the Community Forum. The changes and additions are all LEGO though (+Tenka).

There is really low friction even in the R40 curves. Now that I can operate the train with the LEGO remote (either running autonomously or manually controlled) using an ESP32 board, all the fun begins.

Just in case: Here's the link to that post (it also has a link to 6 min YouTube video):
https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/197590-mod-85007-pantasy-suspended-steam-punk-train-motorized-with-tenka’s-circuit-cubes-elements/&amp;do=findComment&amp;comment=3687247

Best,
Thorsten

[ElectricTurtle]

Hello! I just wanted to say, that I will be trying a 1 stud rail design, I want to try and experment with this design in my head for a cargo pickup/drop off station idea that requires no stopping of the train!

[Holodoc]

On 5/22/2024 at 11:31 PM, ElectricTurtle said:

Hello! I just wanted to say, that I will be trying a 1 stud rail design, I want to try and experment with this design in my head for a cargo pickup/drop off station idea that requires no stopping of the train!

We will eagerly await first pictures of this!

[Toastie]

On 5/22/2024 at 11:31 PM, ElectricTurtle said:

I just wanted to say, that I will be trying a 1 stud rail design

When you attach 1x2 bricks in two layers to 4.5/12V rails and then secure them underneath with a further layer of 1x2 plates, it will certainly work. I used 12V rails on one layer of 1x2 bricks + another layer of 2x2 bricks, because I simply had not enough 1x2 bricks. The 2x2 bricks don't add any stability. The two-layer design also allows you to attach supports anywhere you want.

Best,
Thorsten