Yurikamome
Tokyo has a few monorails to go with the trains, buses, tram and other forms of highly efficient transportation. The monorail Yurikamome is privately run and lets people get to Odaiba, which is a docklands development on reclaimed land. It runs completely automatically. There are no drivers or conductors and only a few staff at stations.
This shot is taken from inside the Yurikamome carriage, looking forward as we travel on the Rainbow Bridge over Tokyo Bay, towards Odaiba.
7 comments
Chidade wrote...
I just missed out on taking a shot with another driver-less monorail coming the opposite way. I'm kicking myself for it. I'd love to get that shot.
Steven Vance wrote...
This is not a monorail.
Nic Walker wrote...
Ah!
"Yurikamome is often incorrectly called a monorail, due to the resemblance of the elevated concrete track, but the track is actually just a funnel and the trains are supported by two rows of rubber wheels. The rail in the center of the track serves only to guide the train, not support it, so it does not qualify as a monorail."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurikamome
Wikipedia <3
Chidade wrote...
Good grief! Well, you live and learn. But monorail sounds much better than "automated guideway transit service" :)
Steven Vance wrote...
Train styles such as this one, where rubber tires run on concrete "roads" and the train is guided by a middle track, are commonly called peoplemover trains.
In the U.S., we have these trains at most of our airports, in Denver, and in Miami.
I like to think of it as a track-guided bus.
Howard Gees wrote...
If Tokyo have gone to the effort to call it a Monorail then that is it's name. It's description on the other hand may well be an "automated guideway transit service". It's a bit like 'Custard Cream' biscuits containing neither custard or cream.
I like driverless trains! Docklands in London has a similar affair and it lets you look out of the front like this. Quite rare.