Moscow monorail

Moscow Monorail – a type of public rail transport, consisting of one line, in the North-Eastern district of the city. The train runs on one rail of a certain design, not two. The route is completely above ground.

Officially, the monorail is part of the high-speed Moscow Metro, but technically it is not connected with its lines. It connects the metro stations «VDNKh» and "Timiryazevskaya".  This is the first type of urban transport in Russia that can operate without a driver.

You can control the entire line, which received the number 13, from the control room in the depot. It is possible to control the position of each train on the monitors, view each station through the cameras in order to quickly respond to an emergency situation if necessary.

Trains operate in semi-automatic mode. There is also a manual mode, in which the driver himself controls the movement. The train consists of 6 wagons. Due to the design features, the speed does not exceed 5-10 km / h. Only on straight sections trains accelerate to 30 km/h.

History

The first monorail was invented and built in 1820 by Ivan Elmanov, a peasant from the Moscow region. Horses pulled trolleys, which were fixed on a wooden beam. Later, similar ideas were implemented in other countries.

The history of the capital's monorail began in 1998, when MIT and NIiPI of the General Plan of Moscow were commissioned to develop a project. In 2000, a test site was built to test new technologies. At first, it was planned to draw a line from the Yaroslavl Highway, but later the project was cut. As a result, the overpass stretches for less than 5 km and has only 6 stations.

At first it was assumed that the monorail would carry visitors to the failed EXPO-2010 exhibition. In 2004, it was launched in a tour mode, and then in a transport mode. Due to the fact that the flow of passengers has decreased, in 2017 the monorail returned to the excursion schedule with an interval between trains of 30 minutes.

Interesting facts

The Moscow Monorail began to be actively criticized for the high cost of the project even before the launch. In the early 2000s, it amounted to more than 220 million dollars. The cost of transporting one passenger today is several times higher than the cost of a ticket.

From the windows of the train, from a height of 6-12 meters, you can see the houses and streets of Moscow, Ostankino, the main entrance to VDNH and the monument to the Worker and Collective Farm Woman. The train is almost silent.

The entire route can be traveled in about 20 minutes. Since the speed of the train is low, passengers have time to take pictures of the surrounding views from the window. Through the transparent glass you can see the driver's cab in the head and tail cars.

The further fate of the monorail is still unknown, since there are no approved plans for its development yet.