To paraphrase one-time “Simpsons” character Lyle Lanley, there’s nothing on Earth like a genuine, bonafide, electrified monorail. Now the Western Railway Museum in Suisun City has a piece of an iconic monorail system, which can be seen by the public when the museum reopens.
The Western Railway Museum recently acquired the original control stand for the Seattle Center Monorail, which debuted during the 1962 World’s Fair, as well as two doors from an original Seattle monorail and five boxes containing documents related not only to the Seattle monorail but proposals for monorails throughout the world.
“We’re very happy to have it,” Curator Allan Fisher said. “It will be a wonderful exhibit.”
Plans for a monorail in Seattle had begun as far back as 1910, but the current system did not begin development until the late ’50s. The monorail opened in time for the 1962 Century 21 Exposition — the same world’s fair that brought the Emerald City its iconic Space Needle.
The exposition’s visitors depended largely on the monorail, developed by Alweg, for transportation from downtown to the fairgrounds. Fisher said that more than 8 million people were shuttled on the monorail during the fair’s six-month period. Alweg had spent $3.5 million to build the system. The revenue from ticket sales during the exposition allowed Alweg to more than make its money back.
“With 8 million passengers, it actually paid for itself,” Fisher said.
Seattle’s monorail system is still in use, but Fisher said it is currently in its third iteration with an upgraded control system and cars. The original control stand was donated to the Western Railway Museum through the help of a friend of Carol Pedersen, the widow of Kim Pedersen, the founder and president of the Monorail Society who had the nickname “Mr. Monorail.”
Kim Pedersen’s family donated not only the physical components of the Seattle monorail for the exhibition but also his book “Monorails: Trains of the Future — Now Arriving” and five boxes of memorabilia. These include 16mm films, articles on the development of monorails throughout the world, blueprints, a looseleaf binder containing an executive summary of the Seattle Monorail project and proposals for similar systems in Los Angeles in San Francisco.
To date, the Seattle Center Monorail is one of two city monorail systems in the United States, the other being the Las Vegas Monorail which carries passengers to casinos in communities in the surrounding Vegas area. However, the system can be found in several airports, zoos and amusement parks throughout the U.S., the most famous being those in Disneyland and Walt Disney World. They are also common in urban areas throughout the world, one of the largest being the elevated Wuppertal Suspension Railway in Germany.
Fisher said at one point, nearly every major city was considering a monorail system but most of them were shot down.
“The whole fight about the right of way and where to build a structure that put it above ground was a big problem in many of the cities,” he said. “They had to use eminent domain if they were gonna do it.”
In both San Francisco and Los Angeles, presentations were delivered on proposed monorail networks, which even had the support of Gov. Goodwin Knight, but neither was successful.
“There was never enough political will to put it in the ballot (in San Francisco),” Fisher said.
The Bay Area did not receive its own monorail system but did eventually receive its own rapid public transportation network in the form of Bay Area Rapid Transit.
Even Seattle had difficulty in expanding its monorail. In 1997, an initiative to extend the system was passed by voters. However, after eight years of financial difficulties and scrutiny by the public, the monorail authority chose to dissolve itself before the project was completed.
“The studies showed that it was not a high-capacity system,” Fisher said. “Even the Wuppertal, which I’ve ridden, runs on a 10-minute headway. It does have a lot of passengers, but you can haul a lot more passengers on heavy rail or light rail.”
The monorail is just one of the latest exhibitions for the Western Railway Museum, which serves as the arm of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Assocation, founded in 1946. The museum, which adopted its current name in 1985, operates out of the former Rio Vista Junction — a stop on the Sacramento Northern Railway line — off Highway 12.
In 2001, the museum opened a 12,000 square foot visitors and archives center, which houses a large variety of electric rail content, including more than 130,000 photos, color slides, postcards, 16 mm films, audiovisual tapes, and corporate files from companies like Southern Pacific Railroad and Sacramento Northern, an electric railway line that ran all the way from near the Bay Bridge in San Francisco to Chico.
“It was the longest interurban in the United States at the time,” Fisher said.
The museum also has operational cars that annually take visitors on scenic rides and wine tastings through Solano County during the spring, but this year’s events were canceled because of the coronavirus. The museum is currently closed, but Fisher said staff are hoping to reopen to the public on a limited basis starting in July.
“We have to get all the signage and the PPE (Personal protective equipment) and disinfectant material,” he said.
Visitors will be able to sit at the monorail control station and press some of the buttons, which Fisher said should make it fun for kids. The display will be wiped down after each use.
The Western Railway Museum is located at 5848 State Highway 12, Suisun City.
For more information, visit wrm.org or call 374-2978.
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