И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

TEXT A. MONORAILS

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(1) One of the new ideas and inventions put forward 5 in the last quarter of the 19th century was the idea of the monorail railroad. This idea was laughed at by many, but some people believed that it was promising.

(2) One of the first monorails appeared in 1882 when L. Brennan, an Irishman, built an experimental monorail car. The inventor designed his car as a military vehicle for the speed at which a.sindejail could be laid made it ideal for military purpose. Acclording to Brennan, these cars were to be worked by steam, petrol, or electricity.

(3) In 1897, the Russian technical society organized in Petersburg a demonstration of working models. One was the first suspended electric monorail designed by engineer Ippolit Romanov. The demonstration of a small car pow­ered by a miniature motor was a success.

(4) In 1901, Behr, one of the monorail pioneers in Eng­land, worked out a promising monoraii system which was to be built between Manchester and Liverpool. It was to be a 56-km high-speed electric line, and only lack ofjunds stopped that project.

(5) Another true monorail system was' proposed by'Peter Shilovsky. A steam-operated working model was made to the design of the inventor^Jn 1921-1922, the Soviet Govern­ment decided to build a 32-km monorail between Petrograd and Tsarskoye Selo to Shilovsky's design. Seven miles were built but because of financial difficulties and lack of mechanical resources this project could not be realized. Finally, the Soviet inventor Valdner developed a prototype of the modern monorail.

(6) There'exist a number of monorails operating in the world today, most of them experimental. Among them one must mention the oldest practical monoraii which was built in Germany in 1901 and which is still in operation. Its 16-km track serves the city of Wuppertal handling 55,000 passengers a day.

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(7) There are two different types of monorails—a sus­pended type when a monorail car is suspended from an overhead single rail and a supported type 3 when a vehicle is supported by the track. The choice of the monorail type depends upon climatic conditions, the territory where the monorail is to be built, the number of passengers, etc.

(8) The supported-type monorail is considered by many the most effective type used. A supported?type 16-km demon­stration line was opened in Germany in 1957. A similar system was built in the Californian Disneyland amusement park, USA. Two three-car trains were electrically driven and ran at a speed of about 40 kph with a two-minute interval between trains. A number of monorails of this type are operating in different parts of the. ;world.

(9) In 1964, a 13.2-km monorail, largery*-double-track, was inaugurated from the centre of Tokyo to Haneda International Airport. It was the longest commercial⁴ mono­rail in the world. Three and six-coach trains, capable of handling more than 100,000 passengers a day, covered the 13.2-km route f.n 15 minutes.

(10) There is a common idea that monorails are prin­cipally a city form of transport. The most promising use of monorails,, is to link big cities with their airports. Indeed, ' slow road journeys.to and from airports rob air travel of⁵' much of its advantage. Besides, monorails can provide high-speed communication between cities and their satellite towns and rest zones. Health-resort routes can also be serv­iced by monorails.

(11) What makes monorails a convenient means of public carrier? High speed achieved by the monorail vehicles is the principal advantge. But saving of space is also of great imporiance because a monorail can be built above ground needing space only at intervals.

(12) Although everything points out that in the future monorails may become part of our life there are some problems which are to be solved, such as instability of monorail vehicles, noise, and structural design.
ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ
1. stopped that project — зд. помешали строительств

2. a suspended type — подвесного типа

3. a supported type—навесного типа

4. commercial — зд. практический; рентабельный

5. rob air travel of—зд. лишать воздушный транспорт