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Monorail Refurbishment

WillPS said:
Alstom now. And it's basically a coincidence that they've ended up in the same ownership. Derby have never worked on a monorail like this, the ones they've turned out are modern mass transit units.
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yeah, I feel like people expect that if X factory was owned by the people who made it X factory can make it, the world doesn't work like that. Factories are often specialised, I am not sure what Derby dose but there are often different factories, with some being an assembly, another being part X manufacture, another for part Y manufacture, etc. the assembly may focus on one type of device (a train in this example) but the manufacture could be a more generalised parts, which may go to multiple factories, assembly factories can also do manufacturing, but it is often for more specialised parts (or low number production). assembly and manufacturing you need very different tools (CNC, etc) and these tools are often specialised (custom tooling, moulds, etc) to allow for them to manufacture some parts

given the age of the monorail I would be surprised if they have any of the original tooling to be able to make the trains again. they probably have the original design but to make anything they would probably first have to remake the tooling, which for some components (e.g nose cone) it could be timely and expensive. on top of this, all of the technology is very old so much of it may not be made and then you easily get into a scenario of a (high) multi million pound investment for Alstom to get in and refurb it.
 
I have to wonder.... how hard can it be ... to run newer rolling stock on the existing track?

With a "normal" train, a track is a track. As long as the rolling stock fits the loading gauge and doesn't exceed the axle-load, it works.
So far as I can tell, the same rules apply to a monorail. Granted, the bus bar pickups are a factor, but is that any different to fitting a "real" train with a third rail shoe instead of a pantograph?

If you can build a train/tram, you can build a monorail.

..... And, as has been said, that's where tooling costs come in to play. Of course it can be done. But is the end client willing to pay the costs?

We all know the answer to that one.
 
I suppose it is possible to reverse engineer the monorail trains for modern standards and I could see, if they were willing to spend millions again, make the trains driverless which makes sense in terms of cutting costs down regarding staffing. Being a basic loop means that's it not too difficult to do honestly.

Though I do wonder a monorail revamp would be part of adding solar panels for the car park in which given how much power it uses, having it powered from a new source being those solar panels as well as reducing running costs too so very much killing two birds with one stone.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
I have to wonder.... how hard can it be ... to run newer rolling stock on the existing track?

With a "normal" train, a track is a track. As long as the rolling stock fits the loading gauge and doesn't exceed the axle-load, it works.
So far as I can tell, the same rules apply to a monorail. Granted, the bus bar pickups are a factor, but is that any different to fitting a "real" train with a third rail shoe instead of a pantograph?

If you can build a train/tram, you can build a monorail.

..... And, as has been said, that's where tooling costs come in to play. Of course it can be done. But is the end client willing to pay the costs?

We all know the answer to that one.
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it is very possible to design a new monorail train, the problem of a new design though would not only be tooling though

Avanti, Mack, Siemens, CAF, etc make hundreds of trains for railways, often the train is the same design with identical parts just a new body shell placed on top there are many of these families of train (for example the voyagers, the electro stars) doing this allows the companies to design the main components once and then just tweak the design for the needs of each railway. This allows the benefit of larger economies of scale and reducing the design costs.

but the monorail would have what 7 trains made, relatively the design costs will be massive and same with the specialised tooling costs as there isn't a way they could reuse components such as the bogies from trains meaning it all has to be designed from scratch.
 
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QTXAdsy said:
I suppose it is possible to reverse engineer the monorail trains for modern standards and I could see, if they were willing to spend millions again, make the trains driverless which makes sense in terms of cutting costs down regarding staffing. Being a basic loop means that's it not too difficult to do honestly.

Though I do wonder a monorail revamp would be part of adding solar panels for the car park in which given how much power it uses, having it powered from a new source being those solar panels as well as reducing running costs too so very much killing two birds with one stone.
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The trains are driverless, just manual door ops. The main reason to have a staff member on board is safety
 
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