Monorail
Whether it's the start or end of the day, the Monorail with its fleet of colourful trains will get you where you need to go, offering guests a scenic trip over the park whilst it transports them between its two stations, one located between the car parks and hotels and the other at the Entrance Plaza on Towers Street.
Each of the trains has its own unique look, so depending on the day you might find yourself riding on:
- Splash Landing Train
- Mutiny Bay Train
- Explorer Train
- Moonorail
- Celebration Train
-
Daisy Train(decommissioned) - Sharkbait Reef Train
- Strawberry Train
- Jelly Bean Train
You can board the Monorail at either of its two stations. The queue lines at both stations begin at ground level and take you up several slopes to the platform. Here you are batched into groups of six and sent to your bay, after the arrival of the next train. The train doors will open on the far side of the carriage to let the current occupants depart, before the entrance doors spring open.
Enter the train and take your seats, the doors will close, and your journey starts. As the train pulls out of the station, as the voiceover acts as your tour guide for the trip, pointing out all of the key sights and features of the resort.
Route (from the car parks to Towers Street)
First, the train takes you over the car parks, where there's not much to see beyond the Extraordinary Golf course. But things get much more interesting once the train then enters Forbidden Valley, offering spectacular views of Galactica, Nemesis Reborn and Toxicator.
If you want a glimpse backstage, just after you pass by Nemesis Sub-Terra, if you keep your eye out on the other side of the track you get a glimpse of the Monorail depot, where you will see the trains that are not currently in use lined up on the sidings.
Next you pass through Gloomy Wood, just skirting the edge of the area, but giving a great view of The Curse at Alton Manor. Then the train passes close by the Runaway Mine Train, and Congo River Rapids, before it glides over the lake at the heart of Katanga Canyon.
Finally, the train flies over the coach parking area, and to the top of Towers Street, offering a tantalising view out over the Ruins of Alton Towers, before turning back on itself, and entering the Towers Street station.
Attraction History
In Alton Towers' pre-theme park days, the car parks were much closer to the main park, with the main car parks located on the lawns surrounding the main lake, where Towers Street and CBeebies Land are today. But as Alton Towers started to expand in the 1980s, it began to put pressure on the park's original car parks, most notably with the additions of Towers Street and the Grand Canyon Rapids, which had taken over a large portion of the car and coach parks respectively.
With ever dwindling space around the park's new 'Grand Entrance', John Broome took the decision to move the main car parks half a mile away from the main entrance, on the site of the estate's former Deer Park. To allow this, recognising that an additional mile of walking on top of an already busy day out would not offer the best guest experience, he invested in the Monorail to allow guests to arrive at the park in style.
One of the more memorable stretches of your Monorail journey, takes guests across Towers Street, giving a glimpse of the iconic Towers in the distance. However, Towers Street was built in 1986, the year before the Monorail was added, which meant that the Towers Street was designed with the addition in mind so it could slot in seamlessly the following year.
Although the system arrived at the park in 1987 it wasn't entirely new when the park acquired it. The Monorail first operated in 1986 as part of Expo86 in Vancouver, Canada. The Expo was focused on transportation, so the Monorail had a star role, giving guests an aerial view of the entire site as it wove through the pavilions. After six months of service in Canada, the ride was dismantled and shipped across the ocean to take up service in the Staffordshire countryside.
The car parks moved to their current location for the 1987 season, but the Monorail did not open until part way through summer. So before the Monorail opened, for a brief period guests had two choices - they could either board the Sunliner Trains, which offered shuttle service from the car parks to the Grand Entrance, or they could take the half mile walk we are more familiar with today.
On 13th August 1987 Alton Towers celebrated the opening of its new Monorail, with William Shatner (better known to Star Trek fans as Captain Kirk) being present to launch the ride. You may be wonder why Captain Kirk was chosen for this occasion rather than the USS Enterprise's helmsman, Mr Sulu. Well, George Takei, who played Sulu, was also supposed to have been part of the ceremony, but struggled to navigate his way to Alton Towers due to fog at Heathrow. Takei did later join the party, but too late to be part of the opening ceremony itself.
At opening, the Monorail was sponsored by Coca-cola and was occasionally known as the Silver Ride Monorail during its early years at the park. The trains were all painted in a futuristic grey and blue style, which each train being named after a planet in the solar system.
Over the years, the Monorail became a staple of any visit to Alton Towers, whether arriving for a day trip or staying over at the resort, which developed around the Monorail's car park station starting in 1996. But by 2008 the Monorail trains had become dated, and the park had decided it was time for a refresh.
One by one, the fleet of trains received complete overhauls. Gone was the 80s 'futuristic' grey and blue style. Instead, each one gained its own unique style and theme, complete with a different voice-over in every train. This meant you could ride the Monorail several times, and have a different experience each time. The funky new designs which wrapped onto each train were the work of design company Sarner, who's other projects include Pirates 4D at Thorpe Park, and Valhalla at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, to name a few. For the 2012 season, the audio was replaced on all trains with one generic track.
The colour scheme of the station has also changed over the course of the Monorail's life, with a notable change in the early 2000s, when the muted colours of the Towers Street station were updated to sport a purple and gold star design. The station has seen further changes since, when in 2019 as part of Towers Loving Care it was repainted to become a vibrant green, though it has since revert to a more classic dark purple paint job.
At one point the Monorail had ten trains, but now only has eight. It is possible that one was taken out of service after a collision in 2003. A second, the Daisy Train (no. 6), was taken out of service in 2012, after it was damaged by the switch track.
The fleet of trains is now coming up to 40 years old, and are increasingly showing their age. It is not unusual for only three trains to be operating on the system at once now, which severely limits the capacity of the ride.
TowersStreet Tips
There are many little things to remember with the Monorail:
- At the end of the day the queue for the Monorail can get very long. However, due to the throughput the system has these queues generally move quickly, and you will not be waiting around for long. The ride team are normally quick to advise guests of the current queue time at busy periods, and will let you know if it is faster to walk rather than wait around.
- The Monorail continues to operate one hour after ride close, unless otherwise stated. It's always worth checking the time of the final train, though.
- Any guest with buggies, pushchairs, or wheelchairs may benefit from using the very back car on each train. These have been specifically designed to have more room and cater for your needs.
- At around midday, you may sometimes find that the Monorail is experiencing a delay. This is a normal occurrence, and is simply due to the ride team removing trains from the system during quieter periods. This will normally reoccur towards ride close, when trains will be added back in for the crowds leaving the park. These delays are normal, and generally last no longer than 15 minutes.
Attraction Stats
Timeline
Attraction Extras
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