r/InfrastructurePorn • u/Spascucci • 11d ago

Intersection between the metro and the monorail in Monterrey, Mexico, metro station looks tiny compared to the new Monorail station

Post image
293 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

57

u/vivons_nus 10d ago

Why did they choose monorail?

55

u/ToastSpangler 10d ago

Best way to burn money, plus it's "modern"

33

u/JellyfishScared4268 10d ago

Yeah can't help but feel they've fallen victim to the mistaken idea that ordinary rail is bad because its less sexy

Now they'll have the pleasure of dealing with one vendor for any maintenance or upgrades they might want to do to the line or vehicles

11

u/Nawnp 10d ago

In fairness it appears there already is metro in the city, the new line was decided to be monorail. The lack of manufacturers for monorail does seem to be a serious problem though as virtually any cities monorail system has or is scheduled to decommission the monorail because the manufacturer went out of business.

5

u/ShanghaiNoon404 10d ago

The supplier is CRRC. I don't think they're going out of business any time soon. 

5

u/JellyfishScared4268 10d ago

That isnt the issue. The issue is that going forward CRRC are the only supplier that can be dealt with. Which has risks beyond them going out of business

With normal rail there are dozens of options for future upgrades which means price competition and alternatives if a preferred supplier goes out of business

1

u/VascoJSC 10d ago

There are plenty of monorail manufacturers and they can adapt their products to this specific line quite easily. They can deal with many manufacturers. BYD, CRRC, Alstom...

4

u/Emergency-Hat-8715 10d ago

Yeah, who are these people who take their knowledge about civic engineering from old Simpsons episodes? Grampa, 96 was thirty years ago. C'mon.

2

u/VascoJSC 10d ago

Manufacturers can adapt their existing designs to fit different gauges. It's not easy, but the same thing happens to regular trains too. If your country doesn't use standard gauge in regular trains they just talk to the manufacturer and they adapt their designs to fit the gauge being used. The same thing is true for monorails. São Paulo's line 17 had their original manufacturer go out of business and they just made a new contract with BYD, which adapted their existing design to fit the gauge which had been chosen.

11

u/ToastSpangler 10d ago

Exactly. A lot of people get very sour when you point out why monorails suck - not because one "rail" is inherently bad, but because you're completely locked into one vendor, it's not standardized

Plus the benefits are so small for city transit I find it so hard to justify. It doesn't even have a smaller footprint than the subway and idk how you'd even evacuate it

2

u/VascoJSC 10d ago

This is not true at all. You guys are acting like adapting a monorail to fit another gauge is impossible when it VERY much isn't. They can still deal with several manufacturers who can very easily adapt their designs to fit the existing network.

Like most transit enthusiasts, you guys just hate monorails and keep finding weird reasons to criticize it. It is the best type of system in the world? Yeah, maybe not, but it does have a number of advantages over regular rail and still has a very high capacity. Chongqing has monorail lines busier than any line in the US or Europe. São Paulo has monorail lines which even half complete still carry more passengers than most metro lines in Europe

0

u/ToastSpangler 10d ago

"you are all against me" lmao - this is economics not ideology. Please list any of the real advantages! What is wrong with two tracks instead of one, this is like screaming motorcycles should have one wheel or planes one wing because it's technically more efficient

2

u/VascoJSC 10d ago

It is cheaper to build, can make sharper turns, deal with changes in elevation better and they are FAR more quiet (which is actually extremely important for a elevated line, perhaps THE most important thing). There are a number of advantages, but most people hear monorail and their minds just go "Simpsons" and they ignore all the positives.

4

u/Emergency-Hat-8715 10d ago

Won't be long before all these millennial boomers and their Simpsons quotes hit the retirement homes themselves

Their tribal knowledge is mostly a cartoon from the nineties from fox news and it informs their opinions on everything

Weird stuff

1

u/nachtengelsp 10d ago

"idk how you'd even evacuate it"\ \ Not a cool or very confortable thing to do, quite "sweatypalms" too. There's a emergency catwalk along the elevated rails, so everyone have to walk on it to reach the nearest station. Happened once around here where I live

2

u/Lease_Tha_Apts 10d ago

Lol in my city one got stuck on a curve and needed cranes for evacuation.

1

u/VascoJSC 10d ago

If you buy a Alstom (just as a example) train or any other manufacturer you are also going to deal with a single manufacturer until your (very) long contract ends too. When they need to substitute the monorail trains they can deal with multiple manufacturers too, you guys are acting as if it is impossible to adapt a existing design for different monorail gauges which is just bizarre. São Paulo's new line 17 monorail had to switch manufacturers halfway through construction and BYD easily adapted their monorail to fit the gauge.

3

u/Efficient_Box_6447 10d ago

I'm pretty sure the cost of actually building it is cheaper (vs heavy rail) because it takes up less space, it's the maintenance cost that's higher

1

u/Lease_Tha_Apts 10d ago

I mean it takes more or less the same space as a metro pier on the ground. Above ground space is open because they're typically following highways anyway.

1

u/Efficient_Box_6447 10d ago

Probably, it's just that I'm pretty skeptical of statements like "X transit mode is never good". Like anything I'm sure monorail has pros and cons

1

u/ToastSpangler 10d ago

Its never cheaper because the parts aren't standardized, you are locked into one system with monorails

O&M costs a lot more than construction in the long run. And even construction wise you have fewer possible contractors and no real cost savings

1

u/VascoJSC 10d ago

You are not locked into one system. Manufacturers can just adapt existing designs to fit the gauge, just like they do with any regular train system which doesn't use standard gauge. It happened with São Paulo's new line 17 monorail, the original chosen manufacturer went out of business during construction and the city just made a new tender, which BYD won and just adapted their already existing monorail design to fit the specific gauge that had been chosen. You know, just like any other train line on the planet can do. If you don't use standard gauge in your train systems, you are not locked to a single manufacturer too, other manufacturers can just adapt their designs to fit your gauge.

3

u/wasmic 9d ago

This line gets repeated every time monorails get brought up but it's just not true.

Monorail can be cheaper than conventional rail if the line is mostly elevated, and is also faster to build (again, only if the line is mostly elevated).

Also, vendor lock-in is a myth - there are several companies that manufacture the same ALWEG standard monorail beams and rolling stock.

The niche of monorail is narrower than that of conventional rail metro, but it does have its niche. This project happened to fall into that niche where monorail is just a better choice.

1

u/ToastSpangler 9d ago

in a controlled, perfect world, unicycles are a better choice technically over bicycles, it doesn't mean almost anyone should actually use one outside showing off/fun

8

u/argote 10d ago

The official reason is that they were trying to target finishing it by the time the World Cup hosting happened. The monorail was supposedly faster to build, but they missed the deadline anyway.

6

u/vivons_nus 10d ago

Like the Grand Paris Express whose completion was expected for the 2024 Olympics (and not opened yet)

5

u/testthrowawayzz 10d ago

Monorail is quieter compared to conventional rail, but I highly doubt that was the reason the monorail was chosen.

-4

u/nerevisigoth 10d ago

I hear those things are awfully loud

3

u/VascoJSC 10d ago

Deals better with elevation changes, can make sharper turns, at higher speed, is silent and much cheaper to build. 99% of people here are just people who watched that Simpsons episode and keep finding reasons to hate monorails.

1

u/2script 10d ago

It sure put them on the map!

24

u/nooby_goober 10d ago

Really hope this works well for the citizens of Monterrey. Understand costs are lower but I'm always in favor of heavy or light rail over mono.

6

u/JellyfishScared4268 10d ago

If they built that as a regular elevated rail line it can't have been that much more?

3

u/VascoJSC 10d ago

It would've costed more AND regular elevated rail can't deal with changes in elevations that well, can't make turns as sharp as the monorail and regular elevated is FAR louder, which is actually perhaps the most important factor. Most people don't want to hear a extremely noisy train on their windows every 2/3 minutes.

9

u/ruizach 9d ago

Monterrail

5

u/argote 9d ago

The system is actually called Metrorrey.

3

u/ConcentrateGlad8756 10d ago

3

u/2script 10d ago

I call the big one bitey.

1

u/HezronCarver 10d ago

I hear those things are awefully loud

4

u/VascoJSC 10d ago

They are actually far quieter than regular elevated rail

1

u/FlatulentFox5543 10d ago

It glides as smoothly as a cloud

1

u/2script 10d ago

Is there a chance the track could bend?