Seattle Center Monorail - a Photo Essay
Page Six
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Seattle Center Monorail General Manager Glenn Barney holds up original German-drawn ALWEG blueprints.

Copies have been made of the many ALWEG prints and they are still referred to for maintenance on the original trains. Glenn really made my eyebrows raise when he suggested that new trains could EASILY be fabricated and an entire system could be built from these blueprints. He notes that Seattle has many capable industries that would be able to it. I think this of great importance to anyone planning this type of monorail. Planners DO NOT necessarily need to be locked into using current suppliers of monorail trains. Look, if Monorail Malaysia can do it with a bus manufacturer...others can do it too. Monorail Malaysia is saving Kuala Lumpur millions of dollars doing it this way. Glenn says he knows where to get the parts!

As my visit was coming to a close, I enjoyed both the monorail on a rainy Seattle day and a fabulous headline on the front page of a local newspaper, "Monorail expansion gets a lift." Those big barriers at the end of the line may not be the end of the line for a Seattle Monorail System of the future.

Driving home I had ticket proof on my dashboard that I had indeed helped maintain the profitability of the Seattle Monorail. My sincere thanks to Tom Albro, Glenn Barney, Traci Springer and the other folks of Seattle Center Monorail for the kindness they extended to me on my visit. I'm still trying to figure out how to get that Class B drivers license guys!

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