 |
 |
Novelty Monorails - Riverside Park
Imagine a monorail system with no switches to fail; no spurline
adding to construction costs; no shop area full of pesky high
paid union maintenance personnel; no temperamental anti-collision
system; and no wasteful refurbishing of the vehicles every few
years. 'Sounds like a dream come true for a cost conscious operator,
right? While switches are more dependable than they're given credit
for, and anti-collision systems probably save more money than
they cost (think of all those costly lawsuits that crop up whenever
a transit vehicle strikes anything else, right light railers?),
and sprucing up a vehicle's appearance can be done easily and
lucratively with graphic advertising, the system in this installment
of Novelty Monorails doesn't deal with any of these cost factors
because of the fact that there is only one train running on a
closed loop. No need for a shop or spur, let alone a switch. The
station can serve as a work platform easily enough. Maintenance
personnel are freed up to keep other amusement rides running as
well. Train protection systems are not needed since there are
no other trains to hit, and at the low speeds that Universal Design
Limited monorails operate at, even the birds on the guideway can
move out of the way in time to avoid being hit. But when it comes
to refurbishing vehicles, Riverside Park is either spending all
of that budget on their excellent roller coaster, the Riverside
Cyclone, or they, like the fashion industry, are doing a retro
thing. [In fact, the most money spent on this system since its
installation was probably for its demolition.]
[Soon after I wrote this story, Riverside Park made their monorail a lot more like a lot of other UDL monorails; they removed it. Now it resides on the list with the HemisFair monorail, the Wildwoods by the Sea monorail, the Atlantic City Million Dollar Pier monorail, the green train at Philadelphia Zoo's Safari monorail, and the red and white trains from Dutch Wonderland: the list of hard-to-find monorails by UDL.] |
The predominantly
white train is decorated with pink and blue stripes with prism
decals adding to the effect that you've stepped back into the
seventies. Even the "Monorail" sign is in an oldies
font. Unique touches for Riverside's train are the truck driver's
mirror for the operator's cab (so that he can check that all hands
and legs are inside the vehicle), the metal screen that prevents
passengers from jumping out one window (while the openings on
the other side are open to the elements), the "bulletproof"
rear cab (with a tiny armored car style window--we never did find
out who gets to ride back there--maybe those who failed Disney's
monorail drive training?), and the wooden center beam supporting
the trains load bearing tires (remember that UDL monorails support
their vehicles with three horizontal surfaces; one high center
beam and two lower tracks). And speaking of beam, while most UDL
monorails utilize steel construction in their guideways, besides
apparently being built of stacked and bolted together 2 by 10's,
Riverside has a support column made of wood. From appearances,
some sort of damage has necessitated the removal of one of the
normal steel columns and the handiest, and most cost-effective
replacement was a pressure treated 6 by 6. [Perhaps an angry maintenance
man hit the original with his maintenance-of-way vehicle out of
frustration at there not being more work for him on the monorail.]
This little system
in Agawam, Massachusetts is interesting more for its unique points
than it is historically. The monorail is one of the older attractions
at the park and it is intriguing to pick out all of the things
that make it different from other UDL monorails.