Specially-built carriages would sit astride the trestles like panniers on a camels back.
Indeed, it was camels that inspired French engineer Charles Lartigue to come up with this system.
A replica of the Lartigue Monorail that ran between Ballybunion and Listowel for 36 years.
When it opened on February 29th, 1888, it was the world’s first passenger-carrying monorail.
The Lartigue Monorail was cheap to construct but extremely tricky to operate.
For one, everything had to be balanced.
The locomotive had two boilers and two fireboxes, placed on either side of the rail.
Even the driver and the fireman sat on opposite sides.
Every load, including passengers, had to be carefully balanced which was a time-consuming process.
To make matter worse, the Lartigue had a reputation for rolling sickeningly as it moved.
Instead, double-sided drawbridges were constructed to go over the tracks, which required an attendant to operate.
Both the swiveling and drawbridge jot down crossings were automatically linked to signals, which stopped any approaching trains.
Unlike, conventional railways, road traffic was always given priority under this system.
The monorail that exist in Listowel today is a recreation built in 2003.
References:#www.lartiguemonorail.com#Listowel’s Lartigue Monorail,The Monorail Society#Wikipedia
