H-Bahn Suspended Monorail in China

[kamnet]

So lots of people are familiar with the H-Bahn suspended monorail at the University of Dortmond and it's sister Sky Train at Dusseldorf airport. This technology was developed by Siemens in the 1970s, called the Siemens People Mover, or SIPEM, a scaled-down development of French SAFEGE standards. The first installation was in 1984, was expanded in 1993, and then a second installation in 2002.

Siemens never seriously promoted the system, and by 2010 had abandoned it. Another company, H-Bahn Group, took it up and started promoting it in China. Their work is now paying off. In 2011 it started talking with the government in Shanghai, with a plan to build a test line in 2015. Instead, in 2016 a trial line was built in Chengdu. Dubbed "the Panda", the train runs 60 km/h and each car can carry 75 passengers in a dual-car configuration in trains up to 6 cars that are powered by lithium batteries rather than high-voltage AC. It completed it's trials in 2016 and officially opened on June 28, 2018.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7ELDtSNzbw


It's not alone, though. Opening for trails in 2017 is Quingdao Monorail, running in 3-car and 5-car trains up to 70 km/h and 102 passengers per car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDiCqpLUGHo

[Captain Rand]

Very interesting. Nice find Kamnet.
Some more inspiration for suspended monorail GRF's!

Pete.