The Alweg Phenomenon ALWEG Schuco Monorail

DISNEY-ALWEG   Text, photos and illustrations on this website - unless otherwise noted - copyright Reinhard Krischer/Collection Reinhard Krischer.   Both of the photos of the Disneyland Alweg Monorail shown on this page used to be on display in the offices of the Alweg Company in Seattle. By now the colors of these photos have already faded, but these photos are part of the many personal memories the author of these Alweg Archives has of his father's years as engineer for the Alweg Company. (Anyone who wishes to visit the California Disneyland just for seeing the monorail there should inquire beforehand about the monorail operation status.) In the late 1950s the Disney Corporation - after Walt Disney had in 1958 personally seen the first full-scale test train and had then sent Disney engineers to the Cologne test site - developed together with Alweg a scaled down Alweg line for its California Disneyland. Inaugurated in June 1959, it was an immediate success and the Disney Corporation to this day has continuously upgraded the original Alweg concept. - The American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1986 declared the Disney Monorail in Disneyland in Anaheim, California, as a NATIONAL HISTORIC MECHANICAL ENGINEERING LANDMARK. The Disneyland-Alweg Monorail is therefore listed in the ASME list of landmarks to be found on their website . Apart from historical data this website also offers interesting links to other websites that offer information about the Disney monorail systems. A search for "Disney Monorail" in the internet will give an approximate idea of how popular it is in the United States. The "Disney-chapter" of the Alweg history is an ambivalent one. On the one hand Alweg's 1959 excursion to Disneyland supplied Alweg critics with the argument that monorail is "kidstuff" for theme parks only. An argument that to this day is used by monorail opponents and that keeps resurfacing in reports by journalists and other self-proclaimed experts. On the other hand Alweg's Disney adventure introduced the Alweg concept to America, where technical innovation was and is always received more enthusiastically than in Europe. Despite the murmurings of monorail critics the Disney monorails quickly became an American favorite! The modern Disney monorails in California, Florida and in the newest resort near Tokyo, Japan, prove themselves day in and out in service that is just as strenuous as city transit. The performance and the popularity of the American Disneyland and Disney World monorails have even led the Alweg monorail concept to Las Vegas, where since 2004 the Bombardier-built Las Vegas Monorail is in service. So the "Disney-chapter" that may in its day have hurt the Alweg Company's chances for success has afterall brought new horizons for the vision of the Alweg concept !   See also Alweg's Heritage in Las Vegas ! The Disney Monorail Train Generations Mark I       Disney-Alweg   Disneyland 1959 - 1961  one red and one blue train Mark II      Disneyland 1961 - 1969 the two original trains lengthened by one car plus a new yellow train (train lettering still includes the name Alweg) Mark III     Disneyland 1969 - 1987 four new trains with 5 cars each (train lettering initially still includes the name Alweg) Mark IV      Disneyworld 1971 - 1989 (two of these trains eventually see service as the two trains of the Bally's-MGM Monorail in Las Vegas, the inspiration and nucleus of today's Las Vegas Monorail) Mark V        Disneyland 1989 - now (bodies built by Messerschmitt Bölkow Blohm of West Germany) Mark VI      Disneyworld 1989 - now (Bombardier-built) The best place to visit for informative text about and excellent photos of the Walt Disney World Monorail System in Florida is Brent Andrew Hendricks' www.monorailyellow.com website. For pictures of the Disneyworld Tokyo monorail trains please see LaughingPlace.com (the most comprehensive and amazing Disney-fan-website).     A Note on Design A note on popular futuristic design made in Italy during the 1950s: in 1952/1953 the Italian State Railways (FS) introduced their legendary "Settebello" electric train units (ETR 300) that featured streamlined front-end units with panorama seating for passengers up front, while the driver had his place behind this front-compartment looking through a large canopy in the roof. This design development in 1961 also characterized the Alweg train that the Alweg Company built for the Turin, Italy, Expo "Italia 61" (see the Turin-page of the German Alweg Archives pages). The illustration above shows the cover of a 1950s FS promotion brochure. The classic "Settebello" lines are beautifully captured in this photo taken by Peter Nescher in March 2005 when this "Settebello" head-end unit was on special display next to Milano's famous Cathedral. The 1952/53 "Settebello" shows the futuristic design influence of the early jet airplanes, - in those days making headlines after breaking the mythical sound barrier. Photo reproduction with kind permission of Peter Nescher. Photo Copyright Peter Nescher. Disneyland Monorail, California, November 2005. Photo courtesy of David Lustig. Copyright David Lustig.   For a complete history of the Alweg Monorail Company (including a history of monorails in general) in Germany and the USA (and of course about Hitachi-Alweg) see the richly illustrated German book ALWEG-BAHN by Reinhard Krischer (the author of this ALWEG ARCHIVES website). The book also describes and illustrates Alweg's role in transportation history, showing that the Alweg concept is - despite experts' opinions to the contrary - still very much alive and retains, thanks to its timeless modernity, a very bright future ! As shown today by the numerous Hitachi-built monorails and the Las Vegas Monorail by Bombardier.  Click bookcover for more details !