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The 29th March 2005 I was on my way home
from Moscow to Denmark, but I luckily just had a few hours
to see the new monorail system in Moscow - even tough it is
hard to call one small line with 6 stations a system. I came
at 16.05 that day, and the monorail actually closed at
16.00, but the last train was first 16.20 so I managed to
try it. The full ride from the station on Sergey
Eyzenshteyn's street (Улица
Сергея
Эйзенштейна)
where the depot is situated to the end station at
Timiryazevskaya (Тимирязевская)
is around 15 minutes. The ride seemed extremely slow, but I
have later heard that the system is still being tested so
they it's not running at top speed. The price is 50 rubles
(1,4 €), but pupils and students get a 50 % discount - and
with many other things in Russia it is not valid for
foreigners. Compared to the 13 (0,4 €) rubles you give for
a ride with the metro it's rather expensive even by European
standards. In my opinion they will have to keep that ticket
price for a long time if they want normal average Russians
to use the system for other purposes than sightseeing. The
wealthy part of the population will as usually prefer the
traffic jams of the roads. To get in more
detail with the system itself I can say that it's as almost
all other monorail systems elevated up from the ground. The
train is divided into small compartments for passengers
without possibility of going from one compartment to the
other. For me that seems rather strange in a time where most
trains are being made without such divisions at all. One
particular thing which staggered me a lot was the quite bumpy
ride which I really didn't expect from a new designed
system. Enjoy the pictures!
The Ulitza Sergeya Eizenshteina station where the depot is
situated not far away - to the right of this picture. As you
can see there isn't many people waiting for the train.
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View of the 75 meter tall ferries wheel at the
former VDNH (ВДНХ)
exhibition center and behind that in the distance
the 540 meter tall Ostankino TV tower. The picture
is taken from the platform of the station on Sergey
Eyzenshteyn's street.
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The train depot near the station on Sergey Eyzenshteyn's
street.
A monorail train moving to the depot.
The monorail train approaching the station on Sergey
Eyzenshteyn's street.
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The front of the monorail train with the cabin for
the train engineer.
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View inside the passenger cabin - notice the LED-display
showing the time and the next station.
A view of the monorail train from ground level at the
Timiryazevskaya station.
You are of course free to use these
pictures if you put my credits on or by them. All pictures
where taken in high resolution, so mail me if you want them
in print quality.
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