6 Car Airport Shuttle
This picture was taken last Sunday at the NCLUG meeting at the Cameron Village library. The spirals were a quick hack job to demonstrate what we had done previously at NCLTC train shows.? All of the monorail track in the picture belongs to Carin Proctor, I just brough the train. This was the first time it had run in several years and it ran great.
Plate 2 x 2 with Towball
Plate 1 x 4 with Towball Socket
The question I get most often (besides “you really have an Airport Shuttle?”) is how they are connected together. For the most part, the design of the additonal cars follows the orginal plan of the Airport Shuttle but the battery unit needs to be near the monorail motor and the cars need to connect together. Since the monorail chasis plate only connects to the monorail motor, I had to find a different solution. I tried a number of different techniques before I tried the ball and socket elements. These two parts work great, they can handle the curves and elevation changes without any problems.
The other question or concern people tend to have is about the load on the motor. The motor is pretty strong and I have not had any problems with it not being to push the train along. As long as it has a good 9v battery, it seems to run for a long time. Because the motor is geared with the track, there isn’t even a noticable speed difference between the standard two car monorail and my six car version.
One of these I’ll document it correctly and publish the instructions.
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Hello. I am interested in making a spiral like that in the photo. What pieces do I need to keep the track from bending and twisting? Thanks, and feel free to browse my site at my Monorail creations and leave a suggestion. Thanks again!
I replied to this earlier but must not have saved it, sorry about that.
The critical part of the spiral is the cross section which the monorail track sits on. The track itself is pretty sturdy and won’t bend yet flexible enough that you can coil it up like a spring. You can very quickly assemble a dozen curves in a continuous left or right hand turn to see this yourself.
The pivot is achieved using 2×2 bricks with axels pins on the side. There are a number of other LEGO elements which could be used to achieve the same effect. The axel pin allows the connecting cross piece to pivot and connect to the underside of the monorail track at the proper angle to secure a connection. The only other trick is to make sure there is sufficient clearance between levels of the spiral but that is pretty simple.
Hope that helps.
Good information here! Wish I had found this before I built my own train spiral!