Monorail Mayhem

The P-I has recently been posting a bunch of cool photos from its archives, like this monorail gallery. Clearly our one-track wonder has had its share of difficulties during its 48 years of service, beginning in August 1963...

"This is the battered and windowless front end of the Monorail's red train after it failed to stop and smashed into a safety bumper at the south end of the Westlake terminal" -- link.

"Wreckage of a Monorail train after a July 1971 crash at Seattle Center" -- link. The red train's brakes failed and it rammed into a steel beam, injuring 26.

"Firefighters check a Monorail train after it blew a tire near the Seattle Center, September 1984. A tourist, alarmed by the sound of the explosion, fell and slightly injured herself" -- link.

May 2004: "Passengers on the Seattle Monorail crowd in one side of the Seattle icon as smoke envelopes the train near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broad Street. The train caught fire after passing through the EMP tunnel en route to the Westlake Center. There were no serious injuries in the incident" -- link.

The photo at the top of this post documents the same incident: "Smoke from the blue Monorail car blows over the red car near the Seattle Center in downtown Seattle Washington" -- link.

"The Monorail cars after a Nov. 28, 2005 collision" -- link.

Also worth a look are the Space Needle gallery, the phantom stadium gallery, the J.P. Patches and Gertrude gallery... Heck, pretty much the rest of the galleries linked to at the bottom of any of these pages are pretty sweet.

11/27/10 UPDATE

Two people hit when tubing flies off Seattle monorail - link.
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