Interesting video here:-
**LINK**

If you take the Toulouse to Paris rail, about 1 hour south of Paris, there is a very long section of abandoned concrete monorail in the fields beside the main line – stands there like some ghost from the past.
BobH

I remember my father taking me up to Milngavie to see what was left in the early 50s. He would have been in his mid teens when it was first ran so probably made a big impression on him at the time. It does look as though it was scrapped by 1957 according to various reports but I dug up a thread on Hidden Glasgow where it was suggested that there might have been some ground level bits left standing.

http://www.hiddenglasgow.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1399

Jim.

Edited By Jim Guthrie on 01/04/2018 20:49:10

Another couple of links

**LINK**

**LINK**

Link to streetview and the location of the plaque below.

**LINK**

Have a 'drive' around

Apparently the railcar was stored in the shed now used by the timber yard.

https://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2016/01/abandoned-monorails-suspension-railways-railplanes-hovertrains/

Edited By Doubletop on 13/04/2018 11:24:12

Edited By Doubletop on 13/04/2018 11:24:59

National Library of Scotland, 20 minute video.

**LINK**

Have attached a couple of recent pics of an early lift installation seen in a hotel on the south coast manufactured by the same George Bennie who constructed the monorail.

Many attempts at monorail, maglev etc have been proposed and failed worldwide including this one in what is now Cambridgeshire. The concrete pillars and track stood as far as I remember well into the 1980's and it is possible remnants still remain around Earith.

regards

According to this slightly clunky website (but obviously run by someone with infectious enthusiasm) it was the same family but not the same Person. John Bennie.

**LINK**

Thanks. If it was the same family, then George and John might possibly have been cousins. One source states that Bennie Lifts Ltd was founded in 1934, which postdates the Railplane, so they could not have been directly involved. You have to admire George Bennie for following his dream, however misguided it was.

None of the monorail inventors seem to have had any idea of the practicalities of railway operation, and one wonders whether any of them ever owned a model railway or even a basic train set, as it soon teaches you about line capacity, and the need for points, sidings and signalling, among other things.

There is also the fact that if you want one rail to do the work of two and carry the same load it will have to be twice as strong, so the track isn't likely to be simpler or cheaper.

Hi everyone, first reply on this site.

I was born in Milguy but the Bennie Railplane was long gone by the time I came along. Fortunately my dad and grandfather both photographed Bennie’s Railplane both in the thirties when it was brand new and when it met it’s demise in the 1950’s. In my collection I have what is most likely the last images of the Railplane ever taken, lying in bits on the ground under its track. My dad was given its propeller and dragged it partly home leaving it in the woods to be collected “another” day. There was a, I presume, a “makers” model in the Milngavie Library fifteen years ago when an aunt showed it to me.

Stay tuned for a world exclusive!

regards

David