Why was monorail offered the way it was?

Question

There have only been 3 + 2 official monorail sets by Lego. Three monorails:

• (Space, Futuron) Monorail Transport System
• (Town, airport) Airport Shuttle
• (Space, Unitron) Monorail Transport Base

And two boxes of extra tracks:

• an older, Space-themed one
• a newer, town-themed one

(For the track boxes, the theme is mainly influenced by the monorail set they were released together with. The tracks do not have anything that makes them special for one theme or another.)

Other than these, a couple of single replacement parts could be ordered, as well.

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The above three monorail sets have several features in common:

• They contain a rather long (especially the Airport Shuttle, but also the Unitron monorail) track.
• They contain a motorized train.
• They contain two full-fledged stations.
• In the case of the Space monorails, they even contain an extra vehicle.

As a result, all three sets were among the biggest and thus probably most expensive ones in their respective theme.

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This always struck me as odd: When I was a kid, I loved the Airport Shuttle, but I was unable to buy an extra station or train, because there simply wasn't any. Likewise, the Airport Shuttle was the only monorail set I happened to get¹ - and I presume there are plenty of children who would have liked some monorail, but never had a chance to get any of these really huge sets due to their sheer price.

In particular, I contrast this with Lego trains, which have always been offered in quite a different way:

• There have been train sets of different sizes, in particular "starter sets" that only comprised a small oval of tracks and a short train.
• Train sets that brought trains would usually only include a rather minimalist station (for passenger trains, often just a simple platform that did not even span the entire length of the train), thereby keeping set size a bit down.
• Single train cars and engines were offered as separate sets.
• Stations of different sizes were offered as separate sets.
• At least in earlier years, there were also completely unmotorized trains as an alternative to the motorized ones, which further helped reduce the set price.

Hence, I am interested in the following: Is there any knowledge on why TLC decided to use a different pattern for monorail sets, by only offering very few, very big sets without any real extension sets (save for tracks)?

¹: Although, I admit, this wasn't entirely the fault of the effect I focus in this question. The Futuron monorail was simply a tad too early and I "missed out" while it was still available, whereas I considered attempting to get the Unitron monorail, but ultimately did not like the set as it was designed - what's the purpose of that train (maybe that makes for a good separate question), transport its own cockpits? That seemed pointless, so I discarded the idea, hoping for the next monorail set ... that never came ...

Answer 1

Why design the core monorail hardware this way?

This is hard to answer without a degree of speculation, but I assume that the core reason behind the decision to design the monorail this way likely came down to cost and engineering challenges. TLG wanted to allow for a monorail train to be able to navigate inclines effectively. This required:

• A cog system
• An additional degree of freedom between cars compared to trains (vertical movement as well as lateral)
• An additional degree of freedom between wheel sets and cars
• More specific power to weight requirements to maintain speed on inclines

Ultimately, TLG landed on the fairly rigid system of a central motor and couplings that create the necessary degrees of freedom with a car on either side. This likely required the smallest number of new parts and showed implicitly that the monorail motor isn't designed and tested to work well pulling more than two cars.

Why offer only large sets and not just a basic oval?

The core features of the monorail system that differentiate it from the regular trains of the era became:

• Inclined and elevated track
• Stopping at particular track segments rather than being controlled remotely

Given these features, it makes sense that any complete monorail set would have at minimum:

• Elevated track including ramp sections
• At least 2 monoswitches. Technically, you could just have one, but that would really limit play value since the train wouldn't have any destination other than its starting point
• A point of interest at the monoswitches for play value

Unless these features are included, the set might as well just be a regular train set. While you are correct that the later sets were more complicated, 6990 was basically just an oval of track with a pair of ramps and two monoswitches. I believe it included just two straight track sections in addition to these.

Given the inflexibility of the overall system (e.g. you can't just add one more car), TLG decided to include both cars in each complete monorail set and not offer any as add-on sets.

Comparison to 9V train sets

While there were many small train-themed sets in this time period, I'm not aware of low-cost starter sets. You could certainly buy a pack of 9V curved rails and a motor and work your way up from there, but the three complete sets released between 1989 and 1994 were actually fairly expensive:

• 1991 Metroliner (4558) - $149
• 1991 Load and Haul Railroad (4563) - $120
• 1994 Freight Rail Runner (4564) - $134

Compare these to the complete monorail sets of the same period:

• 1989 Monorail Transport System (6990) - $155
• 1994 Monorail Transport Base (6991) - $178
• 1990 Airport Shuttle (6399) - $140

The difference in price between the cheapest monorail and train set from the era is only $20.

Why no add-on sets?

When I was a kid, I loved the Airport Shuttle, but I was unable to buy an extra station or train, because there simply wasn't any.

While there weren't sets that included additional cars in the same way as regular trains, the monorail sets were generally part of larger themes that had additional sets available and were marketed together. For example, there were aircraft of different sizes and an airport marketed alongside Airport Shuttle:

The Futuron theme had many sets available as well, including another base:

Just in case my answer didn't make this clear, I really like the monorail theme. However, while being great collector's items, I believe that the monorail theme is generally considered to be a business failure. Offering two completely separate train systems at the same time with slightly different features ultimately didn't pan out well for a lot of the reasons that you cited.

Answer 2

Not really an answer, just a small point of fact..... There were actually 4 Monorail Trains planned, a Futuron Space-Themed one, a Unitron Space-Themed one, the ever pleasant Airport Shuttle Town-Themed one, (good for cities, even by today's standards, as building a large scale Monorail using brick-build tracks and Power Functions is a little too labor intensive, and, in some cases, expensive, for some buyers), and the last one, a Seatron Monorail. Seatron was unfortunately unreleased, as Lego's own higher ups thought that it wasn't the right time for aliens, which if you know Lego Prototypes, you know Seatron had aliens. Ultimately, as Seatron's Monorail was unreleased, it is unknown just what size of track it had, or if it had the long or short car couplings, (yes, there were two types of coupler), but what is known is that it was a very large train itself, despite not knowing the piece count on the train itself, (of which, it may not have had the highest piece count for a monorail train), it did have one of the largest finished product sizes I've seen, including a very large globe-style cockpit on either end, a small, (about 10 studs long), presumably passenger compartment, and, most of all for those of us in the MOC community using these old trains, the central motor cover was featured in yellow, (currently, only Airport Shuttle's train had a central motor cover, in red, which has severly limited the creation of new trains with the cover outside of red-colored engines). The Seatron was also the widest monorail, as it featured a pair of Part 2466 on either side, making the train about 8 studs wide, in comparison to Airport Shuttle, which was only 4 studs wide with the doors closed. Either way, poor Seatron never had the chance to shine, it would've made for some pretty impressive MOCs, and overall would've made, just as it was, a futuristic cargo or construction themed monorail. But, alas, Seatron never got to show us her glory, and thus Monorail #4 never saw the light of day outside of the set design lab she was created in. I'm certain old Seatron, of, as I call her, #4, is currently sitting in Lego's own archives, gathering dust, she'll never move again. Sigh, oh well, why am I telling you this? Just look for yourself t the glory of Monorail #4, Seatron:

BREAKING NEWS! Straight from the minds of Lego Developers, here be Monorail #5, I think.... Tell me what you think.... Hmm, kinda interesting to see the Buffaloes again. Also seems kinda interesting that there are two different engines pictured, and both are Steam Engines, which really differ from the Engines #1-#4. (noteworthy, there are some referances to attempts to build Steam Monorails in the real world, just like these, over-rail too). Although, the site I got this from, Eurobricks, seems to have a link to Brickipedia, and as somebody who's browsed more prototype over on the old Brickipedia than most, I find it odd that I never saw this image, otherwise I would've remembered it.... Here you go:

Check that, Monorails #5 and #6 are seen, weird, two trains, one track, huh?

Answer 3

There were more than 5 monorails planned actually. The fifth one was a Wild West themed one. It used the same track but had a different motor. I’m surprised that it gets overlooked since an image was released of it for brick-journal