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The Sydney Monorail - what happened to it ?


snatcher

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For me it was an iconic Sydney image,watching the monorail crossing over Pyrmont Bridge :sun:

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Walking over Pyrmont Bridge late last year the wife and I were dissapointed to see it had been dismantled :mellow: At the time we meant to ask our daughter what had happened to it but totally forgot to mention it. Anyone on here shed any light onto this ? I assume it was just not paying for itself.

John

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Apparently it was past its use by date.

It opened in 1988, as a part of Sydney being a city of the future.

More or less a novelty, doing a bit of a loop thru the city and the new Darling Harbour

Darling Harbour Exhibition and Convention Center have also been demolished.

The light rail has been and will be extended.

Sydney Ports Authority public housing tenants at Millers Point have all been evicted and relocated.

All roads lead to the new Casino

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Thanks for the explanation Ryder :sun: At least I got to ride on it before it was demolished. It always used to tickle me when walking over Pyrmont Bridge the number of Asians who kept under the shade of the monorail. Nobody else seemed to bother.

John

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It got chucked, apparently Hobart wanted it but i think it might have been scrapped.

The developers of the exhibition and convention centre projects wanted it gone because it would have been in the way, and with light rail soon to be built through the CBD it was seen as redundant.

Hrgh

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Hi John

The Monorail was controversial from the start, it was originally meant to go much further (which would have made it more useful) but too many protests from people who claimed that it would spoil the views of existing buildings (including heritage listed ones) put paid to that. TNT's Sir Peter Ables who came up with the concept was a bit of a visionary and originally offered to build an International Village on the Northern side of Darling Harbour which would have been served by the Monorail. When that fell through he gave up on promoting the Mono Rail beyond the limited route that was built.

Demolishing the Exhibition and Convention centres was an act of commercial vandalism. Only 26 years old they were great buildings designed by two of Australia's top Architects (Phillip Cox and John Andrews). Would have been far better and a lot cheaper to build new buildings elsewhere (if they were in fact essential to house larger functions)

Ryder is spot on with his comment "All roads lead to the new Casino"

Cheers

Paikea

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