Tokyo 10000 Monorail (review)

[Super]

I was now ready for a little rework of the layout to include the event exclusive overhead Tokyo Monorail Series 10000 that I got many months ago. The new line was to run on top of out existing hanging Monorail line. After setting it all up I loaded up the monorail cars for its maiden run and was very disappointed in finding that this monorail will not work on the sloped monorail rails. What a bummer, I don't think I have seen or heard of anyone mentioning this on any reviews or videos. I am guessing that all the Plarail overhead monorails will not work the slopes. The units can flex side to side but can not up and down. Greatly disappointed but I already have a couple of ideas on a design rework to accommodate this vehicle. Stay tuned.

See a little more of a Review several Posts below.

i never even thought about the overhead sets on those slopes. what a shame it wont work.

bummer

I don't even have an overhead monorail. :|

-plarnold

Just saw a post in facebook that an above monorail using 4 slopes up and down

[Super]

Is there a video?

hope you can see it

https://www.facebook.com/100009986528897...855950730/

[Super]

Thanks AC, yes I can see it.

The newly released Tokyo 10000 is different than the old Disney. For one thing the front and rear cars look to be longer and the Disney one looks to have much more up and down flex to bend more when hitting the inclines. When the nose of the drive car hits the incline and because there is very little flex in the couplings and the fact that the drive wheel is in the very rear of the drive car, it lifts the drive wheel off the tracks and just spins. I also noted that even when going down the slope the drive wheel comes off the rail and at that point the unit falls to the bottom of the slope until the drive wheel catches again. Certainly not like how smooth the Disney monorail in you video handles the downward slope.

This new unit does not wobble like the old style Plarail Monorail (see video below) which is why I never purchased an old style or Disney one. They re-engineered the side stabilizer wheels on the new one to be spring loaded to stop the wobble but I think they may have forgot to engineer it to use the slopes, bummer. A spring loaded drive wheel may have been the answer or having the drive wheel in the front of the first car. You can see in the video how much bigger the couplings in the new release is compared to the older two car unit and appears to be as big if not bigger than the ones on the Disney Monorail shown in your linked video.

All in all I really like this monorail because the did a great job of correcting that ugly wobble in the original styles but because it can't use the slopes it really limits how one can use it in a layout. For example I wanted the monorail to be elevated but slope down to ground level at a station to pick up and drop off passengers then exit the station and rise back up overhead.

BTW: if the person in your Disney video built that layout today it would cost quite a lot as the monorail slopes are going for around $20 apiece in todays market. I guess they don't make them anymore. I don't know why they don't but maybe because they don't make the slopes they figured they didn't need to engineer the monorail to work on one.

Oh....Geesh...this has turned into a mini review.

Could you just not use one of the Tomy multi-level stations in your layout Super? Then you have the upper level for the mono-rail, the lowere and mid-level for 'normal' trains and maybe even the lower for 'metro/underground' trains?

If you don't have the station you could always flog your slopes to fund the purchase lol!!

One other thing you didn't mention in your non-mini-review, its darn slow lol!! Pretty colours mind, although I'm not sure why the middle car is a different colour scheme to the other two, that looks a bit odd too...

I'll buy it for 50% off