BYD (China) powers into monorail business

[mSeattle]

BYD (China) powers into monorail business
Carmaker is confident of earning 30 billion yuan in revenue from the new sector next year.
By CHAI HUA in Shengzhen, Guangdong | China Daily | Updated: 2017-09-02 09:58
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...t_31451447.htm

BYD, China's biggest electric carmaker, launched its first commercial monorail train service in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, on Friday. Its SkyRail is also China's first straddle-type monorail system. BYD has intellectual property rights to its design and other aspects. The SkyRail system has seven rakes that will ply on the 5.67-km, eight-station route. Yinchuan plans to build a monorail network spanning 300 km in all in the future.


Passengers wait to board a monorail train of SkyRail in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, on Sept 1, 2017.[Photo/XINHUA]

Carmaker is confident of earning 30 billion yuan in revenue from the new sector next year

BYD, China's biggest electric carmaker, launched its first commercial monorail train service in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, on Friday.

Its SkyRail is also China's first straddle-type monorail system. BYD has intellectual property rights to its design and other aspects.

The SkyRail system has seven rakes that will ply on the 5.67-km, eight-station route.

Yinchuan plans to build a monorail network spanning 300 km in all in the future.

SkyRail's seven trains have three cars each. Each car can carry around 170 passengers at a speed of up to 80 kilometers per hour.

SkyRail construction started in April and was completed in only about FOUR months at a total cost of about 600 million yuan ($91 million).

[Busy Bee]

Little known fact: Yinchuan actually translates to Spring Field. Interesting...

[kingkirbythe....]

Originally Posted by busy bee

little known fact: Yinchuan actually translates to spring field. Interesting...

ha - ha! You referenced The Simpsons.

[mSeattle]

Haha. Spring Field is on the move.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Little known fact: Yinchuan actually translates to Spring Field. Interesting...

Nice Simpsons reference, but it actually translates to Land of Silver.

This isn't China's first monorail anyway - the city of Chongqing has a much larger monorail system as part of its overall rail transit system.

[Markitect]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Nice Simpsons reference, but it actually translates to Land of Silver.

This isn't China's first monorail anyway

Of course..China also has monorails in Brockway, Ogdenville, North Haverbrook.

[mSeattle]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Nice Simpsons reference, but it actually translates to Land of Silver.

This isn't China's first monorail anyway - the city of Chongqing has a much larger monorail system as part of its overall rail transit system.

Correct. I think the news of the article was related to the fact that this one is coming from a car manufacturing company.

[bzcat]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Nice Simpsons reference, but it actually translates to Land of Silver.

This isn't China's first monorail anyway - the city of Chongqing has a much larger monorail system as part of its overall rail transit system.

Pretty sure Yinchuan means silver stream or silver river.

Originally Posted by Markitect

Of course..China also has monorails in Brockway, Ogdenville, North Haverbrook.

Lionel Hutz has been busy traveling...

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by bzcat

Pretty sure Yinchuan means silver stream or silver river.

Yes, you're right. For some reason I was thinking 州 (zhou) rather than 川 (chuan) when I wrote that.

[Eightball]

Monorails are the worst of both worlds, no thanks!

[hughfb3]

Originally Posted by Eightball

Monorails are the worst of both worlds, no thanks!

Worst of what worlds?

[Eightball]

Terrible ride quality of buses (arguably worse so), and lack of flexibility of rail transit. Lose-lose!

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Eightball

Terrible ride quality of buses (arguably worse so), and lack of flexibility of rail transit. Lose-lose!

How are they any less flexible than regular rail transit? Chongqing has 2 monorail lines, which are fully integrated with their current 2 heavy rail subway lines. Line 3 is the world's longest (55km + 9km airport branch) and busiest monorail line, carrying over 250 million passengers a year. Try replacing that with buses!

Not only that, but monorail has a significant advantage over heavy rail in that it has much better climbing capability, which makes it very useful in a hilly city like Chongqing.

[Eightball]

They can't change routes like buses can (they have same lack of flexibility as rail transit)... And the same poor ride quality as buses. Again, worst of both worlds

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Eightball

They can't change routes like buses can (they have same lack of flexibility as rail transit)... And the same poor ride quality as buses. Again, worst of both worlds

Give me a single bus line that can carry as many passengers as Chongqing's monorail does and then you might have something of an argument. But as the 6 car trains on Chongqing metro line 3 have a capacity of 32000 people per hour in each direction, you won't find a bus line anywhere on EARTH with that much capacity or ridership.

And again, the ride quality argument (don't know if this is a good argument or not as I've never been on a monorail) doesn't matter when you consider the advantage in hill climbing that monorails have over conventional rail. In a hilly city like Chongqing using conventional rail subway would make some stations have to be incredibly deep, which simply isn't feasible.

[N830MH]

Don't you guys have any new construction photos & video? Can we see it?