Monorails in Russia

Russian monorails date back to the 19th century. Russia was a pioneer in the design and construction of monorails, from early horse-drawn models to later electrical and magnetic levitation systems.

The first Russian monorail was built by Ivan Elmanov in Myachkovo village, near Moscow in 1820. In this "road on pillars", horses pulled railroad carriages placed on a horizontal beam. The wheels were mounted on the beam, not on the carriages. Elmanov could not find investors to fund for his project, and stopped working on the monorail. In 1821, Henry Palmer patented his monorail design in the UK.

In 1836, Prince Beloselsky-Belozersky proposed another monorail design which contained two rows of wheels on mounted on a pillar structure.

In 1872, a monorail designed by Lyarsky was shown at a polytechnic exhibition in Moscow.

In 1874, Alexei Khludov constructed a monorail for transporting wood.

In March 1895, Russian engineer Ippolit Romanov built a prototype of an electric monorail in Odessa, modern-day Ukraine. In 1897, he presented a functional model of his monorail at the meeting of Russian technological society. This idea was approved by the society, and an experimental electric monorail was built in 1899. In 1900, Empress Maria Fedorovna approved the building of an 0.2 kilometres (0.12 mi) long electric monorail in Gatchina. The monorail was tested on 25 June 1900. The monorail carriage could be loaded with up to 25 kilograms (55 lb) and moved at a speed of 15 kilometres per hour (9.3 mph).

In 1904 Russian engineer Koshkin in collaboration with Romanov designed a monorail that would connect St Petersburg and Moscow. The proposed train speed was up to 200 kilometres per hour (120 mph). This ambitious project was approved by the Ministry of Roads, but was not financed. A similar proposal of a monorail from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod was not funded, as well.

In 1911, professor of Tomsk Technological Institute B.P. Vainberg invented a train on an electromagnetic support that was driven by linear synchronous electrical motor. This design was similar to the magnetic monorail built by Emile Bachelet in France in 1910. Vainberg's experimental model permitted to transfer 10 kg carriages. In 1911-1913 Vainberg experimented with his model, and then proposed building an experimental track in which trains would move at a speed of 800–1000 km/h. This project was not realized.

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