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Interior of a suspended monorail car designed by SAFEGE, Paris, France, 1960
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| Title | Interior of a suspended monorail car designed by SAFEGE, Paris, France, 1960 |
| Photographer | Unknown |
| Date | 1960 |
| Notes | The SAFEGE monorail design was one of several aerial railway systems considered for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, but it was the ALWEG Company of Cologne, Germany, that eventually secured the bid by offering to cover the entire cost of construction. Seattle's ALWEG Monorail has been in continuous operation since its inauguration in 1962, and is the only remaining original ALWEG line in the world. |
| Historical Notes | SAFEGE is both a type of monorail system and an acronym for "Societe Anonyme Francaise D'Etudes de Gestion et D'Enterprises." Translated to English it means "French Limited Company for the Study of Management and Business." SAFEGE was a consortium of 25 companies, including the Michelin Tire Company and Renault Automotive, responsible for designing an updated aerial railway system modeled after the Schwebebahn monorail system in Wuppertal, Germany. Unlike the German-designed ALWEG system, in which the passenger cars run on top of, and straddle, a solid beam, the SAFEGE design consists of passenger cars suspended beneath rubber-tired wheel carriages enclosed and supported by a box-like track or beam; the rubber wheels of the train run inside the track, supported by flanges on the bottom of the beam. With the SAFEGE design, the tracks are not exposed to inclement weather and do not require any cleaning or ice-removal systems, enabling them to run in cities where ice and other conditions would impair the reliability of the system. Between April 1959 and April 1960, a 1.4 kilometer (0.87 mile) test track was constructed by SAFEGE in France to test the viability of extending the existing Paris subway line to connect the city of Chalenton to Creteil. Testing was officially completed in 1967, the system was never implemented, and the track was demolished in 1970-71. |
| Subjects (LCTGM) | Century 21 Exposition (1962 : Seattle, Wash.)--Equipment & supplies--France--Paris; Interiors--France--Paris |
| Subjects (LCSH) | Monorail railroads--France--Paris; Railroad passenger cars--France--Paris; Exhibitions--Washington (State)--Seattle |
| Location Depicted | France--Paris |
| Digital Collection | Seattle Photograph Collection
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| Order Number | SEA3414
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| Ordering Information | To order a reproduction, inquire about permissions, or for information about prices see: http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcollections/services/reproduction-info
Please cite the Order Number when ordering. |
| Repository | University of Washington Libraries. Special Collections Division. |
| Repository Collection | Joseph E. Gandy papers. Accession No. 1738-1, Box 15/18 |
| Object Type | Photograph |
| Physical Description | Color; 6.5 x 8.75 in. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from a photographic print using a Microtek Scanmaker at 120 dpi in JPEG format at compression rate 3 and resized to 768x512 ppi. 2011. |
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