Shonan Monorail - Construction (1971) 湘南モノレール

The world's first SAFEGE monorail transit system is documented from construction to opening in March of 1970. The French-developed SAFEGE system utilizes steel box beams in which bogies run inside, protected from elements such as weather. This funky/fun documentary by Fajima Productions Ltd. shows track installation, tunnel construction, vehicle fabrication, vehicle testing and the grand opening. The monorail was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries using licensed SAFEGE technology. The 6.6-kilometer line is mostly single-tracked, with trains passing each other using highly-reliable monorail switches. Mitsubishi later went on to build a larger SAFEGE monorail system for Chiba City. Further information on monorails can be found at The Monorail Society website (monorails.org). My apologies for the video quality and occasional image distortion, this was transferred from a very old videotape. The footage is a valuable historic monorail documentary, hence my posting it despite the quality. Click above on my name for many more monorail videos. Subscribers welcome!