Bryan and I hopped on the monorail today, at the Space Needle. It’s all of a two minute, one mile ride (for $2.50) .. but it’s a fun ride, floating above the street traffic in mid-air!
The sign at the entrance of the monorail. What does Alweg refer to? I wondered. This from Wikipedia: Alweg-Forschung, GmbH (Alweg Research Corporation) was founded by Swedish industrial magnate Dr. Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren in January 1953, based in Cologne, Germany. Alweg built the original Disneyland Monorail System of Disneyland (opened 1959), and the Seattle Center Monorail (opened 1962 for the Century 21 Expo). In 1963, Alweg put forward a proposal to the city of Los Angeles for a monorail system to be designed, built, operated and maintained by Alweg – but it was rejected.We’re about to board the Alweg train, at the Space Needle station. We got those red seats right at the big fly-eye window in the front (so at the rear as we departed).Taking a turn through the kooky Frank Gehry-designed structures of the MoPOP, the Museum of Pop Culture, at the base of the Space Needle .... running along 5th Ave North, with the Ride the Duck operator on the right, and the Gates Foundation buildings behind it .... finally, arriving at Westlake Center. The Space Needle is a mile away in the distance. The round buildings is the Westin Hotel, with an Amazon Tower to its right, and an orange speck in the low right corner that is the South Lake Union streetcar on Westlake Avenue.
2 Replies to “Sunday/ the Monorail is fun”
Alweg was also the developer of the first computer that Oregon State University installed when I was a graduate student in 1960, Swedish made.
Alweg was also the developer of the first computer that Oregon State University installed when I was a graduate student in 1960, Swedish made.
Aha. Very nice!