What happened to the Sydney Monorail?
The Sydney Monorail was a single-loop monorail in Sydney, Australia, that connected Darling Harbour, Chinatown and the Sydney central business and shopping districts. It opened in July 1988 and closed in June 2013.
When the rail was set to originally open Clover Moore, who at the time was an Independent MP, called it “the most offensive structure to assault our city since the Cahill Expressway”. There were thousands of citizens who felt the monorail was and insult to the local culture. A Sydney channel nine news story from the time reported security staff were employed to turn away passengers who appeared to have contagious infections. Restrictions were also said to prohibit wearing dirty clothes along with eating, drinking, spitting and playing loud music.
The Sydney Monorail would be included in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie release being to rescue the kids as well as Skull and Bulk. As of 1993 the Monorail took bookings for corporations to rent advertising on the sides of the trains for a large lumpsum of money.
The Government of New South Wales bought both the monorail and the light rail service from Metro Transport Sydney on 23 March 2012 to enable it to extend the light rail system without having to negotiate with the private owners, and to remove the monorail from the area near Haymarket required for the expanded Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre. Veolia Transport Sydney continued to operate the light rail and monorail after the government takeover.
The monorail ceased operating on 30 June 2013 and all sections of track and some of the stations have been dismantled. Around 70 million passenger journeys were made on the line during its lifetime.
The local government would endorse the Sydney Light Rail not too much later in 2018.
