I Traveled to Chiba to Ride the World's Longest Suspended Monorail
I Traveled to Chiba to Ride the World's Longest Suspended Monorail
Experience 15.2km of unadulterated monorail action in this article!
Before moving to Japan, I could never image spending the weekend travelling to the sleepy town of Chiba to watch a train, but here we are:
Well, it’s not any train.
It’s actually the world’s longest (and coolest) suspended monorail!
In Japan, the Chiba Monorail has garnered such a cult status people travel from all around the country to this otherwise sleepy suburban city just to see this engineering marvel:
The Chiba Monorail
The Chiba Urban Monorail is a two-line suspended monorail system located in Chiba, Japan.
The first segment opened on March 28, 1988 and the remainder 11 years later, on March 24, 1999. With a total operating distance of 15.2km, it is the longest suspended monorail in the world, and was officially certified in the Guinness World Records in 2001.
Sadly, the Chiba Monorail is a prime example of a so called Gadgetbahn: A public transportation scheme based on modern, cool looking technology which in reality turn out to be infeasible or unnecessary.
In the early 80s, the city of Chiba got sold the idea of the future of transportation, with no tunneling necessary.
They swallowed the hype-pie whole and chipped in over 50% of the project’s construction cost. Ever since 1988, when the monorail first opened it has been hemorrhaging money due to a lackluster population growth in the area and an extremely expensive maintenance cost. In fact, the line has only shown profit one year since its inception and all plans to extend it has been put on hold indefinitely…
Even so, the Chiba Monorail has become perhaps the most iconic landmark of Chiba, and apart from attracting train enthusiasts from all over the world, it’s been featured in lots of Japanese movies and shows, such as “My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute” & “Assistant Police Department Kenzo Yabe”.
So, how was my Experience on the Chiba Monorail?
Yes, the train is extremely expensive to maintain and frankly, the ride is both slower and more expensive than the regular train or even the Chiba bus…
But when you enter the futuristic looking train-cars, hovering above the cityscape with a perfect view of your surroundings, it’s so exhilarating you forgive all the monorail’s shortcomings. At the end of day, travelling should be just as much about excitement as convenience and in that department, the Chiba Monorail delivers in droves!
