[WIP] Lego monorails. [Custom Rail Systems (CRS)]

[DoVoMonOgel]

2 hours ago, Buttermaker said:

This still reminds me, that I have to make Photos of my 9-12V Monorail 🙈

Ab-so-lutely ... waiting for that ever since your last post! Internals please!

[Brickthus]

On 8/4/2026 at 3:36 PM, zephyr1934 said:

All the detail is fantastic.

That is both brilliant and eloquent.

With the introduction of a completely new track system and vehicles with your design, maintaining the legacy radius probably is not critical, but it is laudable nonetheless.

Equally clever, and this makes sense for an AFOL with moderate skills, but is probably too complex for all IDEAS buyers. Not a fatal flaw though, if it ever made it that far the Lego designers would by definition come up with a solution that meets whatever standards Lego would want. I'm sure there's some way to use fixed bricks to get a desired profile, but it might not be pretty.

New ideas are the most exciting thing.  The question is whether you have a good number of pieces to have a go!  A 24M curve needs about 115 pieces.

I figured that the original 6990 set had a layout size in mind, plus a possible alignment with the 32x32 size of crater plates.  The new system can go a bit smaller but the increased maximum speed with PF or PU might look strange on a tighter curve.  The maximum speed I've tested was 0.95m/s but that was with the earlier belt drives and wider curves.  The current speed is a good compromise between being a bit quicker but also having enough torque to ascend the hills.

For the hills, I think the SNOT is more complex in Brickheads and statues, such as the Puppy kit 11384 that I'm building now.  I'm waiting for the underneath round tile #3567 to be made in dark bley.  There might be a more convenient way to set the spacing as I've threaded parts onto the tubes, which works better at the bottom than the top at the moment.  That would be as simple as a 1:1 diagram in the instructions.  But the 10-brick rise in 64M was a good target to hit because it facilitates more compact layouts.

And added idea is that a real curve is more gentle either size of an apex, so perhaps I should bias the 2x3 sections nearer to the ends of the 28M curve.

Mark