Question for the Ambassadors or Whoever knows. RE: Monorail System

[The Jersey Brick Guy]

To whomever can answer this, I would be greatly thankful!

Why hasn't Lego made another Monorail system?

[Joebot]

The story I always heard was that the track molds were destroyed. And the monorail motor was manufactured by another company that has since gone out of business.

Now ... why they couldn't make a NEW track mold, or find a NEW motor manufacturer ... who knows?

[fred67]

They will not, they did not make enough money for it to be worth their while (like 9V trains).

What I don't get is why they don't capitalize on PF and make a new set that way, perhaps with much simply track that could be used for other things (like rails that are compatible with PF trains). But they pick and choose what they do based on how much they think they can make, and they don't seem to think they'll make a lot with monorail.

Now, if you want to peruse the net and look for monorail, you can see how to fairly easily (although with a lot of bricks) build your own with PF.

[The Jersey Brick Guy]

Thanks for the information. The monorail for my city is still a bit away as I am still buying up road plates and building more modular buildings.

Thanks again!

[weavil]

Other people here and brickshelf.com and mocpages.com have built there own. Just search.

[Cwetqo]

Molds are destroyed, but new ones could be made, if there would be interest. Problem is that TLG will not do that, because it would took too much of its valuable "active elements" list. With friends, movie sets, Chima and all other money making stuff requesting new and new elements, there just isnt enough space left for such niche products. Last week I was talking to one LEGO designer and he he said that wasnt able to squeeze in even such simple element as 1x2 jumper plate in trans clear.

Monorail would sell good among AFOLS (and maybe not even among them), but would not be very popular among LEGO general public because of high price and the fact that monorail is just not that recognizable as regular train (80s with promises of monorail being future of transportation was different).

[Faefrost]

Thanks Cwetqo. That helps explain a lot. I can kind of see the logic. I mean look at the classic Airport Monorail

http://www.1000steine.com/brickset/images/6399-1.jpg

vs the newer 7938 Passenger train

http://www.1000steine.com/brickset/images/7938-1.jpg

And you can see that they are obviously targeted at the same basic role and play. Heck if they were to come up with a modern elevated track mechanism they would be extremely similar. Which would leave only the Classic Space subjects for a monorail. (Well maybe a Disney theme?)

[Aanchir]

Mark Stafford (Nabii) explained the answers to this and some related questions on the Brickset forums. Scroll to his comments in This thread, and don't miss this post on the second page.