Today I Learned Texas Had the First Working Monorail in America

Sorry Walt, Texas actually had the first working monorail.

When I think of the word monorail. I think of transportation around Disney World/Land and also one of the greatest episodes of 'The Simpsons' ever.

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Today I learned, Texas had the first working monorail in the country. Three years before the iconic one in Disneyland would open and get world attention. The 970-foot test track was operated in Houston for just eight months. This was supposed to be a solution for Houston's traffic woes. It was advertised as “tomorrow’s newest, fastest, cheapest way to travel.”

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Well things didn't work out in Houston and the monorail was disassembled. It would move to Dallas and get expanded to 1,700 feet of track. However, this one wasn't really used as public transportation. Now it was used as a ride at the State Fair of Texas. It ran from 1957 to 1964. For 25 cents you could take a ride on the monorail.

The company was hoping having it at the State Fair would spark interests in other cities to invest in monorails. It did not and in 1964, the Trailblazer monorail would go to the scrap yard. Sad that the first ever monorail in the country just ended up as junk.

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Whenever I would go to Disney, I would always want to ride the monorail. I had no idea we used to have one in Texas and our state was actually the first. Bring back the monorail!

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