Roast bus on the northern beaches earlier tonight...

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/traffic-chaos-as-bus-catches-fire-on-spit-road-in-sydneys-north-20150401-1mcug3.html.

A real instance of the hotseat.

Can't say I've ever seen a government bus catch fire like that before.

I've seen one or two get smokey but never seen flames. Two CNG jobs have caught fire in the past but they were sorted out before the gas holders that are mounted on the roof of those models got too hot to handle.

Wonder why monorails didn't catch on? Will Australia's last monorail close as performing sea parks become unpopular?

Mainly because they are ugly in heritage towns like Sydney. It just didn't go well with sandstone buildings and Sydney's narrow streets that have been the same width as back in early colonial days. That said, up until the monorail's last days of service, it did grow on the people. Everyone just got used to it being there.

The other big problem is that monorail trains have two shortcomings that stop them being mainstream modes of transport:-

1. If a train breaks down, the ones behind it have no way of passing.
2. Each train only holds about 50 people. The pictured bendy-bus holds about 85 and Sydney has a fleet of around 250 of them, in addition to around 2,100 standard length buses.

Plans are well under way to bring more trams back to the streets of Sydney and it won't be before time. Those planned to run on the CBD-Randwick line will be the world's longest. I think 67 metres was mentioned in a recent news article and those who remember Sydney's original trams will know that Sydney isn't a stranger to coupled trams. They'll run every few minutes in the peak periods and bring back George Street's heartbeat. Like many light rail systems around the world, if a tram carks it, it can be pushed onto a siding by another tram.

The fire on the bus was most likely promoted by the fact that the whole rear panel is a single piece of moulded fibreglass. It's probably not the best material to locate near engine rooms and exhaust pipes though I would assume that there is normally sufficient insulation to prevent what took place the other day. Generally, the fleet has a good safety record.

The monorail at SeaWorld in Queensland is the same model that TNT installed in Sydney. SeaWorld wanted Sydney's old sets for spare parts but they couldn't agree on a price with the NSW Government so the transfer fell through.

I don't miss the monorail but I do admit that I don't like walking back into town uphill from Darling Harbour.

Radical alternative technologies (monorails) seem to most often bomb or fade away!
Old traditional light-rail is doing better today than the "mass transport of the future monorail" (as it was hyped 50 years ago)!

I like this Sydney one with its economical steel beam track and widely spaced pylons compared to more costly Bombardier monorail trains/tracks.

One of the sections of track was something like 55 metres, believed to be a world record at the time it was installed. It wasn't straight either. It was an obtuse S shape to allow the track to pass over an intersection diagonally. It was the last piece installed before the system got rolling and took about a day to do. The engineers did well getting that to stay in place. Each monorail train weighed about 11 tonnes and there would have been a lot of torsional forces on that section of track.

QUOTE: Each monorail train weighed about 11 tonnes and there would have been a lot of torsional forces on that section of track.

The monorail ended up being bought by Connex and later Transdev, who also run Sydney's Railway - Dulwich Hill trams, before both were consumed by the NSW Government. This was a reverse of today's trend towards governments selling off the family silver. It was a move designed to make it easier to get rid of the monorail and expand the light rail system without having to negotiate with third parties. It was a bargain buy too - $19m for both. Transdev still provide the tram drivers and conductors under a service contract though.