This is an interesting oddity I discovered today while searching for something else in the Electric Railway Journal. In 1910, in Brooklyn USA, a monorail railway car was tested that used gyroscopes to keep it from falling over [1]. The Scherl monorail car (built in Germany) was tested at the Clearmont Ice Rink and could carry up to six passengers. The car was powered by a pair of two hp electric motors supplied by 110v DC from copper conductors either side of the running rail. The current being collected by shoes mounted on the bogies - the wheels having double flanges.
The car was kept upright by a pair of gyroscopes, these consisted of a steel wheel rotating in a near vacuum. Emergency props could be deployed by the motorman if the gyroscopes failed!
The car ran on an oval test track at up to 4mp/h and apparently worked perfectly fine with passengers not dumped unceremoniously on the floor!
More about
Scherl's gyro monorail cars can be seen here.
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| Bogie detail, notice the collector shoe and double flanged wheels |
[1] "Gyroscopic car in Brooklyn", Electric Railway Journal Vol. XXXV No. 3 (January 1910) p. 116
