Aerial Trolley: Burbank’s Monorail From 1910 is 100% Real

In 1906, a farmers J.W. and E.C. Fawkes formed the Aerial Trolley Company Co., Inc. and put a monorail-like trolley in their Burbank farm.

Is this real-life steampunk?  I believe so.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around the utter coolness of even the company name, Aerial Trolley Company Co., Inc.  It’s like something from a Jules Verne novel.

Aerial Monorail

Excellent information and photos USC Digital Library tell us that the Fawkes patented and built this aerial trolley as an experimental transport system that never quite materialized.  It later was called “Fawkes’ Folly.”

Aerial Trolley Drawings and Patent

Fawkes patented the trolley, and these drawings give us some of the crispest views of how the trolley worked:

Close-Ups

First, the driver of the trolley:

What I find fascination is the trolley’s propeller.  It looks like the propeller is really made of wires, with only the leading edge solid:

You can’t have an aerial trolley opening celebration without a band.  And when you have a band, you’ve got to have a upright bass-player in the open-air cars:

How does this trolley move?

Article References

By Lee Wallender

Deception, influence, fakes, illusions, themed environments, simulations, secret places, secret infrastructure, imagined places, dreamscapes, movie sets and props, evasions, camouflage, studio backlots, miniatures.

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