Parks. Thrills. Nostalgia.
This article is to go into further detail about the history of Hersheypark’s Monorail, as well as the Monorail Amusement Company. If you haven’t read the first article about the history of the Monorail, I suggest you read that article first and then read this. The Monorail Amusement Company was formally established by an agreement
The monorail system at Zoo Miami opened during the zoo’s second season, when the zoo was called Miami MetroZoo. Universal Mobility, Inc. (UMI), manufactured this system with a second company, Budd Company of Detroit, Michigan. In 1980, Miami MetroZoo purchased a $13.5 million dollar Tourister system from UMI. This system was scheduled to be opened
In 1969, a new state-funded zoo was being developed for the metropolitan Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota area. The Minnesota Legislature created the Minnesota State Zoo Board (MSZB) to study the possibility of building such a facility. The study took several years, and planning and land acquisition took several more years after that. Minnesota Zoological Gardens,
In 1973, Universal Mobility, Inc. (UMI) debuted their UNIMOBIL Tourister Type II monorail system. Six systems would be built over the following eleven years, three which were opened in successive years – 1973, 1974 and 1975. These are the systems that operated at Carowinds, Kings Island, and Kings Dominion. Carowinds Monorail Carowinds opened on March
Universal Mobility, Inc. (UMI), manufactured two minirail systems in California, in 1968 and 1971. These were the first and third systems UMI manufactured for Habegger in the United States. The latter of the two is Metro, which the history of the ride is tied in with Hersheypark’s Monorail. The earlier is UMI’s first system, which operates