Alweg

Alweg was a transportation company known for pioneering straddle-beam monorails.

History

Alweg was founded by Swedish industrial magnate Dr. Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren in January 1953 as Alweg-Forschung, GmbH (Alweg Research Corporation), based in Fühlingen, a suburb of Cologne, Germany. The company was an outgrowth of the Verkehrsbahn-Studiengesellschaft (Transit Railway Study Group), which had already presented its first monorail designs and prototypes in the previous year. The Alweg name is an acronym of Dr. Wenner-Gren's name (Axel Lennart WEnner-Gren).

Alweg is best remembered for their role in building the original Disneyland Monorail System of Disneyland, which opened in 1959, and the Seattle Center Monorail, which opened in time for the 1962 Century 21 Exposition. Both systems remain operational, with the Seattle Center Monorail still using the original Alweg trains which have traveled over one million miles. A third system, built in Torino for the Italia 61 exposition remained unused a few months after the exposition closed and was destroyed by a fire in the late 70's, most probably set by vandals. The remnants of the system were scrapped in 1981, with the north station now being repurposed as an office building.