Australia’s first and last tourist monorail is set to close for good after nearly forty years at SeaWorld on the Gold Coast.
This much-loved attraction was the first of its kind in Australia when it opened in 1986, but has been closed since 2019.
After 330,000 rides through the park, Bikash Randhawa, COO of Village Roadshow Theme Parks, said the railway would close.
“The monorail opened at Sea World in 1986 and was Australia’s first monorail system, and after its closure, it was also the last,” he said.
In its 38 years of operation, the monorail has made 330,000 trips around the park, the equivalent of 44 trips around Australia.
Despite the railway’s popularity, it was closed in 2019 due to the construction of the $50 million New Atlantis attraction.
There was much speculation about the company’s future, amid reports of deteriorating infrastructure and problems obtaining needed parts.
“The support infrastructure that we had was no longer available globally,” Mr Randhawa told 9News.
Sea World’s monorail is closing after 330,000 rides through the park, the equivalent of 44 rides across Australia
‘That’s why we decided to close the monorail’.
Mr Randhawa said he, like many other families, had “fond memories” of the railway and that they had “worked very hard” to keep it going.
He said demolition along Seaworld Drive at the Sea World park was expected to begin late this year.
Dale Beer, a Sea World monorail operator with eight years’ experience, told the Courier Mail the train was “amazing”.
“I’m glad I have those memories, but I’m looking forward to the future possibilities (of the park),” he said.
Online, users expressed their dismay at the closure, with one person even calling it the “end of an era.”
There are only four operating monorails in Australia, two in Queensland and one in Sydney. However, they are all closed.
The monorail was the first of its kind for Australia when it opened in 1986, but has not been in use since 2019