This book is a photographic history of Toy Monorails and similar types of Toys. This includes one of a kind prototypes and some very rare Monorails Toys. This has examples of Toy Monorails from the early 1900's all the way to modern examples. Many of these monrails are from the 50's and 60's during the height of the SPACE RACE and SCI FI movies. Many TIN LITHO examples are covered as well as Disneyland Monorails. There are Monorail Toys from all over the world in this book. Europe, Japan and the USA.
About the Author: I was born in 1965, in Rotterdam, Holland. I grew up in Los Angeles, CA. My parents immigrated to Los Angeles as my father was a craftsman trained in Europe and he had an opportunity to use those skills in the movie industry. He eventually got a job at Walt Disney studios where he spent most of his career. I was inspired by the creative side of Hollywood and got to see all the Disney movies. We also made many trips to Disneyland and I think that is where I first became interested in Monorails. As a child I was always fascinated by toy cars, planes, trains, robots and rockets but there was always something special about Monorails. After watching Star Wars at the age of 12 I built a robot out of a radio. That was the starting point of my creative spark. At the age of 15 I developed and sold video games for Apple computers. I focused on computers, electronics and automotive arts in high school then graduated from The California Institute of the Arts, (CAL ARTS) where I studied motion graphics and visual effects. After graduation, I went on to have a very successful career in the Movie industry working as a Visual Effects and Lighting Artist. I was lucky to get a job at Apogee productions. This facility was the place that the first Star Wars was made then called Industrial Light and Magic Growing up in a time were all these types of vehicles were not far from reality was exciting. I started collecting tin toys. There was something very magical about them especially since everything had switched to plastic by then. I bought a Technofix tin wind up monorail and after that I was hooked. It took me back to a time in my childhood when I was in awe of these amazing futuristic designs. Growing up we were always told that we would be driving flying cars, taking vacations in outer space and traveling at high speeds across the globe in rocket powered Monorails. Once I was reunited with the feeling I got from these designs I switched my toy collecting to Monorails. I started hunting down all types of Monorail toys, from old toys to new, from rocket powered to propeller driven from suspended to gyroscopic. I have also included rail planes and space tubes and any other unconventional form of rail transportation. I do not claim to be a toy monorail expert. I have been collecting for 25 years and wanted to share my collection with the world.