sometime last year someone posted that the horns for the monorail were an "off the shelf" piece of equipment and that they could be fitted to an auto. Does anyone have some info on this? If I can't fit a steam whistle on my car then a monorail horn would be the next best sound!! Any Info or help is greatly appreciated!

I would suggest contacting the head of The Monorail Society, since he's the one with the monorail horn in his car.

The Monorail Society

And, please post what you find out here.

Thank You locoboy5150! I am trying to contact the monorail society for the info!! I will keep everyone intersted posted!!!

This is an interesting question. I've enjoyed watching the Disneyland chase segment of the 1962 film 40 POUNDS OF TROUBLE. In addition to people running into one entrance and showing up at a completely different locale, one of the inconsistencies which bugged me was the sound of the Monorail horn. It sounded higher-pitched than I am used to, almost like a regular freight train. Since they play this quite a bit, it was disturbing.

However, since then, I have seen the "Kodak Presents Disneyland 1959" episode on YOUR HOST WALT DISNEY in the Walt Disney Treasures DVD series. It had the same horn I heard in 40 POUNDS OF TROUBLE. This makes me wonder if that's simply how they sounded early on.

My parents told me about a black VW Bug they had in the late-1960s. They even entered one of the Disneyland contests to dress up the bug which were held after THE LOVE BUG came out. I think I have a snapshot or two of this. They made their bug look like a steam train -- probably an early influence!



Anyhow, it was such a small car and the horn wasn't very effective so my dad installed a truck air horn. There was no trouble being noticed after that! Of course, I'll bet it's probably illegal to do so in California. Then again, so is playing deafening music, having tinted windows in the front, and a number of other things which are seen all the time.

James

James, you might be interested to know that the fellow that came up with the idea "Love Bug Day at Disneyland" was none other than... Michael Broggie! He's also responsible for coming up with the name "The Love Bug".

If you watch the bonus features on the special edition Love Bug CD, you can see Michael riding by all the bugs as one of the judges.

I helped Kim put that "Monorail" horn in his '93 (?) Ford Taurus.

This is an interesting story. He had a friend who worked on the DL Mono, and they "secretly" measured the horn under the skirting. You can almost see it when you'd stand under the mono track awning at the old Motor Boat cruise area.

Anyway, it came out at (I think) 28" long. And the name on it was "Grover Products, Los Angeles". (they have a website--not much there)

So, he called him, and gave the guy the dimentions, and he says: " Oh, that's our # bla bla. So, Kim bought two. Not sure why, but bought two--and an air compessor, and an air tank. All of this stuff fit in his trunk.

The horn just fit sideways under the rear valence of the Taurus. The bottom edge of the bell just sticks out. Kinda funny.

I wired up a special harness for it, and made this cool 1960's Tomorrowland looking techno-babble instructions graphics on the door for a CD player in his console. You lower the door, and there is a red light, a button for the compressor, and the BLAST button. Too cool.

So...we're at the the Vegas MGM for the opening of the MGM-Bally's mono line, and we're at an intersection, and this lady cut in front of us, and you know what happened....

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WAA WAA

Poor lady.

PN.

So did it sound just like the real thing?

It sounded so real--reverberating off the rear valence, that we coulda put a flashing beacon on the roof, and had automatic door openers--and people would have jumped in to ride at stop signs!

LOL!

Paul N.

http://www.airhorns.com/products.aspx

I've been told that the horns on the monorail are model number 1055. The 1056 is identical, except that the horns are mounted together rather than individually. The horns aren't that expensive (<$200, I think), but you'll need an air compressor if your vehicle doesn't already have one.)