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"Science fiction has gotten more accurate as we've gotten closer to the present, because science fiction stories have not only attracted, but also generated current scientists."
- Larry Niven

Ceiling Monorail  
  A handy conveyance for seeing the only underground city of a dying Earth.  

...the attendant handed Wacker a ticket. “Elevator 23 to the second level and monorail car, blue line, to the office.”

Wacker took the punched pasteboard and boarded the proper elevator downward to the second level. Here a noisy, crawling monorail car carried him jerkily along the ceiling of the second level. Below stretched one part of the underworld city that housed the last of humanity. It was a circular cavern, a mile in diameter, on the floor of which had been built a continuous honeycombed structure. Every available inch had been used scientifically, up to within twenty feet of the flat ceiling. This open space was reserved for the monorail system and for circulation of air.


(The ceiling monorail from 'When the Sun Went Out' by Eando Binder)

There were nine other levels, similar in arrangement. It was like a gigantic beehive in all, and though the inhabitants were men, they labored with the business of the bee to keep this community in smooth-running order.

Technovelgy from When the Sun Went Out, by John R. Binder.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1937
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  More Ideas and Technology from When the Sun Went Out
  More Ideas and Technology by John R. Binder
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  Tech news articles related to works by John R. Binder

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Science Fiction in the News

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'The sky is the limit' just got higher.

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