Gold Coast monorail track slowly leaves Broadbeach skyline after 27 years

AFTER 27 years as a striking part of the Broadbeach landscape, the monorail track is vanishing from its lofty location over the Gold Coast Highway.

Workers remove the monorail tracks at Broadbeach. Photo: Steve Holland

AFTER 27 years as a striking part of the Broadbeach landscape, the monorail track is vanishing from its lofty location over the Gold Coast Highway.

Workers were this week seen cutting and moving the 12m high track in sections from west to east, after the section near The Star was taken away earlier this year.

The Gold Coast monorail track is being taken down at Broadbeach. Photo: Steve Holland

At that end, where the casino is in the midst of a $850 million redevelopment, the former Jupiters monorail station will be replaced by a multi-level sports theatre, next to the Gold Coast Bulletin Centenary Park, which is also set to receive a $1 million upgrade.

Across the highway the Oasis Shopping Centre is also mid-makeover, with owners Abacus Property Group attracting new shops, restaurants and bathrooms, a redesigned interior and a carpark redesign as part of a $25 million overhaul.

The Broadbeach Monorail being pulled down. Image by Kathy Grimaldi

Part of the track yet to be removed. Photo: Steve Holland

The long-disused monorail station on the far eastern side of the complex will be used for office space as well as to create food and dining outlets that will overlook the intersection of Victoria Ave and Surf Parade.

The monorail was launched in August 1989 as the “Oasis Skylink”, and proved to be a big hit with shoppers and tourists through the early 1990s.

Back then, Oasis’ managers and the courts were frustrated by the number of people who jumped onto the tracks and tried to walk to the casino.

The monorail ran from Oasis to Jupiters. Photo: Russell Shakespeare

By 2001, the push was on the extend the monorail, with then-councillor Eddy Sarroff lobbying for connections to the new Gold Coast Convention Centre and Pacific Fair.

The centre’s then-owner, Thakral Holdings spent the early 2000s in talks with Pacific Fair owner AMP about the viability of an extension but this proved impossible.

An artist impression of proposed Gold Coast Monorail in April 1986

The monorail that featured in an episode of the animated TV program 'The Simpsons' was probably not inspired by the Broadbeach monorail