HOLLY, MI — Concluding that student drop-off lines had exceeded the limits of conventional surface transportation, Holly Area Schools officials announced Friday that the district’s 2026 bond proposal would fund a monorail connecting every school to a central terminal at the Detroit Model Railroad Club.
Under the proposal, parents would deliver all students to the downtown transit center each morning, where trains departing every 10 minutes would carry them to their respective buildings along the Patterson Line, Rose Pioneer Line, and Broncho Express.
Administrators said the elevated rail network emerged as the most practical solution after traffic consultants determined the district had already exhausted painted arrows, orange cones, pleading emails, and adults standing in parking lots pointing urgently at open spaces.
Members of the Detroit Model Railroad Club welcomed the announcement with the restrained professionalism of people who had spent several decades preparing for someone to finally ask them this exact question. Before the district presentation had concluded, the club had produced a 400-page operating schedule, three proposed locomotive liveries, and a complete signal plan.
Several members have already volunteered to serve as conductors, dispatchers, and station managers, assuring administrators that they could have the network operational by fall provided no one from the district attempted to “simplify” the timetable.
Club officials stressed that the system would operate with the same precision as the Detroit Union Railroad, though at a considerably larger scale and with passengers who require assistance opening applesauce pouches.
District leaders expect the monorail to reduce morning congestion by removing hundreds of vehicles from school parking lots and concentrating them all onto one downtown block.