What is Monorail Cat?

Monorail Cat is a lolcat image macro showing a cat sitting on a narrow surface with its legs tucked underneath, making it look like a monorail train on a track[5]. Captions treat the cat as an actual transit vehicle[5].

Where did Monorail Cat come from?

The meme first appeared on the Catmas blog on November 2, 2006[2]. Catmas was a small web blog dedicated to posting cat photos, started in 2003[1].

What does Monorail Cat mean?

It's a visual joke comparing the shape of a cat with tucked legs on a ledge to a monorail train gliding along a rail[3]. The captions play up this comparison with fake transit announcements[5].

How do you use Monorail Cat?

Photograph a cat on a railing or narrow surface with paws tucked in, then add a caption treating it as a monorail system. Common formats include service updates like "Monorail cat has left the station"[5].

Is Monorail Cat still popular?

Monorail Cat is a classic mid-2000s meme. Its peak was during the lolcat era of 2006-2009, though it saw a notable revival on Japanese Twitter in late 2017[6].

What is the "monorail style" cat position?

It's when a cat lies with all four paws tucked under its body and its head resting forward, creating a smooth, train-like silhouette[5]. Cat owners specifically sought out this pose for photos on ledges and railings[3].

Is Monorail Cat in any video games?

Yes. Monorail Cat appears as a hidden spawnable object in the Scribblenauts game series, depicted as a limbless Somali cat that can move and fight despite having no legs[3].

When did Monorail Cat go viral in Japan?

In late 2017, a Japanese Twitter user posted the Monorail Cat image and it spread rapidly across the Japanese side of Twitter, with Twitter Japan creating a Moments feature about its return[6].

What is the connection between Monorail Cat and Caturday?

Caturday was a 4chan /b/ board tradition of posting cat images every Saturday, running since 2005[4]. Monorail Cat was one of the standout images shared during these threads and gained wider visibility through them[6].

Monorail Cat

2006Image macro / lolcatclassic

Published March 31, 2026

Monorail Cat is a lolcat-era image macro featuring photos of cats sitting on narrow surfaces with their legs tucked beneath them, making them look like monorail trains gliding along a track. The meme originated in November 2006 on the Catmas blog and quickly spread through 4chan's Caturday threads, YTMND, and I Can Has Cheezburger2. It's one of the most recognizable cat memes from the mid-2000s lolcat golden age, and it saw a surprise second life when it went viral on Japanese Twitter in late 20176.

lolcat memes cats image macro memes 4chan memes cheezburger network memes

Overview

The format is dead simple: a cat lies flat on a narrow surface with its legs tucked underneath, so from the side it looks like a fuzzy train riding a rail. The original photo caught a cat draped over the metal frame of a wall mirror, and the visual joke reads instantly because the cat's silhouette matches the profile of a real monorail car1.

Over the years the setup expanded to banisters, stair rails, fence posts and thin ledges, with captions like "Monorail cat has left the station" cementing the train-schedule tone2. Animated GIF edits added motion, sliding the cat along the frame or letting it "derail" for a punchline3. The joke works because the pose is common but the framing rewrites it, which is why the format kept coming back in fresh photo submissions rather than dying with one specific image.

Origin & Background

Platform

Catmas blog (source photo), 4chan /b/ (viral spread)

Creator

Unknown

Date

2006

The earliest known posting of Monorail Cat appeared on November 2, 2006, on the Catmas blog2. Catmas was a niche web blog started in 2003 by a blogger named Ross, who declared that the first Friday of every October should be dedicated to posting cat pictures on blogs1. The site operated at catmas.com, a domain that had originally been used as an example name in Tucows documentation before being turned into an actual cat celebration site1.

The specific identity of the person who photographed or submitted the original Monorail Cat image is unknown. The Catmas post simply presented the image after a period without new content, noting "it's been a while since we've posted a cat picture, but we're back"2.

How It Spread

From Catmas, the image migrated to 4chan's /b/ board, where it fit perfectly into the Caturday tradition. Caturday, the practice of flooding the board with cat images every Saturday, had been running since early 2005 and was one of the key engines behind the entire lolcat movement4. Monorail Cat became a staple of these threads6.

The meme's next major stop was YTMND, where users created multiple sites featuring the image with looping audio and animations6. It also spread to I Can Has Cheezburger, the lolcat aggregation site that launched in January 2007 and turned captioned cat photos into a mainstream phenomenon4. By the late 2000s, Monorail Cat had become one of the best-known examples of the image macro cat format, alongside Ceiling Cat, Longcat, and Basement Cat6.

People didn't just share the original image. The concept spawned an entire genre: cat owners began photographing their own pets in "monorail style" positions on railings, ledges, armrests, and any narrow surface that could serve as a convincing track3. The game Scribblenauts included a Monorail Cat as a hidden object, depicting it as a small Somali cat with no arms or legs that moved surprisingly fast despite having no limbs3.

In late 2017, the meme experienced an unexpected revival in Japan. A Japanese Twitter user posted the image with a caption, and it immediately blew up across Japanese Twitter6. Similar monorail-style cat photos flooded the platform, and Twitter Japan created a "Twitter Moments" feature about the meme's return6. The Japanese revival demonstrated how old Western internet memes could find entirely new audiences in different language spheres years after their original peak.

How to Use This Meme

To make one, you typically find a cat already loafed on a thin edge, a banister, a stair rail, the top of a mirror or a fence post, then shoot from the side so the cat's tucked legs disappear and its body reads as a train car. A common convention is to add a train-themed caption in the "Monorail cat has left the station" style, or to pair the photo with an image of an actual monorail for direct visual comparison6.

Frequently Asked Questions

References (7)

1
Monorail Cat - Scribblepediaarticle
2
Monorail Cat - Encyclopedia Dramaticaarticle
3
Scribblenauts Easter Egg - Weird Words, Developers, and Things to Do!article
4
Lolcatencyclopedia
5
Monorail Cat - Urban Dictionarydictionary
6
Catmasarticle
7
Monorail Cat :: Catmasarticle