It started as a simple joke: employee Paul Cowan, working out of the Google office in the Sydney suburb of Prymont, sent a 'suggestion' to the buildings / facilities team. His idea? To install a monorail system between the two Google offices in the area, as the Sydney monorail had been closed down. 

The idea, it goes without saying, was neither feasible or serious. According to Cowan, facilities team member Alecia even responded in good humour, with a comical feasibility study that suggested the whole thing was "more of a Shelbyville idea". That, it seemed, was the end of that. Until Cowan received an instant message months later from Alecia, asking him to accompany her on a roadtrip to a scrapyard.

You can read the full story on Cowan's Google Plus page, but long story short, this week Google HQ in Australia added two whole monorail carriages to its building. They don't link offices as Cowan had requested, but instead they've been installed as new meeting spaces, and a permanent reminder of the now defunct monorail. The whole operation is estimated to have cost approximately 250,000 Australian dollars, or around €175,000.

You can watch a video of the installation below, courtesy of Brisbane Times: