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Lyle Lanley is a con artist and shyster who sold faulty monorails to several towns, including Springfield.

The "marks" in Lanley's con scheme were towns with a lot of money. Lanley would visit a town and make a sales pitch for his monorails. After the town bought the monorail, Lanley would open a monorail conductors' training school, which was really a farce and provided very little in the way of real training. At the end of the school, Lanley would either select a random student or the least qualified in the class to be the conductor (his exact decision-making method isn't known).

After the monorail was built and a conductor selected, Lanley would set up a huge opening ceremony with a celebrity presiding, then leave (with the town's money) while everyone's attention was focused on the opening ceremony and the celebrity. The monorial, due to shoddy materials, would typically crash on its first run, causing loss of life and extensive property damage, and leaving the town financially ruined. Meanwhile, Lanley would be living it up on a resort vacation—bought and paid for with the "mark" town's money.