Monorail Expansion

[Club33Hopeful]

Here is some promising news:

http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/News. ... chor215158

Disneyland refurbishment (8/21/05)
Anaheim, California. Closed since 1998, the once-popular Disneyland Submarine Voyage is being rebuilt to reopen as "Finding Nemo Submarine Adventure" in 2007. The lagoon has been drained and is currently being prepared for the new attraction. The Disneyland Monorail has cruised over the submarine lagoon since both attractions opened in June of 1959. According to Disney fansite Mouseplanet.com, the Disneyland Monorail will be closed for as much as a year starting in January 2006. The closure has not been officially announced by the Disney Company yet, but indications are that the system will go through a complete refurbishment. The track may get a similar treatment that monorail track over the former parking lot got when Disney's California Adventure (DCA) theme park was being built. Track was removed by crane, tested, refurbished and put back into place in the DCA area. While the bodies of the current Mark V trains were added in the late 1980s, the framework and undercarriages of the trains date back to the Mark III series introduced in 1968 (see picture). Last year Monorail Orange was totally rebuilt offsite and reverse engineered in preparation of a possible new fleet of trains. Will Mark VII trains be part of the refurbishment? And if so, what will the design of the trains look like? Will they sport a retro "rocketship with fins" look like Imagineer Bob Gurr's original Mark I, II and IIIs? More questions than answers at this point.

[vfxpro]

Sounds hopefull to me. I can't think positive about the company right now. My friend and I were detained for over 2 hours today because we video taped the monorail. They accused us of possible terrorist acts and illegally searched us. Disney has already admitted fault and is trying not to get sued right now. Channel 9 news is very interested in this and so is my lawyer.

[Club33Hopeful]

Are WDW monorail pilots in a union?

[Club33Hopeful]

Here are some pages that have good information and cool pictures of various monorails:

Tires for the Vegas Monorail:
http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/TPMVItires.html

Various tech pages for Disney's Monorail:
http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/TPDisney.html

[GoofyInOhio]

Sounds hopefull to me. I can't think positive about the company right now. My friend and I were detained for over 2 hours today because we video taped the monorail. They accused us of possible terrorist acts and illegally searched us. Disney has already admitted fault and is trying not to get sued right now. Channel 9 news is very interested in this and so is my lawyer.

That's awful. The problem is the threat is there and I'm sure that's a possible site. Sounds hopeful to me as well.

[EPCOTMonorail]

OK - I've just had to catch up on 8 months of posts, so I apologize if I miss a discussion on what I'm about to bring up.

First, let me say I'm a huge monorail fan. I think it certainly should be expanded. Now, let me play devil's advocate: how much flexibility is there with busses and with monorails? The trains are stuck to a set path and limited by the number of beams and spacing required between trains. Busses can take different routes and respond quicker to capacity demands by adding busses, changing stops, destinations, etc. Unlike a traditional railroad train, you can't add cars to a monorail.

The monorail works well moving large numbers of people going to the same place. Unfortunately Disney is very spread out and not everyone is going to the same destination. Therefore a balanced transportation network is needed. That network will include a large number of busses to reach all the out-of-the-way places and smaller destinations.

I'd like to see a hub-and-spoke monorail system tied into a central TTC. "Change here for monorail connections to EPCOT, MGM, Animal Kingdom, Downtown Disney and the West Side. Bus transportation available to all Disney World Resorts and water parks."

Even with a central TTC you'd still need bus transportation directly to/from the theme parks to destinations much closer than the TTC.

[vfxpro]

Your spoke method works, just replace buses with wedway vehicles and you have what Uncle Walt intended decades ago.

[G2-4T]

Exactly! High capacity monorail lines for high cap routes - more direct service by lower capacity [and lower operating cost] lines with the wedway and you're in business.

Good points as the evil bus advocate [btw - gotta love the name...]. As for flexibility, no doubt some buses will forever be needed but if done right, switches can be in place to bypass stalled trains, convienenty placed yards [not behind MK] can be used to hold trains in the off peak and to dispatch when needed, and trains can be run in pairs if done properly. These weren't created for that but new ones could be - however platform length soon would be an issue. Yet with the modern signal advances they can run very close together if the right systems were used - NYC MTA runs trains on under 1 minute headways on certain lines in the rush. With that speed they could clear even the worst crowds out of any monorail station quickly...

Those are often the same things we see with anti-rail folks everywhere. One extra point for rail - you pretty much know where it is going. Unlike a bus, it can't take random turns and your driver can't get lost

[vfxpro]

Best yet Monorails and WedWays don't crash into tourist vehicles. Wedways have a 99.8% uptime, Monorails used to have a 90%+ uptime, but they require far more maintenance. WedWays pay for themselves. Heck you could put solar panels on top of the tracks and say you are riding on sunshine again.. Imagine that, Disney being innovative and forward thinking.. Hmmm.. Reminds me of a time...

[swarlock]

I would hope to see it in my lifetime. Trekking from bus is fine but it's so much nicer by monorail. 8)

[G2-4T]

Best yet Monorails and WedWays don't crash into tourist vehicles. Wedways have a 99.8% uptime, Monorails used to have a 90%+ uptime, but they require far more maintenance. WedWays pay for themselves. Heck you could put solar panels on top of the tracks and say you are riding on sunshine again.. Imagine that, Disney being innovative and forward thinking.. Hmmm.. Reminds me of a time...

Stop that, you're depressing me... It all makes too much sense, therefore it is a bad thing according to the people in charge. That seems to be the way with all mass transit - "if it makes obvious sense there must be something wrong". Sigh, hopefully some new heads will appear with some new, more Disney-like ideas.

[js3901]

isn't it this way in ANY company in America/the world today? Things that actually make sense are not implemented due to the fact that they actually make sense. The cop out is it would be too cost prohibitive to implement. Not looking at the bigger picture, the long run. Just the short term. "what does it do for ME, and my POCKETBOOK right now?" sigh... corporate America...

[RiaLucia]

My favorite thing to do (other than speed) is to go through the contemporary and yell at Chip and Dale. Every time they are down at Chef Mickey's I open up my window and yell "Squirrels!" They respond by waiving their fists at me.

That is just about the funniest thing I've heard a CM do, ever! (And I work at WDW, so I get plenty of stories.)

[RiaLucia]

Even though I just posted above, I figure I'd weigh in and echo many sentiments from above.

As a cast member, I am very familiar with all the anemities Disney has to offer, like transportation options. It's one of the greatest perks of staying onsite, which is why when I or my family/friends vacation here, I encourage staying on property (with my discount, of course).

I recently had a long weekend in which my mother came down to visit and we stayed at the Pop Century. We took every kind of transportation available (bus, boat, monorail, even my car in one case), and by far the most pleasant experiences we would have was on monorail.

The buses place strain on the roads and on its passengers. Even in this comparatively slow season, when we waited for a bus after park close, we often stood in line as 3 or 4 buses came and went for loads of people. The line usually extended back to two bus stops over. I don't even want to think of what it was like getting out of a park and taking a bus back to a resort in the peak summer times.

I agree that buses are more flexible in the way of routes and will always be needed, to some extent. Cast members use them backstage, for one. And in general, Disney bus drivers are some of the most consistently pleasant cast members I come across. I especially enjoy it when they will give obscure little facts about WDW or ask trivia questions, or even just warn us when the lights are about to come on when it's late at night. Putting dedicated CMs out of those jobs would be an unfortunate side effect, particularly if they don't want to go into another role.

But ultimately, expanding and upgrading the monorail just makes more sense in the long term. Yes, it would be immensely costly and inconveniencing to guests to a degree during the construction...but if there is an option that is simply the best overall--why on earth wouldn't you make it a higher priority to move it into action? I know we've gone through reasons why, though.

Seriously, though, what's going to happen in 5 years when no improvements have been made? Can the status quo last indefinitely?

[vfxpro]

Who knows.. Bob Iger may change all of this.. He may not. I know Eisner hated everything that Uncle Walt was passionate about, lets see what Bob will do for WDW.