Large Piece Falls off Monorail - Being Evacuated

monykalyn

Well-Known Member
Well I'll give you a hypothetical, and this is based on an actual incident that happened similar to this one in the past. Let's say this piece falls off the monorail. What's not known is another piece is left hanging. As the monorail crosses the TTC parking lot this piece is lodged between the beam and bus bar and begins ripping the bus bar from the beam sending it down on people below in the parking lot. Now someone could potentially be killed, but is that really worth tying up a 911 operators time who could in turn potentially stop it from happening?
Precisely, the higher the reliability of a system the more effective its maintenance plan is, its why some airlines do 'routine' maintenance like filter changes on the ramp when due.

Sure you could push the filter for a few more hours but if it plugs then you have an aircraft down and need a replacement plus accomodating PAX so why not do it right and save the headaches
First the FAA has to CATCH the airline doing stuff like 'Paper Maintenance' and thats hard when you have underpaid inspectors who have been at one airline a long time, sometimes the airline 'social engineers' the inspector and avoids at all cost pushing their buttons. Then you have the more corrupt who are offered a cushy job post govt retirement.
Just wondering g if you ever leave home? I mean why bother? Everything is a deathtrap waiting to happen because there is not a single employee anywhere with an ounce of integrity left to do a proper job. Right?
 

King Racoon 77

Thank you sir. You were an inspiration.
Premium Member
Just wondering g if you ever leave home? I mean why bother? Everything is a deathtrap waiting to happen because there is not a single employee anywhere with an ounce of integrity left to do a proper job. Right?
Its ok he has one of these.
download (3).jpg
 

s8film40

Well-Known Member
Just wondering g if you ever leave home? I mean why bother? Everything is a deathtrap waiting to happen because there is not a single employee anywhere with an ounce of integrity left to do a proper job. Right?
Driving a car is still the most dangerous part of leaving home, you have to live your life though and accept reasonable risks. There's always room for improvement though and it's a little sad sometimes to see someone get hurt or worse lose their life, especially when you could see the circumstances building.
 

Brad Bishop

Well-Known Member
Driving a car is still the most dangerous part of leaving home, you have to live your life though and accept reasonable risks. There's always room for improvement though and it's a little sad sometimes to see someone get hurt or worse lose their life, especially when you could see the circumstances building.

If you want to freak yourself out a little bit, get on YouTube and search for some of those dashcam compilations. Between people not paying attention, to the road rage, to drunk driving, to people appearing to just fall asleep. Some of it happens so fast that there's no way you could have avoided it.
 

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
Just wondering g if you ever leave home? I mean why bother? Everything is a deathtrap waiting to happen because there is not a single employee anywhere with an ounce of integrity left to do a proper job. Right?

Well here's one for preventive maintenance i ride a full suspension mountain bike and i ride it hard. It goes in 2x year for inspection and maintenance. This trip shop discovered a crack in the rear swingarm turns out this is a known problem and dealers were supplied tools to find the cracks before they were visible to naked eye. Dealer is replacing part bike is 10 years old but regular PREVENTATIVE maintenance keeps it safe and yes it costs MONEY for those inspections. But i would have not found the failure if i did not practice what i preach

I spend EVERY working day on root cause analysis of engineering failures and how to prevent them in the future. I have a great deal of expertise in how things break and the human factors in engineering failures.

Every time something breaks its an opportunity to learn WHY it broke and how to prevent it in the future.

So no i dont worry about everything but there are airlines i will not fly and products i will not buy or allow in my home and im pretty good at sizing up equipment by merely looking.
 

Brad Bishop

Well-Known Member
Well here's one for preventive maintenance i ride a full suspension mountain bike and i ride it hard. It goes in 2x year for inspection and maintenance. This trip shop discovered a crack in the rear swingarm turns out this is a known problem and dealers were supplied tools to find the cracks before they were visible to naked eye. Dealer is replacing part bike is 10 years old but regular PREVENTATIVE maintenance keeps it safe and yes it costs MONEY for those inspections. But i would have not found the failure if i did not practice what i preach

A lot of it is just keeping things in good working order. I saw this with my daughter, years back. She bought a car and something went wrong with it and rather than fix it she let it go. Then something else went wrong. Then another thing. You get the idea. Eventually the car wouldn't run and, because there was so much wrong with it it wasn't worth fixing. She got a bunch of relatives to bail her out (I stayed out of it - keep up with your stuff was my thought) and they spent more fixing everything than the car was worth, which made no sense.

It's an interesting situation, though. My car is paid off and when things break I just fix them. I don't let it go. I don't want to be in that situation where I'm thinking, "Huh.. there are 10 things wrong with it and to fix them all would cost more than it's worth.. May as well buy another car.." At the same time, by doing this, the car ends up being worth more to me than anyone else. It's nearly free transportation (I have to fix things, maintenance, etc. - cheaper than a car payment, though). If someone were to run into me and total my car what I would get for my car would be less than what it's worth to me (they'd look at the mileage, model, make, year, and quote me some price and give me that money and I'd have a hard time finding such a well-maintained car for the price).

So, it sort of works both ways. You could argue that it makes no sense to keep my car in good working order because, if I flipped it tomorrow, I'd be back and nearly square one.

However, it provides reliable transportation and that wreck hopefully won't happen. In addition, I enjoy the car. The A/C is great (replaced parts of it last year), it runs well, no leaks. It's a great car (coming up on 9 years).

My daughter's car, though, was a piece of junk because she didn't take care of it. You didn't need a wreck to total it as she did that all on her own (the cost to fix it was more than the value of the car).

As such, you can see how this would play into theme park rides or other equipment. If you try to cut corners on something and do it long enough eventually you get to the point where it's really hard to justify fixing it vs a well-maintained whatever just needing a tweak or a new part from time to time (you've already absorbed the on-going maintenance costs so fixing an odd thing isn't a big deal).
 

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
A lot of it is just keeping things in good working order. I saw this with my daughter, years back. She bought a car and something went wrong with it and rather than fix it she let it go. Then something else went wrong. Then another thing. You get the idea. Eventually the car wouldn't run and, because there was so much wrong with it it wasn't worth fixing. She got a bunch of relatives to bail her out (I stayed out of it - keep up with your stuff was my thought) and they spent more fixing everything than the car was worth, which made no sense.

It's an interesting situation, though. My car is paid off and when things break I just fix them. I don't let it go. I don't want to be in that situation where I'm thinking, "Huh.. there are 10 things wrong with it and to fix them all would cost more than it's worth.. May as well buy another car.." At the same time, by doing this, the car ends up being worth more to me than anyone else. It's nearly free transportation (I have to fix things, maintenance, etc. - cheaper than a car payment, though). If someone were to run into me and total my car what I would get for my car would be less than what it's worth to me (they'd look at the mileage, model, make, year, and quote me some price and give me that money and I'd have a hard time finding such a well-maintained car for the price).

So, it sort of works both ways. You could argue that it makes no sense to keep my car in good working order because, if I flipped it tomorrow, I'd be back and nearly square one.

However, it provides reliable transportation and that wreck hopefully won't happen. In addition, I enjoy the car. The A/C is great (replaced parts of it last year), it runs well, no leaks. It's a great car (coming up on 9 years).

My daughter's car, though, was a piece of junk because she didn't take care of it. You didn't need a wreck to total it as she did that all on her own (the cost to fix it was more than the value of the car).

As such, you can see how this would play into theme park rides or other equipment. If you try to cut corners on something and do it long enough eventually you get to the point where it's really hard to justify fixing it vs a well-maintained whatever just needing a tweak or a new part from time to time (you've already absorbed the on-going maintenance costs so fixing an odd thing isn't a big deal).

Exactly
A lot of it is just keeping things in good working order. I saw this with my daughter, years back. She bought a car and something went wrong with it and rather than fix it she let it go. Then something else went wrong. Then another thing. You get the idea. Eventually the car wouldn't run and, because there was so much wrong with it it wasn't worth fixing. She got a bunch of relatives to bail her out (I stayed out of it - keep up with your stuff was my thought) and they spent more fixing everything than the car was worth, which made no sense.

It's an interesting situation, though. My car is paid off and when things break I just fix them. I don't let it go. I don't want to be in that situation where I'm thinking, "Huh.. there are 10 things wrong with it and to fix them all would cost more than it's worth.. May as well buy another car.." At the same time, by doing this, the car ends up being worth more to me than anyone else. It's nearly free transportation (I have to fix things, maintenance, etc. - cheaper than a car payment, though). If someone were to run into me and total my car what I would get for my car would be less than what it's worth to me (they'd look at the mileage, model, make, year, and quote me some price and give me that money and I'd have a hard time finding such a well-maintained car for the price).

So, it sort of works both ways. You could argue that it makes no sense to keep my car in good working order because, if I flipped it tomorrow, I'd be back and nearly square one.

However, it provides reliable transportation and that wreck hopefully won't happen. In addition, I enjoy the car. The A/C is great (replaced parts of it last year), it runs well, no leaks. It's a great car (coming up on 9 years).

My daughter's car, though, was a piece of junk because she didn't take care of it. You didn't need a wreck to total it as she did that all on her own (the cost to fix it was more than the value of the car).

As such, you can see how this would play into theme park rides or other equipment. If you try to cut corners on something and do it long enough eventually you get to the point where it's really hard to justify fixing it vs a well-maintained whatever just needing a tweak or a new part from time to time (you've already absorbed the on-going maintenance costs so fixing an odd thing isn't a big deal).


Your daughters car perfectly describes the 'deferred maintenance trap' that many companies fall into by deferribg maintenance on capital equipment until a major failure in many cases it puts the company out of business because they cannot get funding for the repairs or replacements.

I do similar things with my cars on my truck ive customized it enough that it qualifies for 'stated value' insurance where we agree on a fixed value and im on the hook for periodic inspection and maintaining vehicle to standard
 

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
A lot of it is just keeping things in good working order. I saw this with my daughter, years back. She bought a car and something went wrong with it and rather than fix it she let it go. Then something else went wrong. Then another thing. You get the idea. Eventually the car wouldn't run and, because there was so much wrong with it it wasn't worth fixing. She got a bunch of relatives to bail her out (I stayed out of it - keep up with your stuff was my thought) and they spent more fixing everything than the car was worth, which made no sense.

It's an interesting situation, though. My car is paid off and when things break I just fix them. I don't let it go. I don't want to be in that situation where I'm thinking, "Huh.. there are 10 things wrong with it and to fix them all would cost more than it's worth.. May as well buy another car.." At the same time, by doing this, the car ends up being worth more to me than anyone else. It's nearly free transportation (I have to fix things, maintenance, etc. - cheaper than a car payment, though). If someone were to run into me and total my car what I would get for my car would be less than what it's worth to me (they'd look at the mileage, model, make, year, and quote me some price and give me that money and I'd have a hard time finding such a well-maintained car for the price).

So, it sort of works both ways. You could argue that it makes no sense to keep my car in good working order because, if I flipped it tomorrow, I'd be back and nearly square one.

However, it provides reliable transportation and that wreck hopefully won't happen. In addition, I enjoy the car. The A/C is great (replaced parts of it last year), it runs well, no leaks. It's a great car (coming up on 9 years).

My daughter's car, though, was a piece of junk because she didn't take care of it. You didn't need a wreck to total it as she did that all on her own (the cost to fix it was more than the value of the car).

As such, you can see how this would play into theme park rides or other equipment. If you try to cut corners on something and do it long enough eventually you get to the point where it's really hard to justify fixing it vs a well-maintained whatever just needing a tweak or a new part from time to time (you've already absorbed the on-going maintenance costs so fixing an odd thing isn't a big deal).
Love your car analogy. You should only replace the car when monthly repair bills and down time exceed the monthly payment on a new car.
 

Cesar R M

Well-Known Member
This is not true. Magical Express Buses and DCL buses are owned and operated by MEARS. Those buses do have the MEARS name on them. MEARS has nothing to do with the actual WDW bus systems. The Disney transport buses are not affiliated with MEARS and do not feature MEARS name or logo anywhere. All Disney transport buses are owned ( or occasionally leased) by Disney.
So, those Disney buses with the (MEARS marking) that I went on many times have been then "leased"?

I'm not talking about the Magical Express (and never been on the DCL ones)
 

peter11435

Well-Known Member
So, those Disney buses with the (MEARS marking) that I went on many times have been then "leased"?

I'm not talking about the Magical Express (and never been on the DCL ones)
There are no Disney transport buses with MEARS markings. Magical Exprrss and DCL are operated by MEARS. Disney transport is entirely owned and operated by Disney and those buses do not have any MEARS logos. Ocassionaly during periods of peak demand Disney will hire charted buses to run some routes. Usually plain white coach style buses often from MEARS.
 

Cesar R M

Well-Known Member
The FAA will ground the airline's fleet if they don't maintain the aircraft as prescribed by both the manufacturer and FAA
Oh I understand that, I'm just mentioned that there has been times that pressure from the airlines have made FAA not enforce "recommendations" or airworthy directives a few times in the past. I did show an example of such before.

Just how some autocars used to push their force and prefer to pay indemnifications than recall entire fleets.

Now since the news travel so fast.. noone would dare to ignore these errors or recalls. Because a group of outraged people on the internet, can now damage your stock severely.
 
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Cesar R M

Well-Known Member
First the FAA has to CATCH the airline doing stuff like 'Paper Maintenance' and thats hard when you have underpaid inspectors who have been at one airline a long time, sometimes the airline 'social engineers' the inspector and avoids at all cost pushing their buttons. Then you have the more corrupt who are offered a cushy job post govt retirement.
Agree, Not to mention when they do maintenance in the improper ways.



Think of both CONTINENTAL and AMERICAN AIRLINES using forklifts to dismount the pylons AND the engines in a single go when there was more steps. This resulted in cracks in the wings and pylon structure.. causing one of the most visible crashes of all time (American Airlines flight 191)

Heres a nice website that shows the "paper" or "improper" maintenance that has lead to huge damage.
https://www.fiixsoftware.com/blog/poor-maintenance-cost-lives/
 

Cesar R M

Well-Known Member
Ocassionaly during periods of peak demand Disney will hire charted buses to run some routes. Usually plain white coach style buses often from MEARS.
January 1-4 of 2015. Was at Disney (Old Key West), and I could swear there were Disney buses with the "service provided by MEARS" logo in the back (in medium sized letters) and near the front door. and No, I'm not talking about Disney Magical Express or DCL, those look way different from the Disney park ones.
Could these have been leased? I honestly did not see any white coaches of MEARS other than those that said "chartered" (probably conventions).
 

peter11435

Well-Known Member
January 1-4 of 2015. Was at Disney (Old Key West), and I could swear there were Disney buses with the "service provided by MEARS" logo in the back (in medium sized letters) and near the front door. and No, I'm not talking about Disney Magical Express or DCL, those look way different from the Disney park ones.
Could these have been leased? I honestly did not see any white coaches of MEARS other than those that said "chartered" (probably conventions).
If the bus had the Disney transport logo on the side then it did not have any mears marking.

As for some Disney transport buses being leased, even those do not feature any MEARS marking. Mears has nothing to do with those either.
 

s8film40

Well-Known Member
January 1-4 of 2015. Was at Disney (Old Key West), and I could swear there were Disney buses with the "service provided by MEARS" logo in the back (in medium sized letters) and near the front door. and No, I'm not talking about Disney Magical Express or DCL, those look way different from the Disney park ones.
Could these have been leased? I honestly did not see any white coaches of MEARS other than those that said "chartered" (probably conventions).
Disney does contract Mears to supplement their bus fleet during peak times. January 1st would likely be one of those times and they do have busses other than the DME or DCL they use for that.
If the bus had the Disney transport logo on the side then it did not have any mears marking.
There actually is or at least was a very small number of Mears busses with the Disney Transport logo.
 

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
First the FAA has to CATCH the airline doing stuff like 'Paper Maintenance' and thats hard when you have underpaid inspectors who have been at one airline a long time, sometimes the airline 'social engineers' the inspector and avoids at all cost pushing their buttons. Then you have the more corrupt who are offered a cushy job post govt retirement.

I used to work for one of the three major US-based airlines. The potential costs associated with any kind of shoddy maintenance catching up to them FAR outweigh any perceived cost savings. Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul business is a big money maker when you have the people and facilities to do them. The one US airline that I used to know rather well does a lot of Airbus MRO and it generates hundreds of millions in revenue each year. The same principle applies here - Deferred maintenance will only wind up costing more down the line, so putting it off in the interest of "short term profits" will hurt them in the long run.
 

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
Disney does contract Mears to supplement their bus fleet during peak times. January 1st would likely be one of those times and they do have busses other than the DME or DCL they use for that.

There actually is or at least was a very small number of Mears busses with the Disney Transport logo.

Marathon weekends are usually another time when Mears is contracted by Disney to supplement their bus fleet.
 

Raineman

Well-Known Member
I just wanted to chime in on the discussion about preventative maintenance. I have been working in Quality management in manufacturing for quite a few years now, and I am almost positive both Disney parks in the US would be accredited to at least 9 or 10 of the major international quality standards, ie ISO-9001, TS-16949-there are dozens of them. A major part of some of these standards is an adequate PM system, and with the new IATF standard replacing the TS standard this year, the new requirements for a total productive maintenance system have increased. Any argument that says Disney isn't doing any PMs cause they don't want to pay for them is not necessarily true-they have to prove to an auditor every year that their PM system in place is good enough, and that they have been doing what their system says has to be done. Now, might they be recording PM results but not actually doing them? Possibly, I have seen it myself in manufacturing. However, if they record PMs that were not done, and a major incident occurs as a result of the PMs not being done, that is a major non-conformance on their next audit (in addition to lawsuits, negative press, etc), which would cause them to lose certification, and not be able to keep doing business in whatever area the certification covers. I'm not saying the recent issue was a result of negligent PMs, but I would think WDW is doing enough in the preventative maintenance department to satisfy requirements, but possibly nothing beyond that.
 

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