Monorail Accident

According to the Sentinel:

"The trains were transporting guests leaving Epcot Center. Six park guests were on the train during the crash, but were not injured, Griffin (Disney spokesperson) said."

It also says that the EPCOT monorail will not be in operation today, but nothing about the others.

Terrible news! Such a tragedy.

tomm4004 said:

Just curious as to how this consideration was reached? What about the discussion of safeguards?

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Since it was very late exhaustion could be a factor and maybe he fell asleep. There is always a possibility of a heart attack/seizure that incapacitated him and made it impossible for him to stop & blow thru the holding area. I'm not saying it wasn't a safty feature failure, but that my first thoughts were those above. It happens everyday in the general population, you see all the time somebody fell asleep at the wheel, and I have personally witnessed an accident caused by a person's death behind the wheel on a major highway; it was the 4th of July (a VERY busy day).

All I was saying I that I agreed with the poster I quoted and that my thoughts were the same as his as they are viable possibilities

That is such a shame!!!! This was the first thing that I saw on CNN this morning!!! My thoughts and prayers to all that were involved.

As far as I know (which isn't very far) there is a MBS/MAPO override. As mentioned earlier, the MBS/MAPO system is a computerized "moving blocklight system". The way it works is that signals are present along the track, probably sent through the same lines that the electricity for the monorails is sent. If a train is on a track at any specific point, it blocks the signals ahead of it. The monorails behind it will therefore only receive a certain number of signals, as the train ahead of it is blocking the ones ahead. I *think* that if a train starts receiving only 2 signals, it will emit an alarm to warn the driver that the train is getting too close to the one ahead of it, and if it then receives 1, it will e-stop automatically, preventing the train from getting anywhere close to the train ahead of it.

Now, I'm not sure how the override system works, but I know that the operators enable the override in order to park trains close to one another or during testing. Ever seen the kissing monorail picture? I believe they had to enable override to get that to work. With overrides though, I have no idea if overriding would make this crash possible, or if all computerized safety systems would have been disabled and let the human operator perform whatever actions desired. Only someone with more knowledge would be able to answer that.

It's sad when another cast member dies while working - and I hope this situation was not due to any controllable circumstance. I hope we can get more information about this in order to prevent it from happening in the future. And my condolences go out to the family, friends, and fellow cast who worked with the operator and any others involved in this incident.

it had to be during a mapo override while they were getting ready to switch pink to the spurline. its the only way that the train would not have made an E-stop.

AstareGod said:

As far as I know (which isn't very far) there is a MBS/MAPO override. As mentioned earlier, the MBS/MAPO system is a computerized "moving blocklight system". The way it works is that signals are present along the track, probably sent through the same lines that the electricity for the monorails is sent. If a train is on a track at any specific point, it blocks the signals ahead of it. The monorails behind it will therefore only receive a certain number of signals, as the train ahead of it is blocking the ones ahead. I *think* that if a train starts receiving only 2 signals, it will emit an alarm to warn the driver that the train is getting too close to the one ahead of it, and if it then receives 1, it will e-stop automatically, preventing the train from getting anywhere close to the train ahead of it.

Now, I'm not sure how the override system works, but I know that the operators enable the override in order to park trains close to one another or during testing. Ever seen the kissing monorail picture? I believe they had to enable override to get that to work. With overrides though, I have no idea if overriding would make this crash possible, or if all computerized safety systems would have been disabled and let the human operator perform whatever actions desired. Only someone with more knowledge would be able to answer that.

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You are absolutely correct with the MAPO system. Override does enable the pilot to take over. The only restriction is that while in override the monorail will not go above 15 miles per hour.

You'll all find out in due time what happened.

The important thing is that we lost one of our own tonight. What a horrible 4th

Timekeeper said:

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Just saw these on the net

Oh, my...

I'm really sorry to hear this terrible news, and I can understand why the monorail would not be running today for investigations to occur (the Epcot loop anyway). But most importantly, my thoughts and condolences go out to the family of the Cast Member killed, this must be a terrible time for them right now.

Is any one in WDW to confirm if all of WDW monorail system is closed:shrug:

DisneylandRRGuy said:

Is any one in WDW to confirm if all of WDW monorail system is closed:shrug:

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Someone I know who works at Adventureland/Jungle Cruise has said that there is no monorail service to Magic Kingdom ... and from previous posts I can only assume that the Epcot beam is down too. But I myself don't know for sure. I would imagine they'd have the whole system shut down just in case this was a safety system failure.

DisneylandRRGuy said:

Is any one in WDW to confirm if all of WDW monorail system is closed:shrug:

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This is latest update from the Sentinel:

"Epcot is scheduled to open on time at 9 a.m. today, but the monorail to the park will not be in service, according to a Walt Disney World spokewoman."

The omission of any reference to the MK loops would seem to indicate that they are open. Just curious - are you going to WDW today?

Just read on another board that the monorail is indeed closed today.

From the pictures, it is obvious that the trains collided outside and were then moved under cover in the station (or vice versa). How were they able to move two trains at once without pulling them apart? Anyone have a thought on this? It will also be interesting to see how Disney hides this from view today.

This is very sad.
My thoughts and prayers go to the cm's family, friends, and to the cm's who knew and worked with him.

teebin said:

From the pictures, it is obvious that the trains collided outside and were then moved under cover in the station (or vice versa). How were they able to move two trains at once without pulling them apart? Anyone have a thought on this? It will also be interesting to see how Disney hides this from view today.

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Apparently the monorails are all down today, so the TTC is probably closed, and if the monorails are still there I'm sure there's tarp covering everything.

teebin said:

From the pictures, it is obvious that the trains collided outside and were then moved under cover in the station (or vice versa). How were they able to move two trains at once without pulling them apart? Anyone have a thought on this? It will also be interesting to see how Disney hides this from view today.

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Reports I've read do not specify the exact location of the crash. But you are right in that it appears posted photos were taken at two different locations: inside the station and outside. But there is no indication of the exact times the photos were taken.