I think I've become obsessed with monorails! It is unsettling to me that monorail - an icon on WDW so recognized worldwide like the MK castle or EPCOT's geophere - is getting less love by Disney management than the buses do! EPCOT to DTD or DHS is such a short and INEXPENSIVE run to build that it's just frustrating when you hear excuses for it not getting built. I've become obsessed in trying to get a hold of some real studies and plans for the new routes because mistakes of the past can always be corrected (ala DCA). So, I believe these plans were real and Disney plans on fixing past mistakes over the next ten years, monorail has to be a project currently in back burner.
I've made some progress with my research:
- I've gotten a hold of the 1992 plan to build a monorail from EPCOT, around the EPCOT resorts, to DHS. It's a very short, efficient route that looks like the land it cuts through were always planned to use it. Apparently, Eisner decided not to invest in it because it didn't generate revenue, not because it was too expensive, as rumors have said persistently with authority over the years.
When Walt Disney built Disneyland, his brother Roy (who had always been the company's CEO, while Walt was the president) would not finance the monorail there either, using excuses similar to Eisner's). Walt, then, started WEDway Enterprises to build, own and operate the DL monorail. They also owned the MK WEDway PeopleMover at DL, the DL RR, the cable cars, and the Main Street Trolly system. Roy was wrong and all these transporation systems WEDway Enterprises owned turned a huge profit. Eventually, the Disney company would buy WEDway Enterprises from Walt and his family and merge it into the Walt Disney Company.
- I also, FINALLY, got a hold of the original blueprints of EPCOT Center. It shows exactly where the DTD route would have followed through EPCOT. We have known that it would have cut through between Horizons and UoE, but the exact alignment (which foundations were actually poured during EPCOT Center construction) had not been known. The blueprints show the line running in a STRAIGHT line parallel above the cast member parking lot and right under the Imagineering building. This alignment matches perfectly the line the squares that could be seen in an aerial view, not the big rectangular shape that could be seen behind the former Health pavilion, as was thought to be a monorail foundation previously.
- In a recent interview with the new head of transportation systems at WDW said that 2.5 years, the monorail system will be upgraded with new cars and with automation. This is very telling. Before any new lines are built, conversion of the old manual system to an automated one must first be completed. Since we now know that the plan is to do this work in the next 2.5 years, it's only logical that the expansion buildout will follow. This doesn't mean that construction will happen immediately after because engineering work must be done first, which could take a couple of years.
Folks, I think it's actually gonna happen! (Fingers crossed)
I've made some progress with my research:
- I've gotten a hold of the 1992 plan to build a monorail from EPCOT, around the EPCOT resorts, to DHS. It's a very short, efficient route that looks like the land it cuts through were always planned to use it. Apparently, Eisner decided not to invest in it because it didn't generate revenue, not because it was too expensive, as rumors have said persistently with authority over the years.
When Walt Disney built Disneyland, his brother Roy (who had always been the company's CEO, while Walt was the president) would not finance the monorail there either, using excuses similar to Eisner's). Walt, then, started WEDway Enterprises to build, own and operate the DL monorail. They also owned the MK WEDway PeopleMover at DL, the DL RR, the cable cars, and the Main Street Trolly system. Roy was wrong and all these transporation systems WEDway Enterprises owned turned a huge profit. Eventually, the Disney company would buy WEDway Enterprises from Walt and his family and merge it into the Walt Disney Company.
- I also, FINALLY, got a hold of the original blueprints of EPCOT Center. It shows exactly where the DTD route would have followed through EPCOT. We have known that it would have cut through between Horizons and UoE, but the exact alignment (which foundations were actually poured during EPCOT Center construction) had not been known. The blueprints show the line running in a STRAIGHT line parallel above the cast member parking lot and right under the Imagineering building. This alignment matches perfectly the line the squares that could be seen in an aerial view, not the big rectangular shape that could be seen behind the former Health pavilion, as was thought to be a monorail foundation previously.
- In a recent interview with the new head of transportation systems at WDW said that 2.5 years, the monorail system will be upgraded with new cars and with automation. This is very telling. Before any new lines are built, conversion of the old manual system to an automated one must first be completed. Since we now know that the plan is to do this work in the next 2.5 years, it's only logical that the expansion buildout will follow. This doesn't mean that construction will happen immediately after because engineering work must be done first, which could take a couple of years.
Folks, I think it's actually gonna happen! (Fingers crossed)