News Monorail Red in motion with guests on board and doors open

Monorail_Red_77

Monorail_Red_77

Well-Known Member
In other WDW Transport news. The new Parking Trams that were announced maybe a year ago or so. They were slowly rolled out for testing in at least AK and MK lots. A few here and there.
Over this past Sunday-Monday I personally saw the new Red, Teal and Green trams in MK all pulling guests. Also the new passenger cars have a nice retro WDW logo too. Also, notice the purple reflective strip is gone at the bottom. It was replaced with a white reflective strip. Cars are new as are the tractors. Air brakes are more noticeable on newer cars as opposed to old ones. Though this can possibly be attributed to the much more quiet tractors. Also, seem to be faster than old ones though I have not personally verified this yet.

At least at MK there was at least one older tram pulling as well. Hopefully this means tests went well and they can fully roll these out across property.
I have some short video as well, though not sure it will post here.

IMG_6188.JPG


IMG_6185.JPG
 
Bocabear

Bocabear

Well-Known Member
larryz said:
No, it would still ride a singe rail, and I specifically said "where road crossings aren't an issue." Case in point, the long stretch that parallels World Drive between TTC and Ipcot.
Click to expand...
...So leave it up in the air, then drop it down to grade for the few areas where there are no road crossings? then the drive system actually has to be more powerful to pull the trains up inclines VS staying at a (fairly) constant level... I don't understand what you would be gaining by doing this...
 
larryz

larryz

I'm Just A Tourist!
Premium Member
Bocabear said:
I don't understand what you would be gaining by doing this...
Click to expand...
If it's cheaper, you'd be saving on construction costs, part of that "$7 million a mile" figure that makes it so hard to justify in the first place. Electric motors are smaller and more powerful than they were back in the '70's and I'm pretty sure they could upgrade current/design new trains that could handle an occasional slope to cross existing roads.
 
JoeCamel

JoeCamel

Well-Known Member
larryz said:
If it's cheaper, you'd be saving on construction costs, part of that "$7 million a mile" figure that makes it so hard to justify in the first place. Electric motors are smaller and more powerful than they were back in the '70's and I'm pretty sure they could upgrade current/design new trains that could handle an occasional slope to cross existing roads.
Click to expand...
So you are suggesting turning the monorail into a powered coaster?
 
asianway

asianway

Well-Known Member
Monorail_Red_77 said:
Also, don't forget that for the EPCOT beam construction. the beams were made on-site at WDW unlike the two MK beams (express and resort). Towards the end of EPCOT beam construction WDW actually purchased the company that made the beams. This was due to the at-the-time plan to send service over to Disney Village Shopping (Disney Springs). Point is. I'm sure it was cheaper to make EPCOT beam (route) than it was MK. Maybe not much cheaper considering it is much longer than MK routes combined.
Click to expand...
The EPCOT beam was shoddy construction keep that in mind as well
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
larryz said:
No, it would still ride a singe rail, and I specifically said "where road crossings aren't an issue." Case in point, the long stretch that parallels World Drive between TTC and Ipcot.
Click to expand...
There is no easy answer because there are too many variables. What you might gain in smaller columns you loose in uniformity of columns.

The Disney Resort Line (Tokyo) dives down toward grade. This wasn’t done to reduce costs but maintain sight lines insides Tokyo DisneySEA.
 
Brad Bishop

Brad Bishop

Well-Known Member
lazyboy97o said:
The Disney Resort Line (Tokyo) dives down toward grade. This wasn’t done to reduce costs but maintain sight lines insides Tokyo DisneySEA.
Click to expand...

I went and looked and it looks like it's near grade on a berm. I've never been there but looking at Google Maps, I had never noticed that before.

WDW's Monorail actually gets pretty close to the ground, depending on where you are. The MK and, I think, TTC platforms come to mind.. Of course, they're built up.
 
esskay

esskay

Well-Known Member
Lowering the beams would probably save a little (less concrete for a start) but the cost seems to be more in the precision and the material quality. Again though, we have no real world figures. We're all basing it off some sketchy numbers from some very old sources, which all seem to be listed as estimates. We could be way off. My theory is that the costs is more an issue when you're building either a totally new system (i.e R&D/Planning costs) or when you're working in someone elses back yard (like Vegas) and have to pay for all sorts of access, bits of land, etc. I'm pretty confident (and have absolutely nothing to back it up) that the beams would cost a fraction of what they cost back in the 70s and 80s. The design is used all over the world now so the R&D site of it is covered.

Disneys biggest problem will be the same one they had with the MK loop - logistics of getting the beams delivered, or cost of building their own facility. If they locked in a proper expansion it'd make sense to build them on site (and do a better job than they did last time).
 
MinnieM123

MinnieM123

Premium Member
Monorail_Red_77 said:
So, now there are these stickers/signs above the monorail doors in the cabins. Also, monorail pilot makes a live statement to stay clear of the automatic doors and not to lean on them. In addition to our favorite automated audio message. Plus, at least one CM in MK station made mention to me to turn my stroller diagonal once inside the cabin. Though this only happened once over my two day visits.

by the way, I love the relaxed look of the person leaning against the door arms crossed and all. Just missing his Mickey ears hat and Starbucks coffee.

View attachment 256823
Click to expand...

Most people will ignore the signs. There are similar types of signs on city subway cars, for example, (for many years now), and people always lean against the doors, right under the signs. ;)
 
D

Driver

Well-Known Member
Bocabear said:
then it would be a train....and traffic crossings would always be an issue... that is why they designed the whole mororail system to begin with....
Click to expand...
Bocabear said:
...So leave it up in the air, then drop it down to grade for the few areas where there are no road crossings? then the drive system actually has to be more powerful to pull the trains up inclines VS staying at a (fairly) constant level... I don't understand what you would be gaining by doing this...
Click to expand...
Seems to me the big problem with that idea is safety. Those things run on high voltage. The power rails are on each side of the beam. Leaving the opportunity for electrocution. Next what about the knuckle head that thinks it would be a cool idea to get on the beam and walk it? And if that happened (at night) now that opens up a security issue with someone gaining unauthorized access to places that WDW does want them in.
 
jbolen2

jbolen2

Well-Known Member
rmwebs said:
Lowering the beams would probably save a little (less concrete for a start) but the cost seems to be more in the precision and the material quality. Again though, we have no real world figures. We're all basing it off some sketchy numbers from some very old sources, which all seem to be listed as estimates. We could be way off. My theory is that the costs is more an issue when you're building either a totally new system (i.e R&D/Planning costs) or when you're working in someone elses back yard (like Vegas) and have to pay for all sorts of access, bits of land, etc. I'm pretty confident (and have absolutely nothing to back it up) that the beams would cost a fraction of what they cost back in the 70s and 80s. The design is used all over the world now so the R&D site of it is covered.

Disneys biggest problem will be the same one they had with the MK loop - logistics of getting the beams delivered, or cost of building their own facility. If they locked in a proper expansion it'd make sense to build them on site (and do a better job than they did last time).
Click to expand...

I wonder what they did over the years with the facility and equipment from the Epcot line building?
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
rmwebs said:
Lowering the beams would probably save a little (less concrete for a start) but the cost seems to be more in the precision and the material quality. Again though, we have no real world figures. We're all basing it off some sketchy numbers from some very old sources, which all seem to be listed as estimates. We could be way off. My theory is that the costs is more an issue when you're building either a totally new system (i.e R&D/Planning costs) or when you're working in someone elses back yard (like Vegas) and have to pay for all sorts of access, bits of land, etc. I'm pretty confident (and have absolutely nothing to back it up) that the beams would cost a fraction of what they cost back in the 70s and 80s. The design is used all over the world now so the R&D site of it is covered.

Disneys biggest problem will be the same one they had with the MK loop - logistics of getting the beams delivered, or cost of building their own facility. If they locked in a proper expansion it'd make sense to build them on site (and do a better job than they did last time).
Click to expand...

The issue is you learn like Disneyland did in the last overhaul. Your 'first of its kind' system is still pretty unique to you. Sure things were done 25 yrs ago.. and those 3.5" floppies don't work in the new macbooks... drawings aren't in the tooling used now, updates, conversions, changes due to NLA components, new building code, etc. At the end, something that hasn't been done in awhile tends to have to be redone.

The number thrown around for Las Vegas' next planned expansion is 100mil! And thats to add less than 1.5miles and only 1 station. Different circumstances of course... but just puts a order of magnitude number on things... aka crazy expensive :)
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
flynnibus said:
The issue is you learn like Disneyland did in the last overhaul. Your 'first of its kind' system is still pretty unique to you. Sure things were done 25 yrs ago.. and those 3.5" floppies don't work in the new macbooks... drawings aren't in the tooling used now, updates, conversions, changes due to NLA components, new building code, etc. At the end, something that hasn't been done in awhile tends to have to be redone.

The number thrown around for Las Vegas' next planned expansion is 100mil! And thats to add less than 1.5miles and only 1 station. Different circumstances of course... but just puts a order of magnitude number on things... aka crazy expensive :)
Click to expand...
This is also Disney. They will promise all day and night that they just want to do it the same as before, but that’s not what they’ll insist you do.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom