PART 2:
Welcome to the wonderful world of drive training. For
the next six days, I will be your sole Lord and Master,
otherwise referred to as your drive trainer. During this
time, we shall learn how to operate the Mark IV or Mark VI
Monorail Train, and how to use them on the Walt Disney World
Monorail System.
You're probably exited about drive training, and who
could blame you? After two or three months of repeating
"How many in your group?" or "Take this train to the next
stop and get on another." six or seven hundred thousand
times a day, you'd be excited about anything. Just keep in
mind that the time you spent on the platform was well worth
it. It built up your anticipation for driving. Think about
it. While you were on Exterior Load, busting your butt to
get five hundred Brazilians onto Monorail Gold, you saw all
the drivers at the water cooler, or in the console, or on
unload, not doing any work, and the same thought kept going
through your mind. . .
When will I be able to do that?
Soon now, very soon. Soon you'll be able to get out of
going to turnstiles, or taking hour lunches and not getting
docked, or getting back cab times where you're allowed to
turn your brain off. Soon, very soon.
But first, comes training.
I realize there's a great deal of resentment between
drivers and platform people. Drivers are always the
"snots", while the platforms are always the "slaves". I
remember when I was a platform-only. I used to hate drivers
just like you probably did. I worked like hell, and they
did nothing but ride around in trains all night, and
actually about it sometimes. I used to resent them.
In fact, I began to hate them. Especially whenever I'd put
people in their front cab and they'd look at me like I'd
just asked them to donate their liver. Drivers were stuck-
up jerks, and I swore I'd never be like them.
Then I became a driver.
I saw what makes them that way. I saw what makes them
stand around while the platform people do all the work. I
learned the truth.
I became enlightened.
Drive training is hard. Real hard. It looks like a
piece of cake from a platform person's point of view. After
all, all they do it push the stick to go, pull it back to
stop, and talk into a microphone. That's it. Pretty easy.
Well, as I learned, there's more to that.
Much more.
Driving a monorail is a lot like driving a bus filled
with drunk people on a crowded highway with your fuel gauge
hovering just above "E". There's a lot to do. A lot to
look out for, and a lot of bad things that could happen to
you. It can be fun, but it takes a lot of practice.
In comes me.
For the next week, I'm going to show you just what it's
like to drive that bus, with all those drunks vomiting all
over the place, and trying to find a gas station that will
accept your expired Radio Shack credit card.
Before we begin drive training, I will sit you down and
discuss something with you. Call it a sort of disclaimer.
I will look you in the eye and say something like: "Listen,
it's going to be rough out there, and I'm going to be rough
on you. The pressure will be on you like you've never felt
it before. I'll be asking you to do sixteen things at the
same time, and if you mess up, I'll be on your case about
it. But just keep one thing in mind--nothing personal."
This will probably make more sense after about three
days of training. Day Four of training is often referred to
as, "Hell Day". That's when it suddenly dawns on your that
driver's don't really have it that easy. That's when you
realize that you're operating a monorail carrying anywhere
from 244 to 364 people, and you have to get then to the next
destination, preferably alive.
A lot of trainees quit after Hell Day. We don't think
any less of them, they just couldn't take the pressure,
that's all. They just usually announce that "This isn't
worth $5.25 a @!&%!! hour!" and quit. The main reason they
quit is that they didn't realize the pressure involved.
That's why I wrote this. To let you know.
But I don't want to scare you. I don't want you to
think that I'm going to prod you with sticks and make you
accept Satan as your Supreme Being. All I'm doing is
attempting to bring out the best in you, and make you the
best damned monorail pilot you can be.
So don't hurt me, okay?
--
The 23:00 News and Mail Service - +1 206 292 9048 - Seattle, WA USA
PEP, V.32, V.42bis
+++ A Waffle Iron, Model 1.64 +++
From: halcyon!
monorail@seattleu.edu
Date: 20 Sep 91 13:46:52 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: Monorails: Radio Ops *Funny!*
My roommate, John Kappeler, wrote up the following treatise
on monorail radio operations. I couldn't improve on it a bit...
-Monorail Green
aka B-Man
TALKING ON THE RADIO
by John Robert Kappeler
Talking on the radio is one of the most important
aspects of drive training. Our goal is to make you sound as
professional, accurate and most of all, coherent as
possible.
This is not as easy as it sounds. Talking on the radio
is the major stumbling block to most trainees, because it's
your responsibility to repeat back verbatim whatever it was
Central or Shop has told you to do. Still sound easy? Okay
then, try doing this:
CENTRAL: Monorail Green from Central.
GREEN: Green bye.
CENTRAL: I show you clear MAPO Bypass through
Switchbeams 8 and 9 to the EPCOT Center Mainline, following
Monorail Pink Delta in a temporary three-train normal visual
operation. You're clear normal visual to pylon 95, hold and
notify Central. Also notify Central upon passing pylons 27
and 45.
GREEN: (30 second pause) What?
Not very professional, is it? That's why we have the
most important radio code you can use--10-9. 10-9 means,
simply, I don't have the slightest idea of what you just
said and would you mind repeating it very much. Here's an
example of how the code 10-9 improves the professionalism of
your radio work.
CENTRAL: Monorail Pink from Central.
PINK: Pink bye.
CENTRAL: I show you clear to put your train in stop
and your control arm in neutral. You're clear to press
Linebreaker Reset and Group A/B Reset for fifteen seconds,
hold and notify Central the status of your groups.
PINK: (30 second pause) 10-9?
See? Much more professional. To help you sound even
MORE professional on the radio, we use a variety of
different codes to make your radio experience as confusing
as possible. Here's a listing of the codes you will need to
know.
10-1: Reading you poorly, get a new battery
10-2: Reading you perfectly, you don't have to shout
10-4: Okay, yes, acknowledged, sure, uh-huh, whatever
10-6: Busy, (Only supervisors can be busy. You can't)
10-7: Out of service, off, broken beyond repair
10-8: In service, on, "My God! It actually works!"
10-9: Repeat, say what?, I ignored you the first time
10-20: Your exact location, (In pylon numbers, please)
10-22: Disregard, never mind, I goofed
10-23: Stand-by, wait, hold, don't move or die!
10-26: I understand, (Only Poly leads can say this)
10-36: The current time of day, (In military time)
10-45: Phone call, you were speeding through the Poly
10-51: En route to, hope to get to. . .
10-52: E.T.A., (Always say 5 minutes, no matter what)
10-56: Come here, you're in biiiiig trouble!
10-99: Deadheaded, no guests on board. . . I think
SIGNAL 25: Fire, flames, Chernobyl
SIGNAL 96-S: There's a huge snake on my train!
As a Monorail Pilot, you will use each and every one of
these codes during your career, although the last one might
not come up as often. I put it there just in case you do
get a huge snake in your front cab, you'll know the exact
radio code to relay this information to Monorail Central.
(Chances are, however, they won't know what the hell you're
talking about.)
RED: Central from Red.
CENTRAL: Central bye, Red.
RED: Be advised, I have a Signal 96-S on board.
CENTRAL: (30 second pause) 10-9?
RED: Be advised, I have a Signal 96-S on board!
CENTRAL: I copy you have an auto accident on board?
RED: Negative! A Signal 96-S!
CENTRAL: I copy you have a robbery in progress?
RED: 10-22, I threw it out the window.
CENTRAL: I copy, you threw the robber out the window?
I think you get the picture.
Now then, it's important to learn those codes, because
in the coming days, Central, Shop, Maintenance, Leads, and
just about everybody with a radio is going to be calling you
up to see if you know them inside and out. This is
especially true after Day Three of training. On Day Four
comes a lot of radio from Central. It's used to see if you
can talk and drive at the same time. Up front, it sounds
pretty easy. Here's an example of radio Mark VI trainees
receive:
CENTRAL: Monorail Gold from Central.
GOLD: Gold bye.
CENTRAL: What's the status of your CMPAS?
GOLD: Be advised, my CMPAS is 10-8.
CENTRAL: 10-4, what mode is your CMPAS in?
GOLD: Be advised, my CMPAS is in 'play'.
CENTRAL: What's the status of your Car 3 LMCU?
GOLD: Uh. . . 10-8?
CENTRAL: 10-4, how do you know that?
GOLD: Uh. . .
CENTRAL: What's the status of your Group A PECU? And
while you're at it, give me the status of your Group B
BECU, your VOBC, your DPAS, your BCS, your TIM, your
LVPS, and the OVERHEAT light in your upper display.
GOLD: (30 second pause) Central from Gold.
CENTRAL: Central bye.
GOLD: Please 10-56 hell, Gold clear.
CENTRAL: 10-4, will 10-56 he. . . 10-9!?
Take into account that while you're attempting to
answer Central's questions, you're also attempting to keep
your train from smashing into the one ahead of it, spieling
to your guests, and watching your trainer's face distort in
disgust whenever you mess up.
When you first start out, the trainer will be there to
coach you along the difficult radio parts. But after
awhile, the trainer will no longer take an active interest
in what you say over the radio, and begin taking an active
interest in his nails, the weather, or the gorgeous blonde
on the Grand Floridian's beach.
After some practice, you'll notice that you will know
ahead of time what it is Central, Shop, Etc. is going to say
to you, so it gets easier to repeat it back. The reason it
takes practice is because there are a lot of people on the
Monorail System who are not easy to understand over the
radio. This is especially true when you're taking a train
to or from Shop.
SHOP: Mo'rail Peenk fro' Shap.
PINK: Uh, Pink bye. . . I think.
SHOP: I sho' ya cleer usin' MAYPO Buypays outta da
Shap to th' No' Side o'th' Shiller Playnt, hol' an'
notify Swiytchbeem.
PINK: (30 second pause) What?
It's not just Shop. There are some Central Leads who
are a bit difficult to understand at first. But, if you
know what he/she's going to say ahead of time, you'll be
able to repeat back the commands with no problem. Just
listen to any veteran operator on the radio, and you'll see
how it's done.
CENTRAL: Monorail (Garbled) from (Garbled).
BLUE: Blue bye.
CENTRAL: I show you (Garbled) to use (Garbled) to
(Garbled), hold (Garbled) (Garbled) (Garbled).
BLUE: 10-4, MAPO Override to pylon 34, will hold and
notify Monorail Central. Blue clear.
That's why it's important to study your radio codes and
scripts. If you memorize them, then you won't have a cow
trying to talk on the radio and drive your train at the same
time.
In all seriousness, if you have a problem repeating
back a command, just ask them to 10-9. They know you're in
training, and won't get it perfect! A lot of trainees get
all flustered on the radio, that's perfectly understandable,
and acceptable. What isn't acceptable, (at least to me), is
keying your radio to talk back to them, messing up, and
continuing to hold down the radio button! All this does is
make you sound unprofessional, make me look like an idiot,
and give Central Leads funny stories to tell each other at
their parties.
An example:
CENTRAL: Black from Central.
BLACK: Black bye.
CENTRAL: You're clear in reverse, MAPO Bypass if nec-
cessary to reach pylon 62, hold an notify Central.
BLACK: 10-4. . . clear MAPO. . .uh, necessary to. . .
in, uh, reverse. . . what did he say? Huh? Why are
you giving me the 'cut off the flow' hand signal?
What? I didn't hear what he said! How can anybody
understand what he says? All I heard was 'Black' and
'MAPO' something. Hey! Why are you grabbing my ha-
CENTRAL: (Laughter) Monorail Black, please have your
trainer 10-45.
See what problems that causes? And don't think to
yourself that you won't do it. You will! Everybody does it
during training. But with me, you will do it once.
Now then, I don't want to give you the idea that
talking over the radio is going to be the worst experience
of your life. Come on now! There are a lot of things worse
than that. Drinking Oven Cleaner comes to my mind. But if
you practice, practice, practice, and know your radio codes
and scripts, you will find that talking over the radio is
easy.
--
The 23:00 News and Mail Service - +1 206 292 9048 - Seattle, WA USA
PEP, V.32, V.42bis
+++ A Waffle Iron, Model 1.64 +++
From: halcyon!
monorail@seattleu.edu
Date: 23 Sep 91 11:58:22 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: Monorails: Some safety discussion/ranting
~From:
cscon134@uoft02.utoledo.edu (John Heiden UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO)
>Well, according to my brother (who work at THE DISNEY-MGM STUDIOS),
>DISNEY plans to begin construction on a new monorail segment that extends
>to DISNEY-MGM sometime in 1992. (Remember, this is what HE said.)
Don't bet on it. The rumor mill has been saying that ever since
the Studio got under construction. It's not feasible.
First, where would it go? EPCOT? Not likely. The
configuration of the station would make it impossible to run a
rail near the loading side of the station for a "bridge" to let
people transfer from MGM's rail to EPCOT's rail. The other option
is to take people from the unload side. That would be a nightmare.
Changing the load to unload side was shown (during rehab of the
load side platform in '89) to be SUPER-difficult, because the
loading side is completely different in construction, and has the
control console.
In any case the MGM park is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to EPCOT.
Buses are cheaper and in this situation just as fast. TTC? This
would be crazy. The beam from MGM to TTC would run right alongside
the EPCOT beam and that seems damn redundant.
>Well, when I asked this question, I was told that the monorail runs
>on precisely 13,800 volts. (Sorry to be so picky.)
Hey, I don't know everything. I'm not in maintenence, I just
keep my ears and eyes open. I like to know what I'm doing.
>Well, one other fact I found to being interesting... The monorail trains
>run on either EXACTLY or PRECISELY 100 wheels each.
That's not true of the 4s or the 6s.
The trains have 136 side tires and 12 load tires. Side tires
are those little tires that run along the side of the beam. Load
tires are between the cars.
A load tire sits inbetween cars like this...
(side veiw)
__________________________ ___________________
/ |||| \
/ |||| \
/ |||| \
cabin area / OO |||| OO \ cabin area
/ OOOOOO |||| OOOOOO \
/ OOtireOO |||| OOtireOO \
_____________/ OOOOOO |||| OOOOOO \_______
OO OO
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||CONCRETE BEAMWAY||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A side tire runs along the side like this:
(REAL simple drawing)
______________________
/ \
| |
| |
| |
| front view |
| |
| |
| |
|________________________| __cabin floor level
| |
| ______||||||______ |
| |_tire_||||||_tire_| |
\_______ |||||| _______/
|beam|
If you go somewhere where the train passes over you, you can
look up and see the side tires under the train.
>I have one question now. How does each Mark VI cost?
Between 6 and 9 million depending whether you include certain
aspects, (refitting powers systems, post delivery mods, etc.).
>About a week ago, I got stuck on a Mark IV for about 30 minutes. It appeared
>to be the only Mark IV in operation at that time. After being on it for
>that long, I MUCH prefer the VI's. (Bu then, my experience on that day
>was already a rather unpleasant experience. Perhaps I should write about
>that day. Boy am I mad!)
Those trains are twenty years old, but given the choice, I'd
rather be stuck on a Mk.4. The 4 has openable windows instead of
the "ventilation openings" of the Mk.6. Those "vents" are one inch
wide and abou four feet long, 2 of them located at each end of a
car that's supposed to hold *65* passengers, most of them standing.
It's cramped, and it gets hot dangerously fast, especially in the
cars located next to resistor banks.
If you'd been on a 6 you'd have been STANDING for that time.
The 4 also has a MUCH better chance of being troubleshootable by
the driver, and thus getting moving faster. Also it might not have
been your train that was broken. I might infer from your
dissatisfaction with the wait that the AC units were probably off.
In that case power was off and the train style makes no difference.
If you wrote me with more data I might be able to say more
accurately what might have happened.
And remember THIS tidbit. My roommate trained the last Mk.4
pilot to be checked out. This means that anyone in control of a 4
is a pilot with AT LEAST 2 years experience on the system, AND is
someone who could handle the MUCH more difficult (IMHO) Mk.4
training. ("Mk.6 onlys" will say that this isn't true, but they're
talking from conjecture, not experience...)
Also remember that we have 12 mark 6 trains. We only usually
run 3 on EPCOT and Exterior (MK express) - 4 at peak, and 4 on
Lagoon (resort). This means we only need 9 trains to operate.
The fact that the Mk.4 was out means that THREE Mk.6s were
inoperable at that time. We only had 11 Mk.4s. If 3 went down the
system was screwed. This almost never happened. I've seen three
Mk 6s die AT THE SAME MOMENT of different ailments.
Three time during the Test and Adjust phase the 6s were declared
too unsafe for further operation, and we had to use the 4s
exclusively. This became a problem when they started to take the
4s off the beam to make room for 6s. When the 6s would get
grounded we'd have only 9 Mk.4s TOTAL, but we got by. We used to
joke about what was gonna happen when they found such a problem
after we didn't have enough Mk.4s to run with out the 6s.
The answer? Run the 6s anyway. I saw more fires on Mk. 6s in
the 2 years that I drove them than anyone could remember EVER
happening on the 4s. Hydraulics don't catch on fire, electrical
relays do. And on top of this, the rear cab operator was
eliminated "because the Allison heat detection system can detect
any fires in the train."
The Allison only covers the wheelwells of the train. If a car
were burning the Allison would never know till it burned through
the wall to the wheelwell. On top of this if there's a fire, the
driver cannot possibly evecuate all the passengers to the roof of
the train (YES, that's the procedure) by himself. Truthfully you'd
be pressed to do it with two people, but for one it's not possible.
I had over a hundred Allison alarms in my time, only ONE was
real. On the flip side I saw a train come in (during testing) with
it's ALLISON heat detector ON FIRE and not going off...
I sound pretty cynical don't I? Well I'm not saying that the
Trains are deathboxes or anything. But In my opinion it's only a
matter of time before there's a serious accident, probably a fire.
A Mk.4 could drive in flames, but the Mk.6s electronics would
overheat and die, leaving the train stranded. This might sound
silly, but when we got the trains we had a lot of trouble with the
electronic door controls everytime it rained. Turned out the
boards weren't covered from rain. They just got soaked if it
rained. AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRG!
Maybe when they have to get Mk.7s (in a few years, since these
will NEVER last 20 like the 4s did) they'll do it "in house"
instead of by the lowest bidder, and they'll ask the drivers how
it should be...
Monorail Green
aka B-Man
--
The 23:00 News and Mail Service - +1 206 292 9048 - Seattle, WA USA
PEP, V.32, V.42bis
+++ A Waffle Iron, Model 1.64 +++
From: halcyon!
monorail@seattleu.edu
Date: 24 Sep 91 15:33:22 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: Monorails: Yet more discussion
sumax!gte.com!krs0 (Rod Stephens) asked:
>What is the complete evacuation procedure for when a monorail is going
>up in flames? You mentioned that you move the passengers onto the
>roof, but then what?
The truth? You're supposed to take a rope from the cabinet
under the driver's seat, attatch it to a clip on top of the train
near the nose. Repel down the windscreen to the beamway. Attatch
the other end of the rope to a clip near the headlight. The
passengers are supposed to follow you down the windshield and walk
down the beam to a station.
They don't figure you'll be wanting to save any handicapped
guests, I guess. In fact, for $5.25 an hour, most pilots
probably wouldn't get out on the roof anyway and have said so. I
would because I'm me, not because of any S.O.P.. The whole thing
is nuts considering that a full car's load of people couldn't get
on the roof all at once anyway (not enough space/handholds).
>
>Can the trains be separated easily? Like can you break the train and
>leave the burning car(s) behind?
Nope. The trains are assembled as one unit.
I should clairify that. Monorails come in 1 car portions on
the back of a flatbed truck. They are assembled onto the beam
with a crane, not to be separated until they're dismounted for
scrap. One Mk.6 got misassembled (they reversed cars 3 & 4) and
had to be taken down and switched before it could run...
A monorail isn't
like a normal train in that it has an engine and the rest of it is
dead weight. A monorail train has 8 motors in it, 113 horsepower
each in the new trains, 100 HP each in the mk.4s, spaced through
the train. The resistors and other components aren't set up in a
fashion of "one per car" either. You can no more split a monorail
than a bus, but maintenence HAS tried...
WARNING! MONORAIL WAR STORY TO FOLLOW!!
When Adrian Scott was new to the department and going through
drive training, he was assigned one morning to bring monorail
orange out of shop. He and his trainer were getting the train
though switch #3, south of shop, but Adrian was taking a REAL
long time because he was a trainee. Book procedure calls for a
train to notify shop by radio when he's clear of switch #3, since
shop can't really see there. Shop then knows that its OK to move
the switch for the next train.
Well, since most of the opening crew are vets, we never much
bothered with extra radio traffic and got pretty loose on this
point. Shop would hear us notify switch #2 of our position and
know that we'd gotten clear of #3, so why bother?
Adrian was two cars over #3 when shop decided that it had been
SOOO long that he HAD to be clear of #3. They just must not have
heard the call to #2.
Adrian's train started to shake. It made a funny noise that
made his trainer say "What the #@*%! is that!". Cars 3-6 started
moving sideways in his mirror.
After a judicious amount of Adrian screaming into the radio,
shop turned the switch motors off and went to see what happened.
The train wasn't torn in half, so they OKed it to continue on out
and we ran it that whole day. We just kept waiting for it to
"liberate" cars 1 & 2...
Monorail Green
--
The 23:00 News and Mail Service - +1 206 292 9048 - Seattle, WA USA
PEP, V.32, V.42bis
+++ A Waffle Iron, Model 1.64 +++
.
)
