Any Monorail Expansion Updates?

[CapnStinxy]

Solar and wind aren't the only green options. NPR did a story about two weeks ago on generation from waste heat. A steel mill in Indiana installed heat exchangers above their coke (coal which is burned in a low-oxygen atmosphere) ovens and recovered enough waste heat to generate half the electricity the plant uses. That's not even tapping what's lost in the stacks, around furnaces, et cetera. All that is heat which is (soon to be was) doing no productive work. While WDW doesn't make steel, they do have a great many AC chillers and steam boilers, the waste heat from which could make a dent in their electrical use.

My local electric co-op is now subsidizing the installation of heat exchangers to heat domestic hot water from AC waste heat.

 

[Yankeeplex]

with the economy the way that it is, I can't fathom that they are thinking about anything until they have a better handle on what the parks attendance may look like in the future. If people can't afford to travel, where does that leave them??

 

[Montyboy]

Solar and wind aren't the only green options. NPR did a story about two weeks ago on generation from waste heat. A steel mill in Indiana installed heat exchangers above their coke (coal which is burned in a low-oxygen atmosphere) ovens and recovered enough waste heat to generate half the electricity the plant uses. That's not even tapping what's lost in the stacks, around furnaces, et cetera. All that is heat which is (soon to be was) doing no productive work. While WDW doesn't make steel, they do have a great many AC chillers and steam boilers, the waste heat from which could make a dent in their electrical use.

My local electric co-op is now subsidizing the installation of heat exchangers to heat domestic hot water from AC waste heat.

Waste heat is generated as a by-product of a process - steel, paper, power and cement are big producers of heat. In paper and cement manufacture, the hot gases are used to preheat and dry other gases and materials. Power generation uses most all practical heat value to make power. Sometimes hot water is sent to nearby buildings for heat.

Steel probably has some extra heat that can't be used in the process, so they can do some recovery from the hot gases.

Having said all that, Disney could at least heat the pools with some recovered heat.

 

[Timon]

Montyboy - Don't know is you realize Disney has a natural gas co-generation power plant behind the Magic Kingdom. Beside electricity and compressed air for the animatronics, the "Waste Heat" is used to heat water and in a special chilling process involving sodium bromide heat exchangers creates chilled water to air condition the entire Magic Kingdom and most of the hotels around the Seven Seas Lagoon. Also Main St Vehicles, the Jungle Cruise boats etc. run on natural gas, today considered the cleanest and cheapest fuel ($2 gallon+-) Most importantly they have been doing this since 1971! A number of years before the first gas crisis.

Now as far as what has been done to the other expansions since Phase 1, here they fall short. It seems the visionaries for Phase 1 went home. Hello bean counters. Oh wait they do use recycled water for the lawns and recycle some trash ... like every other city. Hmmm.

Heating pools with waste heat makes perfect sense. As a matter of fact the EPCOT chiller plant (natural gas boiler facility with those heat exchangers) has lots of waste heat which could be piped down the road to heat Typhoon Lagoon. But they don't.

How about generating electricity from methane gas at the Disney Sewer Plant? How about a Startech Plasma Converter (Google it) which would eliminate ALL of Disney's garbage, pollution free and generating more electricity, hot and chilled water.

Disney used to be a leader in this field but today is mostly living on the work done by people who knew it would all pay off in the future.

 

[Montyboy]

Someone was doing their job back in the late 60s early 70s. The only problem is that it is more important to keep doing these things now.

You jogged a brain cell loose. I read a write up on the Startech Plasma Converter posted on HowStuffWorks. Disney could charge a tipping fee to burn hazardous wastes. (They would have to keep that part quite.)

 

[flscooman]

I love the monorail as much as the next guy but think about it. why would you expand? all the routes people keep talking about wouldn't get used that much. epcot to studios, epcot to dtd, studios to ak. if you look at the bus stops outside the parks there are the 3 stops to the other 3 parks and 18 stops for the resorts. you're talking about millions of dollars to accomodate parkhoppers. even if you added the resorts to the line, if you went from allstar to mk would have to transfer monorails at each park. unless you had great timing probably would take over an hour. as to ak, ak to studios, studios to epcot, epcot to ttc, ttc to mk. you are more likely to see light rail on property before you would ever see monorail expansion.

 

[Timon]

If the monorail was to be expanded it would probably be laid out in a similar fashion to other city metros.

At Disney an East-West line from DTD to AK would have stops only in high density places. DTD, Typhoon Lagoon, EPCOT, EPCOT Resorts, DHS, Caribbean Beach Resort, Blizzard Beach, AK and possibly AK Resort. Short run buses could serve all other areas to the nearest station. Like most cities there would be Transportation Hubs and where different monorail lines cross transfer stations, typically EPCOT and TTC.

If you want to see what "real world" monorail systems have been doing, go to www.monorail.org find "Monorails of the World", look for Japan and pick a city - you will be amazed at full sized inner city monorail systems on city streets, bridges, ground level and tunnels!

 

[IneedaWDWfix]

Maybe there will be a Transporter Room soon!

 

[unkadug]

Maybe there will be a Transporter Room soon!

There was, but too many parents didn't read the warning signs and complained to Guest Relations.

 

[AEfx]

There was, but too many parents didn't read the warning signs and complained to Guest Relations.

LOL.

AEfx

 

[Bulldog1653]

My opinion

Hello all,

I just joined this forum today and it appears that I'm posting on a thread that's been quiet for a while. That being said, I'll go ahead and offer my opinion and thoughts on this.

The rumor of monorail expansion has been alive and well for many years. I can safely say this because I have been going to Disneyworld off and on for about 30 years. The last expansion was to EPCOT and it's paid off more than most people ever dreamed of.
When I was there in September (2008), someone mentioned that there were plans in place to expand the line for service to the Swan and Dolphin hotels. When 9/11 happened, that plan was suspended.
Let's look at some of the ups and downs of an expansion. The downside is the major costs involved. While I don't know the specific costs, I can see what some of the expenses would be.

Downsides:

1. Construction costs. This would end up costing the guests a few bucks more every trip. (it would eventually pay for itself)
2. The addition of new monorail trains. There is no way that 12 monorail trains would be able to handle the upsurge in traffic.
3. The likely traffic snarls and inconvenience of the work. This kind of construction would require closures of some main roads to place rail beams.
4. The possible addition of another powerplant just to handle the kind of power it would take to run the trains.

Upsides:

1. This kind of work would generate hundreds if not thousands of jobs.
2. The elimination of an extremely inefficient and costly bus/ground transportation system. It's no secret that diesel fuel is getting expensive again (yes even biodiesel). Replace the bus system with the monorails to all hotels and parks and you have a winner.
3. Offer monorail service to Orlando International Airport. While I have no complaints about the airport bus system, I again mention the diesel and bus costs.
4. This kind of expansion has unlimited benefits. It eliminates the need for a bus fleet (the drivers could be cross trained to operate the monorails). The buses are run by contract companies. Cut them out and focus the money on one of the most efficient transportation systems in the world. The addition of monorail stations at the hotels and parks would make life so much better for guests. They would be able to maximize time at the parks, etc.

In my personal opinion, this could be a viable option. If Disney wants to regain their foothold as an environmental model, then this is certainly a step in the right direction. This kind of monorail system would certainly be an example for other cities to follow. Imagine Chicago replacing the El with a monorail system? Just something to think about. It would certainly look a lot better.

 

[Timon]

Running Monorails to each hotel would probably be impracticable. Disney's 6 car trains would be better to run from high volume locations like DTD, Water Parks, and Theme Parks.

Most city railways have railway lines that run east-west and north-south generally, so if Disney added and east-west line from DTD with stops at Typhoon, Epcot (transfers available to the north-south line), an Epcot Resort Station between Swan/Dolphin and Boardwalk/Yacht&Beach, DHS, Blizzard Beach and AK.

Feeder Lines could connect hotels to stations and use lower volume vehicles like the Orlando Airport trams, WEDway people movers, regular buses, trolleys, etc

While investing in mass transit is expensive in today's dollars over time it will look like the best deal in the world. Remember Disney built the MK, 2 hotels, golf courses, lakes and the monorail for $450 million in 1971 dollars. Today that's a bargain, back then it nearly broke the company, but what a payoff.

FYI The latest Bombardier Monorail is totally automated.

[/IMG]

 

[brucie]

As we know Disney will probably never expand the Monorail as much as we all would LOVE it. Costs way to much to build, but how awesome would it be to have a monorail to all parks. That would be awesome and I know it's not worth it to build for them but it would probably cut down on the carbon footprint if they could eliminate some busses. Come on Disney take one for the team build the damn monorail anyway!!

 

[JWG]

Has it already been 30 days since we've discussed monorails? Seems like this comes up each month.

 

[Bulldog1653]

Timon has some valid points. What if there were centralized stations that serviced a few hotels at a time?
Feeder lines would be very beneficial but it could also make things a little more complex.
Besides efficiency and the fact that I love riding on the monorails, I think my main reason for supporting any kind of expansion is that the current bus system is nothing more than a joke (in my opinion). When I stayed at Riverside, the buses seemed to show up whenever the driver felt like it.
When we would leave one of the parks, the buses were horribly crowded and overloaded. That kind of crowding makes it dangerous.
A 6 car 203 foot long Mark VI monorail has a 365 passenger capacity. Think about that for a minute. A typical bus will handle an average of about 60-80 people fully loaded standing room only. By the time people get where they need to go, they're stressed out from being so cramped, especially the elderly and parents with small children or infants.
Remember, the monorails can and will easily handle handicapped people, strollers and people of all sizes.
The passenger capacity and comfort alone would be justification in my eyes. Is it expensive? Absolutely. Will it impact guests? Of course (in more than one way).
Do the benefits of a monorail expansion far outweigh the drawbacks? Without a shadow of a doubt.

 

[TimeTrip]

You really ought to read up on all the monorail threads, as most of your points have been discussed ad nausem

The elimination of an extremely inefficient and costly bus/ground transportation system.

This is shaky ground. I'm pretty sure that noone has a really good argument as to why its extremely inefficient.

What if there were centralized stations that serviced a few hotels at a time?
Feeder lines would be very beneficial but it could also make things a little more complex.

People have said the biggest problem here is that tourists don't want to transfer. Apparently a lot of people get confused by the xfer at the TTC to get from Epcot to MK and vice versa. Busses are great because its hop on/hop off

When we would leave one of the parks, the buses were horribly crowded and overloaded. That kind of crowding makes it dangerous.

The monorails get really packed as well, are you saying that crowding isn't as dangerous? I'm also sure Disney would like to hear if busses are actually overloaded , since I'm sure that violates some law somewhere. I suppose that the fact a monorail is on a track makes an accident less likely to happen, so there is some validity to your statement.

Offer monorail service to Orlando International Airport. While I have no complaints about the airport bus system, I again mention the diesel and bus costs.

IMO, Disney won't do this without help. Orlando won't do it without Disney's help. Orlando wants it to connect to I-Drive. Disney doesn't. Stalemate. Plus you also have all the airport services (taxis, Mears, etc) that will fight such an initiative tooth and nail.

A 6 car 203 foot long Mark VI monorail has a 365 passenger capacity. Think about that for a minute. A typical bus will handle an average of about 60-80 people fully loaded standing room only. By the time people get where they need to go, they're stressed out from being so cramped, especially the elderly and parents with small children or infants.

Once again, monorails can be just as bad here. You also can't compare 1 bus to 1 monorail. The beauty of busses is that you can just send more busses in a way much more convenient than monorails.

Do the benefits of a monorail expansion far outweigh the drawbacks? Without a shadow of a doubt.

To each his own, but I think that most people around here disagree (myself included unfortunately) :-(

As an interesting exercise, you should try creating your ideal monorail layout at WDW. IMO, it's near impossible to come up with something that makes sense because of how they organized everything. Hence the tendency for using busses.

 

[dtgoalie30]

Busses

my main reason for supporting any kind of expansion is that the current bus system is nothing more than a joke (in my opinion). When I stayed at Riverside, the buses seemed to show up whenever the driver felt like it. When we would leave one of the parks, the buses were horribly crowded and overloaded.

Much like here in Chicago

 

[techgeek]

Looking at transportation on property:

Monorail = Magical
Watercraft = Magical
Bus = ...not so much

 

[SoccerMickey]

It's almost like clockwork when the conversation comes up about monorail expansion. A certain weekend is coming up in a month and a half so that should bring another annual series of threads as well.

 

[Figment1986]

I herd from a bus driver, who herd from a monorail pilot, who her from a boat captain, who herd from a mainstreet barber, who herd from his mother in law who herd from a different bus driver who herd from a disneyland monorail pilor who herd from a magical express bud driver who herd from an imagineer on vacation who overherd in a meeting next to his office..

The monorail will be expanded... and then 2 minutes later the expansion is cancled..

(Aint I a stinker sometimes )

due to the costs of expansion.. versus the reliability and emergency procedures buses can do... I don't see it happening anytime in the distant future.