We just missed the last monorail to the TTC. We were told to take the ferry. Anyone know why BOTH would go down at the same time? The Epcot line is still running, BTW.
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Both MK monorails shut down
- Thread starter PintoColvig
- Start date
Clear skies and the sun is shining.
Both were still down after closing 30 before. A monorail cast member said it was down for @routine maintenance."
Tiggermom2
New Member
When we were there at Epcot on the 17th, someone stated it had broke down earlier. When leaving the park the yellow monorail, which earlier was on MK express track was now on Epcot line, and silver monorail gone. We were sitting in Epcot station for some time while yellow ran through some safety procedures. But could not depart until monorail "Tronorail" corral was directly behind us waiting for safety procedures. We've also were stuck at Epcot in August when we were there, while they completely shut down monorail with us inside and rebooted. Does this occur often and why would they have to wait for other monorail to be directly behind to complete procedures?
MonorailCentral
Member
Possibility...
This may have been for a Mapo Check. If it was in the afternoon this would be normal if things haven't changed that much. And is SOP.
Dead heading also occurs quite often and is normal.
This may have been for a Mapo Check. If it was in the afternoon this would be normal if things haven't changed that much. And is SOP.
Dead heading also occurs quite often and is normal.
TRONorail10
Active Member
Regardless of what kind of maintenance issues arise, monorails are still 100X safer than buses or cars a WDW.
MonorailCentral
Member
I wonder...
Last year, on September 30th, they had major electrical issues on the Exterior side and were forced to shut down both Lagoon and Exterior (Resort & Express). Epcot functioned normally because the train runs on a completely different power supply than those beams.
If my memory serves me correctly, they had a console smoking inside the station at the time.
I wonder if something like that happened again and forced the closure of the beams. That incidentally was the first time in over 20 years I had ridden the ferry.
Last year, on September 30th, they had major electrical issues on the Exterior side and were forced to shut down both Lagoon and Exterior (Resort & Express). Epcot functioned normally because the train runs on a completely different power supply than those beams.
If my memory serves me correctly, they had a console smoking inside the station at the time.
I wonder if something like that happened again and forced the closure of the beams. That incidentally was the first time in over 20 years I had ridden the ferry.
Rob562
Well-Known Member
If a train broke down on the Resort beam, they have to halt traffic on both Resort and Express beams while the tractor can come out from the spur, drive onto Express and then switch over to Resort. They would then have to be able to re-position trains on the fly to allow the tractor to tow the disabled train in the reverse of that order.
As all that would take a while, their best bet from a Guest convenience standpoint is to direct Guests to the boats and ferries (perhaps bring in a bus or two if the lines for the Poly and GF launches got long)
All of that could still go on while the Epcot beam operated normally.
As for someone mentioning sitting in the Epcot station waiting for another train to come up behind them, if they were running a MAPO test on the rear train, it requires a train to be stopped ahead of it so they can test the auto-stop system. They do this test a couple times a day, including any time a new train is added to the beam. If there were only 2 trains on the beam at the time, the other one would have been a ways back and the train the poster was on would have to wait a while for it to get around the track.
-Rob
As all that would take a while, their best bet from a Guest convenience standpoint is to direct Guests to the boats and ferries (perhaps bring in a bus or two if the lines for the Poly and GF launches got long)
All of that could still go on while the Epcot beam operated normally.
As for someone mentioning sitting in the Epcot station waiting for another train to come up behind them, if they were running a MAPO test on the rear train, it requires a train to be stopped ahead of it so they can test the auto-stop system. They do this test a couple times a day, including any time a new train is added to the beam. If there were only 2 trains on the beam at the time, the other one would have been a ways back and the train the poster was on would have to wait a while for it to get around the track.
-Rob
thehowiet
Wilson King of Prussia
How come they discontinued the MAPO tests?
peachykeen
Well-Known Member
MAPO tests with loaded trains were discontinued, but they still do test the MAPO system in the morning on each train, or whenever a train comes into service for the first time in the middle of the day (ex 4th Express train).
They used to do MAPO checks on/with fully loaded trains. In effect, a MAPO check means two trains are "deliberately" trying to run into each other, and Disney decided it wouldn't be wise to do with Guests on-board, if the system failed.
What the other poster was referring to was an "Amber check" which means the train behind the one at Epcot needs to pull up to a certain pylon, and the driver of the 2nd train needs to have recieved an Amber indication (meaning his train "sees" the train ahead) but they stop at the proper point, as opposed to the old MAPO check where the driver would just keep on going until he/she got a RED MAPO (trying to run into the other train.)
You also might notice a change in the "holding spiel." It used to say "....once the Monorail in front of us moves a safe distance away...." but they cut that part out, because they didn't want the Guests to think that the Monorail ahead WASN'T a safe distance away :animwink:
But in response to the OP, it was just a basic Resort train downtime. Say they are running 3 Monorails on Resort. If one goes down, that train has to be deadheaded (unloaded), cycled through the switch to Express (which causes the Express beam to shut down), and then cycled through the switch to Shop. Then they would have brought one of the Express monorails over to the Resort side to compensate for the lost train, at the same time the driver that took the Resort train to Shop is probably bringing another train back out to replace that Express monorail that went to Resorts. All of these switches take a lot of time now, and its now just easier to say "Guests, take the boats" than to deal with their complaints when the switch "took too long."