Correct. Trains come on and off the express loop from the maintenance bay near the MK bus stops. Epcot trains connect to the express loop between the TTC and the Contemporary. I forget where the switch between resort and express beams is.
It’s at the same place where the Express trains switch over by the MK bus stops.
It’s easier to add trains with the express going counter clockwise - it is easier to send trains back to the roundhouse with express going clockwise.
The locomotives that share the same barn are a good 70 years older. Why must the monorails be replaced?
The locomotives have been sent to specialists and completely rebuilt and are entirely steam(?) powered. The monorails are a fully electric system and from my understanding haven’t and can’t(?) receive a similar style overhaul just by nature of the systems themselves.
I can confirm that the monorails were down when we arrived this morning. We know because we made the mistake of getting on the resort monorail bus at the TTC and got stuck in traffic while we were heading to the Grand Floridian. We saw some of the emergency equipment in Floridian Way. It was a mess but we kept calm.
if Strasburg was in the monorail business we’d be set!
There's simply more people who know how to repair trains than how to repair monorails - I used to work with one at Disney. He noted that trains are also much easier to work on because of their design and mechanics. Decades and decades of working on trains (and their widespread adoption compared to monorails) makes trains have a much wider knowledge base for repairs, a much better ability to repair, and in many cases ease of getting spare parts in comparison to the monorails. If every major US city had a monorail, it'd likely be the reverse.
The Mark III monorails at Disneyland were rebuilt twice to become the Mark Vs and now the Mark VIIs.
Every major city does’t have steam locomotives pulling trains. They’re very much a specialty. The Mark VIs were also the basis of a commercial product still supported by Alstom.
There are at least 2 operating steam trains attractions in New Hampshire alone... And about 20 more just in theme parks across the US (not including international parks, or historic trains run on occasion or a regular schedule). So dozens across the US, and even more worldwide. Never mind outside the US where they're still sometimes used for active passenger service. They're uncommon, but not terribly rare, and all rely on the same principles... Monorails have a few dozen different designs (ex-Bombardier being the most common but not exclusively), all of which are either somewhat or significantly different than others. And that applies to maintenance as well. Easier to build out a maintenance capability on a product that has existed since before Queen Victoria (even if you have to improvise a bit), than when you're literally the only ones to use a platform besides the half-dead Las Vegas monorail, and rather maxed out the life of the platform years ago.
In Florida? I know of 9 including the Roy who is vacationing in Pennsylvania haha.
They don’t have any operating steam.
More like evening out wear on the wearable parts like bearings etc. Run in two directions get twice the life span
That automatically happens every day when they dispatch one to be the resort monorail and a different one to become the express monorail. they don't just use one monorail per direction. Then throw in the Epcot monorail and you have yet another change. I can understand possibly a smaller amount of help with wear but since they are designed to have equal direction ability it would be minimal. By nature they would be switching direction daily.
