You do have people talking.
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Early 90's Light Rail/Trolley System Proposal for WDW
- Thread starter NickC
- Start date
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Or they just do not care any more about what was done. Outside of a few select projects, Disney does not talk about what might have been. How often do they talk about St. Louis or Mineral King or Disney's America or WestCOT or any other number of never realized projects?
Uncle Remus
Well-Known Member
Holy monorail Batman!
This sounds interesting. What do you mean "too far north"?
PeterAlt
Well-Known Member
They can't really keep it secret... There would be laws broken if they did. They could, though, make things real difficult, though. You really need to know what you're doing and devote the time involved and keep following up. That's dedication. For things like unannounced transit projects being developed, all the working leading to the filing is secret. Disney will never confirm anything that they haven't announced yet until it's time to do so. The transit expansion projects have a major track record of never starting construction, so they don't want to be inundated with a barrage of questions only to have to backtrack if the project doesn't start. It's in their best interest to just do it and be silent about it in the very likely chance it ain't happening. That said, they're kind of counted on the "noise makers" basically having lives and not finding the time to be as dedicated to finding the public filings of said project. It's not "secret" until the filings are made, but then it continues under cloak and in stealth mode.
PeterAlt
Well-Known Member
Or until a project is announced that has its history evolving out of cancelled projects. When DHS was announced, all of a sudden Eisner was talking about all kinds of cancelled projects, many that were unknown for the time.
PeterAlt
Well-Known Member
I got a good laugh from this post. Actually, what you described actually happened about two years ago when I ran into some leads concerning the monorail. The journalist (my background) in me kicked in and starting investigating it for the next several months with the end-goal of writing an investigative feature story. My leads brought more leads and I started connecting the dots, believing everything was related. I posted here several times an ever-changing and evolving theory (which would be the basis of my investigative feature story). When my work ran into a secret fifth gated WDW theme park, complete with the parcel designations and white markings on the ground indicating lands, tram pick-up stations, parking, lakes, and where the attractions would go, I saw some crazy person staring at me in the mirror. I did (or do) have a great imagination, though. The way all these unrelated monorail tidbit got linked together... Sheer madness, but genius, nonetheless. I'm putting my imagination to better use now, writing an original screenplay.
But how many of them exist outside of his own head?
NormC
Well-Known Member
There are no laws that force a private corporation to reveal any plans, concepts or projects underway.
Texas84
Well-Known Member
Anything on that scale needs a permit.
danlb_2000
Premium Member
Plans and concepts, yes, but underway would require permits which are public record.
NormC
Well-Known Member
True. There is still no law requiring a private corporation to reveal anything before actual construction begins and they also do not have to advertise that they pulled permits. Abutters may be notified in some areas before a permit is issued. Permits may be public record but only people like us go looking for them. The average person does not find out about these things until after they have begun.
tl77
Well-Known Member
These trolley plans seem to predate Old Key West, which was the first DVC, I think that might explain were the trolley money went...
Aside from that though, a lot of the traffic these trolleys and tracks would have handled are also covered by boats and canals. Fort Wilderness and Wilderness Lodge have great boat service that takes you directly to the front gate at MK, and assuming it had been built the Mediterranean resort would have probably been on this boat route too, but I don't see what the point would have been to have a train connect these three places.
Plus there is a boat/canal system that connects Port Orleans, Saratoga Springs and the Downtown/Shopping Village and a different canal that connects Old Key West, The Tree Top Villas and Downtown.
So I think this may have just been a case of boats being cheaper/easier to deal with than trolleys and tracks
Aside from that though, a lot of the traffic these trolleys and tracks would have handled are also covered by boats and canals. Fort Wilderness and Wilderness Lodge have great boat service that takes you directly to the front gate at MK, and assuming it had been built the Mediterranean resort would have probably been on this boat route too, but I don't see what the point would have been to have a train connect these three places.
Plus there is a boat/canal system that connects Port Orleans, Saratoga Springs and the Downtown/Shopping Village and a different canal that connects Old Key West, The Tree Top Villas and Downtown.
So I think this may have just been a case of boats being cheaper/easier to deal with than trolleys and tracks
flynnibus
Premium Member
I doubt it... you know what boat stands for right? Break Out Another Thousand...
Boats are also slower, slower to cycle, and their capacity isn't great in the smaller boats they use.
My big issue is distance... you need a system that can do 30+mph. For transit, that is hard to do that in anything but a big enclosed vehicle.
tl77
Well-Known Member
But trains and tracks aren't cheap to maintain either, plus the original Fort Wilderness Rail Road sank into the swamp, so I was kind of surprised to see this plan about trolleys
Wilderness Lodge, replaced Discovery Island on the existing Fort Wilderness Campground boat loop, and the solution with the Downtown Disney Resorts was to just stick boats in the existing canal system and "ta-dah!" instant transportation system, much cheaper than trains and tracks
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PeterAlt
Well-Known Member
A couple of months ago, I posted an observation I made. I saw trollies in the concept art for Disney Springs. I also read a rumor that trollies were being considered in the DHS facelift. Naturally, I put these two unrelated things together (hey, that's what I do!) and speculated that a trolly from Disney Springs to DHS may be on the design table. Seeing these real trolly plans from 1992, I just want to revisit that speculation. Knowing how far I got myself into with the monorails, I'm not going down that path again here, but anything's possible... So, who knows?
PeterAlt
Well-Known Member
I'm not crazy about boats, but they are grade separated from all other kinds of traffic, meaning less vehicles on the roadways.
PeterAlt
Well-Known Member
Talk about companies keeping secrets, I just read this article about how Apple managed to keep the fact that their new A7 processor is 64-bit secret from the entire industry up until it was announced!
Apple's 64-bit A7 SoC 'set off panic' for chipmakers... http://goo.gl/TrQQs9
flynnibus
Premium Member
FT wilderness should not be seen as a model for anything..
And no trains aren't cheap - but everything put into the water is multiplied in costs right from the get go. And the great capacity through size, speed, and reduced cycle times all further multiply the gap.
Seven Seas Lagoon boats between the resorts aren't even in the same league when talking about wide area transportation network. They only need to traverse less than 1.5 miles at the worst case for a transit leg and do so with relatively low volume. They are a 'nice to have' - not the backbone of the transportation network.