monorail81
Well-Known Member
Super-duper Premier Parking! They could make a fortune! Add Valet on top of that and it’d be enough to fund one new monorail a year.
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- Thread starter NickMaio
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Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
What is updated from rubber tires on trains. That is and was a fairly new idea back when WDW was built. The city of Montreal has a massive fleet of subway trains on rubber tires and people rave about them. I fail to see what can be improved concerning this particular problem.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
Curious, do you have the paperwork that backs up the idea that they are in the shop more than might be expected considering the number of miles they travel each day/month/year.
Goofy
If I did I would have posted it by now.
I am making my own conclusions based on my experience and this...........
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
I get that too. Again, it all depends what different angle you're looking at.
People aren't booking trips for the monorail.
People will get in the parks faster with a faster and more efficient monorail.
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
The same things that make newer model cars more efficient and reliable today?
Latest technology sensors letting you know something is wrong, giving the monorail time to get swapped out instead of stuck for several hours is a minor one.
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
A lot of what makes this fleet less efficient is the door and station design. Level boarding would help but it is not possible to do in Florida if you want to keep a whole row of rooms at the Contemp. Somehow I just don't see Bob going for that hit to the revenue stream. No matter how much more plush they sell on Main Street you will not replace that money and Bob does not like added cost. To him plussing something means milking more money out of current designs.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
So it's a guess basically since we really don't have access and what we do have is only partial. You may be right, but I don't think that their record is very bad when you factor in the amount those trains are used and the numbers of guests that they haul on a daily basis. But, let's leave it at that... two different opinions.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
Good for a lot of things, but a tire can and will blow out with no warning, just like on your car. If it loses air pressure over time it might tell you, but it can completely fail with no warning. Things can overheat and if you continue it can very easily catch on fire. Nothing is simple and not everything is predictable. I have no way of knowing if what happened might have been able to forewarn, maybe or maybe not. We don't know and new technology as good as it is doesn't necessarily anticipate every possibility. If a main beam tire goes flat everything drops lower possibly no longer touching the power source, if it is one of the side tires it could throw off the balance of the train car.
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
But again. It's funny to focus on only the flat tire issue. The flat tire evacuation is one of MANY issues monorails have been having.
IanDLBZF
Well-Known Member
But I doubt this would end up being the case. The only viable way I see Disney improving their monorails is IF they receive federal funding to do so!
I'll say once again that it's time for Disney to remove the monorail line from the TTC to Epcot. A Skyliner transport would be a much better option from the TTC (and should also have a line to DHS). Keep the monorail loop around the lagoon but move on from this expensive technology elsewhere that they will seemingly never update.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
We focused on it because that was the main reason why the thread was started. They have a flat tire and it is made a direct connection to a completely different problem. If anyone thinks that I wouldn't like to see a new fleet of trains at WDW one would be way off base. The problem is that I am a realist, fantasy is Disney's job, but even they cannot circumvent reality. The two things that are falsely labeled would be the idea that they will replace them and that no maintenance is being done or is cut back. In response I reply things like if they had less maintenance on a 30 year old train they would already have been relegated to the scrap heap and why would anyone think that 30 years would be the lifespan of a train. For tax purposes maybe, but not physically. They have trains in the rail fleet that are 100 years old. (they don't have flat tires) Anything that has been built once can be rebuilt. It depends on the incentive. In my mind, there really aren't that many more monorail events then average through the years, however, now we find out about them because social media tells us when a tire goes flat. Before that unless we were there we never would have known that.
The second reality is because of costs, they will never replace the fleet, they will however eliminate them and replace them with gondola's now that they know they work well. If they were to replace them right now with gondola's within a generation and a half all the guests will never have seen or ridden on the monorails and they will be missed by no one except us old people and we tend to not travel as much to places like WDW due to illness or mobility or financial restrictions.
I never worry about the trains, however, I do have concern about the rails. Some have been out there in the open for 50 years. 50 years in the heat and humidity, wind and storms of Florida. If I were to be concerned about anything that would be my primary concern. They are nothing but reinforced concrete, the same materials used in so many bridge collapses over the years and they don't get much more than an occasional visual check. Think about that high spot coming out of the Contemporary. A spot that not only has the up and down stress but also it curves so it has sideways stress as well. If you really believe that Disney has cut back on maintenance imagine what little attention they get.
The rail issue you described perhaps would get addressed if there was an incident to that causes injury or worse, and when social media and worldwide media run with this, improvements to follow.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
This is not quite accurate. I've seen the monorail go down quite a few times over the years that lasted longer than an hour.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
But none of this really is relevant to the question. The Monorail runs or does not run.
People staying at CR, Poly, and GF pay for a specific service: the monorail.
further, the opening post is about the Epcot line.
For people with mobility issues - especially- taking a bus is vastly different than taking the monorail.
I would think that is obvious to everyone who has been to WDW many times.
Ok.
I'm talking on average....more than 10-15 years ago here.