Large Piece Falls off Monorail - Being Evacuated

[davis_unoxx]

Nice of you to take a break to use WDWMagic as your personal blogging site to go off on a rant on a fellow blogger. Meanwhile, you miss that it was some other blogger, our own @lentesta who told the guy in question to report it to Disney. But, you ignore the blogger doing the right thing to go off on one of your usual rants. Nice.

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The right thing to do is for Disney to maintain the monorails. I can't believe people like are attacking this guy because he almost got hid and the head and probably killed by a monorail part, he shouldn't go running to Disney. I would call the news too, teach them a lesson! Not trying to sound personal at all, just my opinion lol not being harsh at you.

 

[cjkeating]

Some electric trains in the UK (primarily south of London and on the London Underground) use a third rail system to draw the electricity to power the trains and such an incident with a third rail shoe coming off is not uncommon.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Yeah, this is not hard - you make sure the responsible parties know about the incident, either by telling a CM or calling 911 (I'd do both) and then you photograph the damage and circulate it as widely as possible on social media. Heck, send images to news outlets.

To not do either part (in that order) is a bit irresponsible, since it's pretty clear one of the few things that will get WDW to invest in maintenance and repair is press attention and/or the threat that the deteriorating state of the park might deter potential guests. Getting images of the damage out there might just prevent future problems.

 

[roj2323]

I wonder how long it is till the Department of Transportation fines Disney! Maybe that'll force 'em to upgrade those monorails.

You mean the NTSB

 

[Horizons78]

My money would be solidly on another occurence of a broken/bent busbar, such as the one that @BSikor documented in this thread from 2015: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/monorail-line-repairs-at-epcot-today.906458/

You take that, but bent out a bit, and strike it with a train and 'viola'....you've got yourself a noisy, tearing, ripping, party goer. Definitely could take off a chunk such as what we saw in this thread.

 

[ford91exploder]

The more press it gets, the more likely they'll allocate funds.

No the more bad press the monorail at WDW gets the likelihood of a 'temporarily permanent' shutdown of the system increases. Imagine the bonuses for shedding that bit of OPEX.

 

[ford91exploder]

Monorail isn't long for this world...

Wonder if they install nets

A 'Closed for Refurbishment' sign is much cheaper and 'solves' the problem.

 

[ford91exploder]

Remember when they used to boast about the monorail systems reliability?

Yeah that was when Disney actually maintained the mechanical systems to the builders specifications.

 

[ford91exploder]

Yes, but difference is that DLR's Monorail system is just coming off of a month long refurb right now. Tell me the last time maintenance of the Monorail system was routine at WDW?

That's easy before Iger arrived and installed his cost cutting minions at WDW.

 

[ford91exploder]

At least the real thing now matches what the $89 monorail train set does.... .fall apart!

And yet the Model monorail systems from the 70's still work, Unlike the carp sold today.

 

[ford91exploder]

Exactly, it is a transportation system.. and like any other city, they can't just shut it down... so they have to get creative with how they run it. For example, in Vancouver they will have limited trips after say 9 pm while they perform maintenance on one side of the track etc. That'll go on for a number of weeks, they don't shut it down, but they shut down one side, or do limited train traffic to work on tracks. Or run less cars at night and do maintenance on trains not in use. Mind you, the system also shuts down at 1:30 AM and doesn't reopen until 6 I think... and they perform most of their maintenance then.

OR

Disney can pay the premium for crews to work during the night to complete this work, Nah costs too much. Besides the people who use the system are tourists anyway...

 

[ford91exploder]

If this is the case, WDW has a dramatically flawed maintenance transformation. The monorail system operates maybe 18 hours a day, leaving a net 6 hours per day for maintenance.

I work in an mechanically intricate process that operates 24 hours a day 360 days per year with 80 year old equipment. This facility operates above 93% OEE and is allotted 8-10 hours maintenance downtime per month.

But during those 8-10 hours your team actually replaces life limited parts instead of 'rolling the dice' and seeing if a 2000 hour part can run for 3000 hours and 'save 50%' of replacement costs. That said some parts WILL go 3000 hours but others will go 2010 hours.

 

[ford91exploder]

My concern with stuff like this (well, beside the selfish desire that WDW improve its experience so I can enjoy it more) is that it's going to take a death or serious injury before WDW changes its maintenance philosophy.

Folks who know more can correct me and I may have the timeline wrong, but it's my recollection that the death on the Columbia at DL is one of the major things that ended that park's neglect of maintenance that began with the Pressler regime. I'd rather that particular aspect of history not repeat.

This story is a footnote, but if that chunk had hit someone...

Monorail Service would have ended at WDW as of the time of that incident.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Nice of you to take a break to use WDWMagic as your personal blogging site to go off on a rant on a fellow blogger. Meanwhile, you miss that it was some other blogger, our own @lentesta who told the guy in question to report it to Disney. But, you ignore the blogger doing the right thing to go off on one of your usual rants. Nice.

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Robb Alvey is a lowlife scumbag and the more theme park enthusiasts know it, the better. He isn't just "some blogger", he runs one of the biggest theme park enthusiast fansites.

 

[Creathir]

A 'Closed for Refurbishment' sign is much cheaper and 'solves' the problem.

Yet introduces a new, much more substantial one:
How to move the guests displaced.

The monorail will not be closed down off a pickup shoe getting ripped off a train.

They will inspect the track, possibly repair the bus bar which caused the shoe to come off, and repair Monorail Blue.

I'd wager this has happened before, the key difference being now everyone has a camera in their pocket and a way to broadcast it to the world with social media.

The monorails need some love, that's no question, but they are not going anywhere. They are way too efficient of a transportation system to scrap. Not to mention the iconic look of them.

The folks on here complaining about how they are never being upgraded, they have no clue what could be underway. From my vantage point, Disney uograded to an automated system to improve safety and efficiency. Now that that project is complete, they can replace the trains, taking a train or two out of service while the replacement is brought online, with the automation providing minimal impact to the number of guests transported each day.

 

[Cosmic Commando]

You guys saying that this proves the monorail is not being maintained know that a car burnt to a crisp back in the "golden" 80s, right?

 

[Kman101]

I've still got pages to read but I have to lol at how this turned into "Gondolas will fall from the sky!!!". Man. It's no wonder we aren't taken seriously.

 

[21stamps]

911?

Lol. Wow.

 

[ford91exploder]

Yet introduces a new, much more substantial one:
How to move the guests displaced.

The monorail will not be closed down off a pickup shoe getting ripped off a train.

They will inspect the track, possibly repair the bus bar which caused the shoe to come off, and repair Monorail Blue.

I'd wager this has happened before, the key difference being now everyone has a camera in their pocket and a way to broadcast it to the world with social media.

The monorails need some love, that's no question, but they are not going anywhere. They are way too efficient of a transportation system to scrap. Not to mention the iconic look of them.

The folks on here complaining about how they are never being upgraded, they have no clue what could be underway. From my vantage point, Disney uograded to an automated system to improve safety and efficiency. Now that that project is complete, they can replace the trains, taking a train or two out of service while the replacement is brought online, with the automation providing minimal impact to the number of guests transported each day.

Thats Easy Buses just like WDW does now when monorail is out of service

 

[ford91exploder]

You guys saying that this proves the monorail is not being maintained know that a car burnt to a crisp back in the "golden" 80s, right?

Actually there were TWO fires the first in 1985 the second in 1996 thats why there are so many fire extinguishers on the monorails even today

Yet there were a total of 4 monorail accidents up to Iger's arrival 2 non fatal collisions and the two fires.

There have been 5 since Iger took over and the penny pinching began. Coincidence I think not