Forget the first two pages......im lost. Where am I?
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Monorail Expansion Discussion
- Thread starter PeterAlt
- Start date
I have some of that in my basement.......FOOTERS IN KANSAS!!!!!!!!!Let me begin by stating that I'm an insider. A big insider. Being such, I have big information on this, shall we call it, monorailgate. I have acquired information that I dare say will rock the WDWMAGIC world. Ladies and gentlemen, I present big, insider, recently acquired photographic evidence of the equipment secretly manufactured and readied by the WDW Corporation for a monorail expansion. Footers included.
"You're Welcome."
The LV monorail cost is very inflated. There are several reason for this. One being they had to purchase the land. I'll get into a detailed discussion about this later if you want.
My best guest is around $100 million per mile. That cost could be reduced if it is value engineered with other projects sharing that cost.
If it costs $100 million per mile to build, the number of projects sharing the cost does not reduce the amount it costs to build.
And lord knows that "value engineering" is always a welcome term when it comes to a project such as mass transit....
PhilharMagician
Well-Known Member
The he!! with both. Give me maintenance, new rides and more shows!!!!!
Correct. It helps, though. Could be that they are waiting to build new monorail resorts on land the route will pass through. That land is already zoned for future development.
This is one of those things that needs to be put to rest in the filing cabinet labeled "facts". For a long time, George Lucas denied he wrote at least 9 Star Wars episodes. Now, it is a known fact. So, this is a Disney X Files that is very much the same type of thing.
There are newer types of fixed guideway systems that use the monorail infrastructure. That is probably the way to go for Disney.
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
Yes, Peter Alt, there are footers where the beam was going to run around the lagoon but until recently they have been used as bases for sculpture removed from other areas of the park. Sorry to burst your bubble but take the backstage magic tour and you can photograph them to your hearts desire and they will be acknowledged by the CM on your tour. Later on they decided to run it around FW and not run the whole center.
That didn't burst my bubble! It added fuel to it!
The "around the lagoon" part is something I suspected, thought I actually saw, but haven't mentioned it because of the other ones in FW that are more obvious I'm having difficulty convincing others of.
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
They are never going to use these for more than sculpture bases on the outer drive, the route was scuttled once the design was finalized so they are remenants and are removed as construction takes place in their area. If you pull back from the google link provided above you can see at least three more but they are just chunks of concrete and never to be used.
Better to tilt at the current management than to try to raise the remenants of the original design. River country is more interesting in my opinon.
Better to tilt at the current management than to try to raise the remenants of the original design. River country is more interesting in my opinon.
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
Just saw your later post, the footers are ancient so they would need to be redone for current code but as they are NOT going to run the beam around the lagoon so there is no discussion. They did not run anywhere other than a bigger loop so they will never be used. I know this is a passion of yours but please look for other pursuits.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
It doesn't really matter, the cost problem is in the upkeep not the build. When (and if) the footers exist, they were put there in a more optimistic time. A time when everyone was in awe of the highway in the sky. Now, not so much, it's old hat and people are complaining about them all the time, their always breaking down they say, even though what they consider a breakdown is that they stop on the rail waiting for clearance, just like one does when the traffic light turns red. It is, as I stated before, a nightmare if it actually does break down not just for Disney but for many passengers as well that have problems with being evacuated from high places, and they are just not economically practical. They are probably a permanent part of the landscape where they currently exist, but there just is no way that they are ever going to expand the monorail service. Nothing is really gained except an amped up PITA situation.
There is a way to make them a little more disaster proof and that is the place catwalks the full length of each track to be used in the case of need, as municipalities usually do. But you want to jump the cost up even more, add those on the entire system, new and old.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Disney has been throwing the $100Mil/Mile around as a distraction using the Las Vegas Monorail where the Monorail had to buy rights for every square inch of it's run,
Airport runway only costs 25-50Million per mile and it's far more labor intensive to build, Monoraiil construction is largely done offsite where parts are prefabricated and hoisted into place at the site, Based on discussions with some PE friends the most expensive they can come up with is about 25 Million per Mile and that assumes installation of a new power distribution grid.
The simple fact is that Disney does not WANT to build more monorail capacity because of their short term mentality, Buses are cheap but they only last 3-5 years before they become unmaintainable at the frequency they run at WDW, but they keep annual CAPEX low, Unlike a monorail which will last 15-25 years if properly maintained and the trackage is basically immortal. But there is a large upfront CAPEX which would hit bonuses so cant have that even thought the buses are far more expensive in long term CAPEX and OPEX,
Buses are flexible that is their ONE advantage over any type of track bound vehicle, Although in many cities there are trackless trolleys which are basically electrically powered buses which draw power from a overhead wire system. These have very long life but are almost as expensive as track vehicles.
