Monorail Fire a long time ago???

[AllThatsJoey]

My girlfriends grandparents and her Uncle who was working for WDW at the time told me that one of the monorails caught fire on the epcot line one day quite a long time ago. They told me that noone got hurt but had to be evacuated from the train via the hatches in the ceiling and down a ladder. I believe it either happened in the late 80's or early 90's. I was just wondering if anyone else had any info on this at all?

 

[disneypunker]

The fire happened in the summer of 1985. A side tire went down and the friction started a fire. If i remember correctly there was talk that their was a safety feature to prevent this but was not being used. Safe to say it is being used now. I do not know if you can see it now but for years you could still see where it took place a black section of the track.

 

[AllThatsJoey]

Yeah I remember that....actually I think they were pointing the spot out to me as they were telling the story. I think the spot on the track was just north of where the track goes over the rd leading to and from Epcot.

 

[speck76]

That was also using the old Mark IV monorails, which are now in Las Vegas, or were a few years ago, running between Bally's and the MGM Grand. The Mark VI monorails are much nicer (although they are showing their age now). I would really like to see monorails like those at Tokyo DL Resort (they have no drivers).

 

[marni1971]

If you are interested in this, do a thread search - there was a BIG conversation about Monorail safety and incidents a few weeks ago. Some interesting stories!

 

[BalooChicago]

Originally posted by speck76
The Mark VI monorails are much nicer (although they are showing their age now). I would really like to see monorails like those at Tokyo DL Resort (they have no drivers).

The new Vegas Monorail (Built by Bombardier as well) looks great and is also driver-less. Unlike the TDL monorail, these could relatively easily be adapted to the WDW system.

The Monorail Society is a great website.

http://www.monorails.org/

 

[ogryn]

pah, you can't get rid of monorail drivers. 50% of the outlandish rumours come from them (40% bus drivers, 5% other cast, 5%misc)

 

[WDWHeadBanger]

I was actually there when a monorail got hit by lightning during one of those great florida showers. It had been raining all day and EPCOT was flooded with water. My cousin and I had to wair FOREVER because it got hit while at the station.