News Monorail Red in motion with guests on board and doors open

ProfSavage

ProfSavage

Well-Known Member
BoarderPhreak said:
LOL... Here in the NYC metro area, it happens a LOT. Both NJ Transit and the LIRR had this happen in recent months. The cold weather exacerbates the problem, it seems. The trains don't stop, conductors don't even come to check it out... Just raw landscape beyond the threshold, rushing by! Random examples:

NJ Transit Train Door Abruptly Opens During Ride Amid Brutal Freeze
NJ Transit train traveled several stops with a door open
Commuter nightmare – LIRR train doors open suddenly over elevated track
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Not the mention NJ Transit failing to stick the landing coming into Penn Station
 
T

TrojanUSC

Well-Known Member
Da Man said:
My memory is a bit hazy, but I do recall after the death of the young monorail pilot several years ago, Disney arguing with the State or Federal authorities whether the monorail was an attraction or transportation. I don't recall how that argument turned out, because it would have a direct effect on who investigates this situation.
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Disney also had a big argument with the state of California, who after the Big Thunder Mountain accident at Disneyland, wanted to classify their attractions as falling under the state transportation guidelines, whereas Disney wanted them to be exempt from such regulation, which was far more intense and intrusive. They lost. It’s one of the reasons Disneyland has a much higher standard of upkeep.
 
jakeman

jakeman

Well-Known Member
Da Man said:
Ummm... Elevator technician of 25 years chiming in. The inspection sticker is renewed every year, but there is NO correlation between the State AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction-As defined by ASME 17.1) actually viewing and inspecting the elevator annually and the building owner or manager simply mailing in a check to the State authority and receiving the yearly operating permit.
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How many emergency buttons have you found disabled by an accountant?
 
Monorail_Red

Monorail_Red

Well-Known Member
s8film40 said:
My understanding is it was locked out. You can't get a door alert if it's locked out.
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Ah okay...that makes some sense if they were getting erroneous door alerts. But, as I recall if the train is in RUN the there was something to override the door actuator to shut/keep the door shut with a higher amount of air pressure. From a time to time a door would stay open while the rest closed, and only once emptying the car we would do tag reader bypass, put train in RUN and it would slam the door shut and keep it shut until the next station. I understand back in the day before the tag readers, if you put the train in run while loading at the station it would slam the doors shut (not gracefully as they normally do). I would think whatever that logic is/was in the actuators should have held the door shut in this scenario.
 
Monorail_Red

Monorail_Red

Well-Known Member
T

TrojanUSC

Well-Known Member
Monorail_Red said:
These pop up from time to time, most hourly roles in the parks have high turnover. Back in the day, Monorails was one of the hardest departments to get into but I don't think that's the case any longer. I heard a sizeable portion turned over right around the time the automation was announced/implemented (can't blame them).
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Monorail_Red said:
These pop up from time to time, most hourly roles in the parks have high turnover. Back in the day, Monorails was one of the hardest departments to get into but I don't think that's the case any longer. I heard a sizeable portion turned over right around the time the automation was announced/implemented (can't blame them).
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There was a period where Great Movie Ride had a years-long waiting list to get into. Alas, hourly roles are not so much desired anymore like they once were.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
creathir said:
Monorails are MUCH more effective at moving large amounts of people than light rail.
The problem with light rail is it rides at the surface and many times is within the same right of way as cars and other surface vehicles. Depending on design, it still gets stuck at lights and when there is a TON of traffic, it gets held up in it.
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*sigh*

The entire point was that when you have a huge mass of people concentrated at once... the monorail which has lower capacity is problematic at trying to move that mass. For instance per train, the light rail here has more than 3x the people capacity of the wdw monorail... yet leaving the stadium has huge backups. Even with trains queue up for minimizing gapping... they still have massive backups. A dedicated right of way doesn't change any of that.

And besides, the system here is integrated with the traffic lights giving the trains priority without a separate right of way. That's how they can maintain a fixed schedule and can average 22mph over a 20 mile stretch that much is shared with city traffic.

creathir said:
Monorail though doesn’t have that issue whatsoever. It’s above the surface. The limitation is only around how many trains are in the system.
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That's a huge "only" - because the point is capacity.... and fixed rail trumps monorails in that category... and even when the max number of trains are on the loop is typically four... that means 1 light rail train can match nearly all the monorails on the entire loop.

Monorails are lower capacity than heavier gauge trains. That's just reality. When moving large masses of people.... the dispatch time required to load so many people is a bigger bottleneck than your traffic concern.

And why monorail has never been able to handle the mk load on their own.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
Rowlet said:
A friend of mine was at MK earlier today. She was waiting with her family for the next monorail while the monorail that was about to depart the station had a cabin that kept opening and closing its doors erratically. Cast members asked the guests in that cabin to exit and to board other cabins.

I've seen doors open and close a few times before a train departs, so I don't think it's unusual but it's weird that it happened with just one cabin. Nice to know that Disney isn't taking any risks if something seems off.
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That would have been normal procedure. What was unusual in this case was the effort they went through to "fix" and still put guests in the car. Because information would infer they enabled a bypass for the car... which is where the failure really was... putting guests in a car operating with a bypass enabled. That's ultimately where the hammer will fall IMO.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
Brad Bishop said:
I was actually there that night and I never understood quite how that happened (I wasn't on the platform or anything -just at the resort). Being at the resort is ancillary, though...

The kid died in the cockpit of the monorail train.

The train backing up towards him was coming at him and, I'm guessing it was moving at a rather slow clip / not full speed.

In my head it seems like he would have seen that and then did one of:
1) Shut the doors of his train and backup. You can argue that this is against procedure but you're about to have a collision and you're on a beam.
2) jumped out of the cockpit.

Unless the key is that the other monorail was supposed to be backing up on the other beam (and it was) and thus the kid really wasn't paying attention to his beam because his beam was out of order, in effect.
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Jump out on the elevated beam?? The incident happened when the train was out over the TTC plaza... not while in the station. They moved the train into the station after the impact.
 
matt9112

matt9112

Well-Known Member
LAKid53 said:
But, but, you said it was due to accountants......

The lack of state inspectors is due to legislative action, not bean counters. I rode an elevator, 6-8 times a day for over 40 years. None had an expired certificate. You must live in the state of denial.
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one time i did ride one recently that had a sign informing riders the certificate was at front desk.
 
matt9112

matt9112

Well-Known Member
ItlngrlBella said:
Simply put- The monorails are iconic.

To trash the entire thing would be ludicrous. With all the $ Disney has, I find it unbelievable that they could not afford to upkeep or overhaul the monorails.
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well to be fair they legit havent put any "real" financial trust into them either. think about it since I have been alive the only changes were forced safety investment with automation after the collision as well as new exit routes at stations. Nothing else has been replaced or upgraded in any form or fashion.
 
matt9112

matt9112

Well-Known Member
Robbiem said:
I work in rail industry in the UK and im amazed at how this incident has been handled. Here something like this would require a goverment inpector to investigate and make a report. If the fault was due to corporate negligence from poor maintenance etc then company managers could then face legal charges
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surprised your government isn't inspecting how you brush your teeth yet.
 

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