Monorail Yellow Evacuation - Bus entrance to MK closed...detouring now (somewhere)

[ford91exploder]

Eh..... I've heard a lot of stories. Some managers try but.....

In the words of Tom Lehrer from "Pollution" 'They don't last long if they try'.

 

[ford91exploder]

Federal Railroad Administration.

I don't believe the monorails are subject to FRA regulations nor is the WDW railways since neither is in 'revenue' service.

 

[ford91exploder]

I guess it really comes down to just a few things:

• The people in the maintenance department are incompetent

Or

• The trains are not being regularly maintained due to management policies

Or

• There is a complete lack of funding and the maintenance guys are doing the best they can with what they have

Or

• Some combination of all of the above

It really is a shame. Growing up the monorail was my most favorite part of Disney World. It made it something really special. It really saddens me to see it being neglected like it is.

I think 2 & 3 are the root cause of the issue but number 3 is more a result of 2 in that management apparently is not making resources available.

 

[Jimmy Thick]

Funny story.

Guy has a monorail system, doesn't maintain it, it breaks and goes out of service every single day. Things break, but they break more when you don't maintain them.

An A for effort though.

And not counting this recent fiasco, how many documented times has the monorail been evacuated in the past due to lack of maintanence?

How many times has the monorail been evacuated ever?

How many people have been injured or killed because of lack of maintence on the monorail? Any documented proof?

Surely a vehicle with what, hundreds of moving parts carrying thousands of people a day must have millions of front page news stories about this happening?

Or maybe its an isolated incedent.

Jimmy Thick- Disney risking peoples lives, and possible litigation due to not maintaing their attractions is just sooooo believeable.

 

[FerretAfros]

Federal Railroad Administration.

Good luck with that. The FRA recently tried to take oversight of Washington DC's Metrorail (WMATA) system, and was blocked by the USDOT/FTA. Given that the Metrorail system is far worse maintained, horribly mismanaged, and poorly operated than WDW's monorail fleet (it may be hard to believe, but it's true; how many passengers have been killed on the monorails due to WDW negligence?), it doesn't seem like they're in the market for new things to look after
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...e4cae6-6eca-11e5-aa5b-f78a98956699_story.html

Plus, as @ford91exploder mentioned, I don't think the monorails would fall under FRA jurisdiction. They only manage "heavy rail" like freight lines, intercity rail, and commuter rail, not intracity subway systems or amusement park rides. Given the way that the monorails are operated, I would assume that they fall into one of the latter categories for oversight purposes

 

[wm49rs]

And not counting this recent fiasco, how many documented times has the monorail been evacuated in the past due to lack of maintanence?

How many times has the monorail been evacuated ever?

How many people have been injured or killed because of lack of maintence on the monorail? Any documented proof?

Surely a vehicle with what, hundreds of moving parts carrying thousands of people a day must have millions of front page news stories about this happening?

Or maybe its an isolated incedent.

Jimmy Thick- Disney risking peoples lives, and possible litigation due to not maintaing their attractions is just sooooo believeable.

And how many times would TWDC voluntarily admit a lack of maintenance on anything?

Jimmy Thick- The thick, sometimes it hurts....

 

[rucifee]

And not counting this recent fiasco, how many documented times has the monorail been evacuated in the past due to lack of maintanence?

How many times has the monorail been evacuated ever?

How many people have been injured or killed because of lack of maintence on the monorail? Any documented proof?

Surely a vehicle with what, hundreds of moving parts carrying thousands of people a day must have millions of front page news stories about this happening?

Or maybe its an isolated incedent.

Jimmy Thick- Disney risking peoples lives, and possible litigation due to not maintaing their attractions is just sooooo believeable.

An apologist or paid advocate will always find an excuse to excuse the otherwise inexcusable.

 

[danlb_2000]

This sounds strangely familier....

http://www.doctordisney.com/2013/08...dom-pics-guests-not-evacuated-monorail-towed/

 

[Jahona]

They've been in service since 91. This is 2016. 25 year old trains or so.

Define transportation industry....because most people don't drive 25 year old cars on a daily basis, cities don't use 25 year old buses, and airlines don't use 25 year old planes.

Jumping in kinda late the conversation. Just some posts about lifespan of vehicles by the FTA (Federal Transit Administration). The life expectancy for a bus as deemed by the FTA is 12 years. FTA's mandatory life expectancy for rail cars is 25 years. This goes for light rail and heavy rail. I'm not sure how a Monorail fits into this as it seems to be a bit of a grey space.

 

[Bob]

Define transportation industry....because most people don't drive 25 year old cars on a daily basis, cities don't use 25 year old buses, and airlines don't use 25 year old planes.

There are all kinds of 25 year old planes out there flying. Pretty much any of the MD-80 variants used by American and Delta are that age, or older.

Average age of aircraft for the top 15 US air carriers.

Virgin America -- 5 years
Spirit Airlines -- 5.2 years
Republic Airways -- 5.5 years
JetBlue -- 7.4 years
Frontier Airlines -- 8.2 years
Alaska Air -- 9.6 years
Hawaiian Airlines -- 10 years
AirTran -- 10.9 years
SkyWest -- 11 years
Southwest Airlines -- 11.7 years
US Airways -- 12.1 years
American Airlines -- 13.6 years
United Airlines -- 13.6 years
Delta Air Lines -- 16.9 years
Allegiant Travel -- 22 years

 

[s8film40]

Jumping in kinda late the conversation. Just some posts about lifespan of vehicles by the FTA (Federal Transit Administration). The life expectancy for a bus as deemed by the FTA is 12 years. FTA's mandatory life expectancy for rail cars is 25 years. This goes for light rail and heavy rail. I'm not sure how a Monorail fits into this as it seems to be a bit of a grey space.

I would say different components of the monorails have different lifespans. I think there are parts that are still good, but it's definitely time to take them off one at a time and rebuild them.

The company that built the fiberglass bodies (advanced technologies) for the trains said that they would last up to ten years, I think we are a little past that point.

 

[Jahona]

There are all kinds of 25 year old planes out there flying. Pretty much any of the MD-80 variants used by American and Delta are that age, or older.

Not to mention the fact that the backbone of the US Military is flying on planes well over 25 years old. American is phasing out the MD-80 by 2017 and Delta is starting to place orders for new Airbus planes, granted these are replacing older Boeing planes.

It comes down to the amount of maintenance time given to a vehicle to allow it to operate to it's full capacity. From posts on this forum it seems that good regular maintenance is being overlooked at WDW.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Good luck with that. The FRA recently tried to take oversight of Washington DC's Metrorail (WMATA) system, and was blocked by the USDOT/FTA. Given that the Metrorail system is far worse maintained, horribly mismanaged, and poorly operated than WDW's monorail fleet (it may be hard to believe, but it's true; how many passengers have been killed on the monorails due to WDW negligence?), it doesn't seem like they're in the market for new things to look after
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...e4cae6-6eca-11e5-aa5b-f78a98956699_story.html

Plus, as @ford91exploder mentioned, I don't think the monorails would fall under FRA jurisdiction. They only manage "heavy rail" like freight lines, intercity rail, and commuter rail, not intracity subway systems or amusement park rides. Given the way that the monorails are operated, I would assume that they fall into one of the latter categories for oversight purposes

I live in the DC area, I'm aware of the story.

 

[PhotoDave219]

And not counting this recent fiasco, how many documented times has the monorail been evacuated in the past due to lack of maintanence?

How many times has the monorail been evacuated ever?

How many people have been injured or killed because of lack of maintence on the monorail? Any documented proof?

Surely a vehicle with what, hundreds of moving parts carrying thousands of people a day must have millions of front page news stories about this happening?

Or maybe its an isolated incedent.

Jimmy Thick- Disney risking peoples lives, and possible litigation due to not maintaing their attractions is just sooooo believeable.

It's happened a lot lately.

 

[ford91exploder]

I would say different components of the monorails have different lifespans. I think there are parts that are still good, but it's definitely time to take them off one at a time and rebuild them.

The company that built the fiberglass bodies (advanced technologies) for the trains said that they would last up to ten years, I think we are a little past that point.

Deferred maintenance is the most expensive kind but it seems to be the only type WDW understands, In transit equipment many of the parts are good for a lifetime unless damaged others are 'wear' components which need to replaced/refurbished when they reach wear limit, Others are time limited components ie good for a guaranteed life of N hours,

No they generally don't turn into pumpkins at N+1 hours but they DO when someone tries to push them to N X 2 hours. there is always some margin built into a time limited component but it's not wise to push it too hard, Hoses are a fine example these break down with exposure to UV and ozone both of which are found in abundance in FL so they need scheduled replacement except for CM's working on the monorails we'll never know what failed but as an engineer I'd bet it's some time limited component which was pushed way over it's design lifetime as a 'cost saving' measure.

 

[lazyboy97o]

While it is a true machine compared to the more computer controlled monorails, the Fred Gurley first entered service 120 years ago.

 

[WeekendGM]

Here's the joke... Yellow just got back from a rehab where they added the new fire suppression system. It was its first day back.

 

[monothingie]

@Bob, makes rare appearance steerage with useful consumer advice. If you want to live, don't fly Allegiant.

There are all kinds of 25 year old planes out there flying. Pretty much any of the MD-80 variants used by American and Delta are that age, or older.

Average age of aircraft for the top 15 US air carriers.

Virgin America -- 5 years
Spirit Airlines -- 5.2 years
Republic Airways -- 5.5 years
JetBlue -- 7.4 years
Frontier Airlines -- 8.2 years
Alaska Air -- 9.6 years
Hawaiian Airlines -- 10 years
AirTran -- 10.9 years
SkyWest -- 11 years
Southwest Airlines -- 11.7 years
US Airways -- 12.1 years
American Airlines -- 13.6 years
United Airlines -- 13.6 years
Delta Air Lines -- 16.9 years
Allegiant Travel -- 22 years

 

[ford91exploder]

@Bob, makes rare appearance steerage with useful consumer advice. If you want to live, don't fly Allegiant.

I'd fly Allegiant before I would fly AA or United, Alliegiant's executives actually fly with the passengers on their planes not like AA/United where the executives fly on a fleet of private jets.

Yes I know a few of the HQ staff at Allegiant from my aviation days. In fact some of the executives may actually be FLYING the planes as reserve pilots. Yes it's a pilot's airline.

 

[French Quarter]

Looks like Monorail Yellow has been stuck for 2+ hours! They are evacuating people now via a scissor lift.

https://twitter.com/irishguynweho/status/652966164671406080

What fun! Like an exclusive free ride!