DisJosh
Well-Known Member
Yes! That or an elephant... I remember commenting on this same smell years ago. I was told it was the smell of carpet glue. To this day the smell has not faded. :veryconfu
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
More Monorail Problems Tonight
- Thread starter juan
- Start date
Yes! That or an elephant... I remember commenting on this same smell years ago. I was told it was the smell of carpet glue. To this day the smell has not faded. :veryconfu
xtina72
New Member
After 20+ years of going to Disney, I find the fastest, easiest, less annoying, I-always-get-a-seat way of travel around Disney is to just rent a car.
Disney is so popular now that the lines just to get on a monorail are CRAZY! Then you are stuffed in that tiny car like a sardine. If I were those people stuck on the Mono for 3 hours I would have FREAKED. We use to always stay at the Polynesian but we got sick of paying "monorail hotel" prices when we didnt even use the monorail....it became not worth it to us.....on our last trip my kids wanted to ride the monorail, so I gave them one whirl around the big loop.... and all I heard was people saying "Im not staying at a monorail hotel again, this is terrible! Its not worth it! This is not faster, and we are so stuffed in here!"
The problem is that they need more and more monorails constantly running, and they have to run longer and faster just to keep up.
I quickly HATED the buses and their system, I trashed that after about 2 years.
I rent a van for about $150.00 for the whole week, Im happy as a clam and so are the 5 people that go with me.
Disney is so popular now that the lines just to get on a monorail are CRAZY! Then you are stuffed in that tiny car like a sardine. If I were those people stuck on the Mono for 3 hours I would have FREAKED. We use to always stay at the Polynesian but we got sick of paying "monorail hotel" prices when we didnt even use the monorail....it became not worth it to us.....on our last trip my kids wanted to ride the monorail, so I gave them one whirl around the big loop.... and all I heard was people saying "Im not staying at a monorail hotel again, this is terrible! Its not worth it! This is not faster, and we are so stuffed in here!"
The problem is that they need more and more monorails constantly running, and they have to run longer and faster just to keep up.
I quickly HATED the buses and their system, I trashed that after about 2 years.
I rent a van for about $150.00 for the whole week, Im happy as a clam and so are the 5 people that go with me.
luckyeye13
New Member
From what I remember reading, not all 10 trains were even able to be in the Monorail Shop as half of it was closed off to hide the damaged trains completely from view. As a result, a whopping five trains stayed out every night. On the other side of that argument, my platform trainer back from my days in rails told me that many of the trains were often left overnight at the stations back before 9/11 and maintenance would stop by and perform quick checks on them. The trains were really only all (except 2 due to space constraints) brought inside after 9/11 as a security measure.
s8film40
Well-Known Member
This is true but went into effect after the explosion on Monorail Blue, not 9/11. It was decided that all the monorails needed to go through a more thorough inspection each night. They stuck to this pretty strictly up until the accident. Just goes to show how Disney's reactionary measures only last until they react to something different.
CaptainMichael
Well-Known Member
The travel time is actually about the same.:wave:
EPCOT Explorer
New Member
With lines? Sure. Without...Mono sure looks quicker.
WDW1974
Well-Known Member
Oh, c'mon.
Don't you know the media is to blame for this? Just like the economy? And anything else you can think of.
People are just dumb as concrete these days.
What's been happening with the rails IS NOT standard and does NOT regularly happen and very likely DOES have everything to do with the way the system is being run/managed/operated/neglected.
And, yes, it is certainly newsworthy.
To answer your question, I am 99% certain that Disney is building the 12th train much like their very disastrous attempt in Anaheim. That only happened because Bombardier didn't want a contract for such a small job (three trains) so I don't see them doing one here and all the 'rumor' I've heard through the grapevine synchs up with that.
At some point, Disney is going to have to spend a very large sum of $$$ on the system to modernize what was once a symbol of the future.:xmas:
87 GN
Active Member
fillerup
Well-Known Member
s8film40
Well-Known Member
One of the large load bearing tires exploded. The monorail was on it's way to Epcot the tire behind the drivers cab in the back exploded. Supposedly the explosion launched the drivers seat through the window and out of the train. From what I heard OSHA was involved in some of the measures taken after the incident which included more thorough nightly inspections and this is when the reinforcing bars were added in the cabs on both sides of the driver.
Horizons78
Grade "A" Funny...
Well, I’ve been forced out of posting retirement for a few brief moments. I doubt that many people will remember me as I was never a central figure around here but whether you know or not I just needed to share my thoughts on a couple of issues.
I want to take a second right now to tell you that I apologize in advance if any of my remarks seem callous or insensitive. I really have tried to put things into words in a way that minimizes the chance for name calling and the like. Feel free to refute, rebuke or anything else you like as at the conclusion of this post I will once again relegate myself to the shadows…lol.
Ok with all the trivialities out of the way I present to you my opening statement:
Holy tap dancing deities folks…
My, my, my. Things are bad. Aren’t they bad? I mean, I heard on the news that things are really bad. So I guess they are. I’m going to do something pathetic, and that is to say that I am going to pull a line from a movie. I won’t bore you with all the details sufficed to say, in the first Spiderman movie the villain is having a discussion with a captive Spiderman and, as only Willem Dafoe can, delivers the following line about people and heroes: “But the one thing they love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying.”
So, first of all I’m not even going to try and make the stretch that the monorail system is anybody’s actual hero. To do so would be to heap a gigantic serving of over emotion into this arena. Rather, I want to take the general notion of that line and put it into my own words: “No news fascinates like bad news.”
As I read through the threads and various news articles regarding the recent service interruptions with the monorail I was amused to see some of the thoughts on the subject. Without a full and conclusive explanation of what caused the multiple hour failure over the weekend there are, surprisingly, dozens of experts on monorail operations, equipment life expectancy and design wunderkinds popping up all over the place. Did you know that over on thedisneyblog.com the end of the monorail system is pretty much a done deal because of this? I know, I was shocked too. The system will be dismantled according to one poster over there.
If you’re picking up the sarcasm here that’s great news as I’ve turned the to 11. Now I realize that I’m going to be labeled a Disney apologist, and that’s fine, I’ve been called worse in life and managed to shuffle along. So as long as I know while trying to present some logic I’m going to be thrown to one side of the argument I guess now would be a good time to state some facts.
I’m not an expert in regard to the Walt Disney Monorail System. Actually the best I’ve ever been able to do is ride on them. Pretty lousy resume to be making any statements about the monorail wouldn’t you say? Now for some other facts. I’ve spent my entire career involved directly with the design, installation and maintenance of various computer equipment and large scale power generation and emergency battery backup systems. I say this not to brag, just to point out that when it comes to some of the technology, physics and parts involved with the monorail system, I’m in the neighborhood so to speak.
From a technical standpoint I’ve read a good number of things that make my head want to explode. Rather than quote a bunch of folks, I want to tell you about a common trend that people sometimes fall into in regard to their thoughts on mechanical systems. “Well, it’s just gone bad. It’s old and it’s just gone bad.”
No it hasn’t and Ouch my head hurts.
When you look at things from a systems standpoint you never treat anything as a whole. You look at the individual systems which then break down into sub systems, components and then parts. You can probably see where I’m going with this already. The idea that there is something magical about a period of time roughly 20 years long being the service life of the current monorails has no legitimate basis on its own. Now if we were to have a situation where say, the frames themselves were suffering from metal fatigue and showing signs of cracking or warping that would be a bit different wouldn’t it? But those aren’t the kind of failures we are seeing. What we are seeing on the news in one case was a single train with an onboard error, which as it turns our isn’t that unusual, and another situation where it would seem that electrical supply was cut off to multiple trains which is a power problem and not an individual train problem. New trains or not, no zap – no zip. What we are witnessing is parts problems, not systems problems. Big difference.
But that’s all technical stuff and boring. So let’s talk about the other half of the story, you know, the part we started out with. A number of folks commented on the level of media coverage regarding the weekend event. Part of the TV coverage went like this:
TV Reporter: Welcome back to our live, breaking, dramatic video footage of some hard to see specks of light over on the Walt Disney World monorail system beamway. We’re going to go now to the phones and speak with someone who was on one of these trains and just barely escaped with their life. Caller what was it like?
Caller: Well I can tell you that it was dramatic. I’ve never been closer to death I just know it. We could have been killed or worse. And it was hot in there.
TV Reporter: How hot was it?
Caller: It was so hot, the metal handrails started to deform. While we were in there I just know that it was the hottest place on the earth ever.
TV Reporter: Okay caller, I’d like to bring in live, via dramatic satellite, our expert on how things can get hot when people are in an enclosed area without air conditioning. Expert, just how hot can it get?
Expert: Well in my professional opinion, it can get awfully hot.
TV Reporter: Well there you have it folks. Clear evidence that thousands of people narrowly escaped a brush with fiery hot death on the monorail. Won’t somebody think of the children?
Ok, ok. So that was more like a dream sequence over at Energy in Epcot but it still rings true. While the media is an important part of society and has the capacity for fair reporting it doesn’t always do that. It doesn’t always get it wrong either, and to the journalists who try to get it right my hat is off to you. We happen to live in an age of sensationalism. I read an article the other day stating the fact that this decade has been the decade of the reality TV star. God help us.
Should safety be number one at Disney? You betcha. Is it number one at Disney? I’d like to think so but the NTSB is going to get to have a say in that as well. I trust that between the two of them they’ll get it right. In the case of the monorail in particular the statistics from the standpoint of death are 1 in 38 years, and yes, I agree that even 1 is too much. When reality rears it’s head in a place where many of us go to take a break from reality, the harshness of it seams all the worse – and that’s a sad thing….but then, that’s reality for you.
I realize I have said some things that will be received with negative thoughts or even outrage perhaps, but that’s ok too. It was not my intent to insult anyone and if you think my opinion stinks that’s great too because in our society we can agree to disagree and have civil discourse about things.
I, like everyone deep down I believe, hope for nothing but good things for the monorail system and the people who operate it. I will continue to ride it confidently and proudly, and should I get stuck on a train for hours, well life’s an adventure sometimes isn’t it? Could be worse…..
Sincerely,
Horizons78
I want to take a second right now to tell you that I apologize in advance if any of my remarks seem callous or insensitive. I really have tried to put things into words in a way that minimizes the chance for name calling and the like. Feel free to refute, rebuke or anything else you like as at the conclusion of this post I will once again relegate myself to the shadows…lol.
Ok with all the trivialities out of the way I present to you my opening statement:
Holy tap dancing deities folks…
My, my, my. Things are bad. Aren’t they bad? I mean, I heard on the news that things are really bad. So I guess they are. I’m going to do something pathetic, and that is to say that I am going to pull a line from a movie. I won’t bore you with all the details sufficed to say, in the first Spiderman movie the villain is having a discussion with a captive Spiderman and, as only Willem Dafoe can, delivers the following line about people and heroes: “But the one thing they love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying.”
So, first of all I’m not even going to try and make the stretch that the monorail system is anybody’s actual hero. To do so would be to heap a gigantic serving of over emotion into this arena. Rather, I want to take the general notion of that line and put it into my own words: “No news fascinates like bad news.”
As I read through the threads and various news articles regarding the recent service interruptions with the monorail I was amused to see some of the thoughts on the subject. Without a full and conclusive explanation of what caused the multiple hour failure over the weekend there are, surprisingly, dozens of experts on monorail operations, equipment life expectancy and design wunderkinds popping up all over the place. Did you know that over on thedisneyblog.com the end of the monorail system is pretty much a done deal because of this? I know, I was shocked too. The system will be dismantled according to one poster over there.
If you’re picking up the sarcasm here that’s great news as I’ve turned the to 11. Now I realize that I’m going to be labeled a Disney apologist, and that’s fine, I’ve been called worse in life and managed to shuffle along. So as long as I know while trying to present some logic I’m going to be thrown to one side of the argument I guess now would be a good time to state some facts.
I’m not an expert in regard to the Walt Disney Monorail System. Actually the best I’ve ever been able to do is ride on them. Pretty lousy resume to be making any statements about the monorail wouldn’t you say? Now for some other facts. I’ve spent my entire career involved directly with the design, installation and maintenance of various computer equipment and large scale power generation and emergency battery backup systems. I say this not to brag, just to point out that when it comes to some of the technology, physics and parts involved with the monorail system, I’m in the neighborhood so to speak.
From a technical standpoint I’ve read a good number of things that make my head want to explode. Rather than quote a bunch of folks, I want to tell you about a common trend that people sometimes fall into in regard to their thoughts on mechanical systems. “Well, it’s just gone bad. It’s old and it’s just gone bad.”
No it hasn’t and Ouch my head hurts.
When you look at things from a systems standpoint you never treat anything as a whole. You look at the individual systems which then break down into sub systems, components and then parts. You can probably see where I’m going with this already. The idea that there is something magical about a period of time roughly 20 years long being the service life of the current monorails has no legitimate basis on its own. Now if we were to have a situation where say, the frames themselves were suffering from metal fatigue and showing signs of cracking or warping that would be a bit different wouldn’t it? But those aren’t the kind of failures we are seeing. What we are seeing on the news in one case was a single train with an onboard error, which as it turns our isn’t that unusual, and another situation where it would seem that electrical supply was cut off to multiple trains which is a power problem and not an individual train problem. New trains or not, no zap – no zip. What we are witnessing is parts problems, not systems problems. Big difference.
But that’s all technical stuff and boring. So let’s talk about the other half of the story, you know, the part we started out with. A number of folks commented on the level of media coverage regarding the weekend event. Part of the TV coverage went like this:
TV Reporter: Welcome back to our live, breaking, dramatic video footage of some hard to see specks of light over on the Walt Disney World monorail system beamway. We’re going to go now to the phones and speak with someone who was on one of these trains and just barely escaped with their life. Caller what was it like?
Caller: Well I can tell you that it was dramatic. I’ve never been closer to death I just know it. We could have been killed or worse. And it was hot in there.
TV Reporter: How hot was it?
Caller: It was so hot, the metal handrails started to deform. While we were in there I just know that it was the hottest place on the earth ever.
TV Reporter: Okay caller, I’d like to bring in live, via dramatic satellite, our expert on how things can get hot when people are in an enclosed area without air conditioning. Expert, just how hot can it get?
Expert: Well in my professional opinion, it can get awfully hot.
TV Reporter: Well there you have it folks. Clear evidence that thousands of people narrowly escaped a brush with fiery hot death on the monorail. Won’t somebody think of the children?
Ok, ok. So that was more like a dream sequence over at Energy in Epcot but it still rings true. While the media is an important part of society and has the capacity for fair reporting it doesn’t always do that. It doesn’t always get it wrong either, and to the journalists who try to get it right my hat is off to you. We happen to live in an age of sensationalism. I read an article the other day stating the fact that this decade has been the decade of the reality TV star. God help us.
Should safety be number one at Disney? You betcha. Is it number one at Disney? I’d like to think so but the NTSB is going to get to have a say in that as well. I trust that between the two of them they’ll get it right. In the case of the monorail in particular the statistics from the standpoint of death are 1 in 38 years, and yes, I agree that even 1 is too much. When reality rears it’s head in a place where many of us go to take a break from reality, the harshness of it seams all the worse – and that’s a sad thing….but then, that’s reality for you.
I realize I have said some things that will be received with negative thoughts or even outrage perhaps, but that’s ok too. It was not my intent to insult anyone and if you think my opinion stinks that’s great too because in our society we can agree to disagree and have civil discourse about things.
I, like everyone deep down I believe, hope for nothing but good things for the monorail system and the people who operate it. I will continue to ride it confidently and proudly, and should I get stuck on a train for hours, well life’s an adventure sometimes isn’t it? Could be worse…..
Sincerely,
Horizons78
EpcotServo
Well-Known Member
HEY!
Seriously, where have you been?
:sohappy:
:wave:Now, that said, hugs all around, I don't quite agree. Personally I don't care about the news stories, if it weren't for the fact that the last 20+ Monorail trips I've had have been STUFFED with Delays, Rough rides, Long waits, and general broken-ness. It's the fact that my WEEKLY first hand experience happens to be marred by technical problems reported elsewhere that just makes me happen to think it's time for a new fleet. (New-ish, same basic design and all that.)
Basically, as someone who grew up setting my clocks by the Monorail, the system has sharply and suddenly dropped in reliability.
I just think it's time to bring our fleet into this millennium is all...I think you just can't deny that the system is showing it's age, gracefully or not is a matter of opinion of course.
Unrelated, I saw MONORAIL Flash Drives on sale today.
I know! Awesome!
disney9752
Member
this was posted on another site, but fits very well here,
Anyone with eyes and ears that has been to Disney now, and say 2 years, ago, maybe even 2 months ago would have to admit, the place is falling apart. The executives may be happy, but as a guest, I have to say it’s the worst theme park in the USA. WDW used to stand for quality, magical. Now stand for “Sell them more junk” “Charge them to stand in some locations for fireworks”, poor food. Tiny portions of cheap meals. Poor service. Castmembers who seem miserable to be there. Of course, there are exceptions, but the place has gotten too stingy at the guest level for our family to return. Think they’re thriving on Europeans who either don’t notice they’re being skimped on, or don’t care. Either fix WDW, or just shut it down. The slow death is painful.
Anyone with eyes and ears that has been to Disney now, and say 2 years, ago, maybe even 2 months ago would have to admit, the place is falling apart. The executives may be happy, but as a guest, I have to say it’s the worst theme park in the USA. WDW used to stand for quality, magical. Now stand for “Sell them more junk” “Charge them to stand in some locations for fireworks”, poor food. Tiny portions of cheap meals. Poor service. Castmembers who seem miserable to be there. Of course, there are exceptions, but the place has gotten too stingy at the guest level for our family to return. Think they’re thriving on Europeans who either don’t notice they’re being skimped on, or don’t care. Either fix WDW, or just shut it down. The slow death is painful.
