More monorail troubles?!

[WDITrent]

Mark VIII, anyone?

Oh, nevermind. That would just create more problems.

 

[luckyeye13]

Seeing as my car doesn't float, I need to park it in the MK lot and take a monorail over to the MK gate and vice-versa.


No, just the whole system. We went to MK and had to wait on the express line just outside of the Contemporary for about 20 minutes before making into the the MK station. We left MK to head back to the car to go to the Studios (resort line) - more delays. When we came back from the Studios and went back to MK (express) - another delay. Only the last run of the night back to TTC didn't have a stop and wait while on board.

It just seemed like a lot of waiting around Saturday. The pilots kept coming on and apologizing and two of the three times (once express line and once resort line) they specifically mentioned bringing another monorail onto the beam.

The trains stopping for traffic clearance (as was likely the case on the one occasion that it wasn't a train switch) is a fairly common occurrence on the Express and Resort lines, especially when a full set of trains (4 trains) is being run. On the Resort line, this is caused by the fact that the stops are very close together, which creates plenty of opportunities to wait on a train ahead to clear a station. Even on the Express line, where there are only two stations, the fact that they are each about 3.5 minutes apart (with no stopping for traffic) still causes waits almost every time as the average dwell time in a station is usually 60-90 seconds.

As for the train switches, there are predetermined times when additional trains will come into service on the Express beam or when trains are switched from beam to beam. As an interesting note, after the start of service, a train will not generally come straight into service on the Resort or Epcot beams. Instead, a train will be switched from the Express beam onto the Resort or Epcot beam and another train will be brought over from the Monorail Shop and placed on the Express beam. Although this still requires two switches to be made, the impact on the operation is lessened as disruption caused by the switches is spread over two shorter time periods, rather than one long time period, and the interval between the switches can be considerably longer. (The same is done in reverse on nights, such as hard-ticket event nights at MK, when the Epcot beam is shut down well before the Express beam.) So it is possible that you may have just gotten unlucky in your timing.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Seeing as my car doesn't float, I need to park it in the MK lot and take a monorail over to the MK gate and vice-versa.

..... then clearly you don't enjoy a nice beverage at the Contemporary

 

[MissM]

..... then clearly you don't enjoy a nice beverage at the Contemporary

Not when I'm going to be there for many hours, no. If it's a short trip, then yes, I've been known to er, "meet up with friends" before. But we were going to be there for the remainder of the evening.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Not when I'm going to be there for many hours, no. If it's a short trip, then yes, I've been known to er, "meet up with friends" before. But we were going to be there for the remainder of the evening.

Then you're the nice person. I prefer parking within walking distance.

 

[Tom]

FYI, in case it wasn't mentioned anywhere, Silver was on Express today, running solid. We rode monorails a few times today and saw them from the bus several times - never appeared to be any major issues. Lots of holding, but that's typical when they run several trains.

 

[Bigart]

For a while in the AM of Jan 5 only the resort beam was oprational. We rode from GF to MK and there was a tow tractor between the 2 on the express beam. All guests were being transported to MK using the resort Monorail. Not sure what the issue was...

 

[Tom]

For a while in the AM of Jan 5 only the resort beam was oprational. We rode from GF to MK and there was a tow tractor between the 2 on the express beam. All guests were being transported to MK using the resort Monorail. Not sure what the issue was...

Wow...completely missed that.