the.dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
So what about those obsolete steam trains circling around the MK?
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Rumor New Monorails Coming Soon?
- Thread starter iHeartDisneylandCats
- Start date
Quite a bit if you want to get technical. A major city would never use a similar system for any kind of mass transit, but it is fine for a theme park where you can sacrifice function for form.
Indeed, if you're using the steam trains in MK for transportation purposes for either efficiency or saving time... you're doing it wrong.
Exactly, and everything you just descirbed is more than just transportation as your previous post seem to elude to. It is a mix. Efficient as can be but still remaining an experience that markets the entire resort.
One could trace this back to the Tomorrowland Monorail as being both an eventual transportation but an attraction that showcased tomorrowland and had appeal as an experience.
Kamikaze
Well-Known Member
Its getting from A to B that sets the scene, not the method by which you get from A to B. The 'reveal' of the MK as you approach is the goal, not seeing it from a certain mode of transport.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
One is a theme park ride...one is primary mass transport...
Besides...I think iger would Can the trains too if he could.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
On this very board there was a plan by Iger to make the trains ‘greener’ by gutting them and powering them with a electric drive system.
Lots of backlash on that one... could still happen I suppose.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
I’m all in favor of green conversion...so I don’t have to hear outdated Industrial Age stupidity anymore...
That’s kinda silly though in this case...I don’t think the pub or the energy savings would be worth the conversion cost.
mikejs78
Premium Member
Seriously, the whole 'they only care about the stock price' is getting a bit tired. Did they mess up by not investing enough in the parks for a decade? Sure. Has that changed? It certainly seems like it has. If all they cared about was value extraction, I doubt you'd see the investment in the parks we are now seeing. Is the investment enough? I personally don't think so, but no one can argue that it's insubstantial.
It's getting to the point that I'm starting to tune out anyone who goes back to the 'stock price' refrain on every single post. It's getting tiresome.
That is an opinion that seems to be proven false by it's design so far. As If MK is the only thing seen. Even getting sementical the guests for decades now have it ingrained that it is a part of the experience, so even if you feel it is just transportation you would be in the minority of people who consider it a staple of their vacation. It was all done with intent. Hence why it was done in a manner at the time as well with continued expansion to remind people for staging that WDW is a resort. Some act like a shock that it could be transportation done with class and atmosphere with goals. You know, how it circles around and within the walls of EPCOT.
In my early stays, prior to 1988, the express loop went straight to the MK and back to the TTC. The Resort Loop went resort to MK and to resort. And you had to have a resort key to ride it.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
@Kamikaze, If it’s only transport, why do you think Disney chose to build a monorail rather than any of the other forms to transportation that was available at the time? Certainly there were cheaper/faster/easier/more efficient options. Why do you think they’ve modified the look of the monorails instead of just using something off the shelf?
Man, I was feeling somewhat excited about the possibility of new monorails, because I love the monorail at WDW. Now, I feel like a deflated Mickey balloon... 
Always an express as far a I know. Although for a short time around opening both ran clockwise.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
They were Walt’s men and loyal to the grave and in memorium...it wasn’t probably the best choice for Florida, by the die was cast.
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rreading
Well-Known Member
As someone who commonly likes to stay at a monorail resort, I wish this were still the case. It's remarkable how many get off the monorail at the TTC. I understand that it's all hands on deck to get everyone out asap, but it would be nice....
Kamikaze
Well-Known Member
When Walt died, they did what they had at DL.
As far as customizing the trains goes, thats not really going to increase cost all that much since they need to be designed specificly for WDW's system anyway.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
Right. And why did they go with a Monorail at DL? In both cases, they wanted more than just transportation. Call it “magic,” call it the Disney touch, but they didn’t want “just a way to move people from A to B. “
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
The monorail was supposed to be a very serious demonstration piece. It didn’t even have a Point B when it opened. The monorail became central to the Florida Project because Walt thought of it as a serious means of transportation. WED Transportation Systems was not looking to sell to amusement parks but actual transit agencies. What set the Walt Disney World monorail apart was being part of vision of what transportation could be, not just its worst reality.