Rumor- WDW to get new monorail trains in near future

[gsimpson]

If you examine all the facts and remove emotion from the picture they lead to the conclusion that the Monorails are indeed going away at WDW and relatively soon.

Why would they be going through the expense of automating them then? No company, especially one as penny pinching as you believe TDO is, is going to go through the millions in cost and guest inconvenience for an upgrade that is going to be shut down soon.

Disney is self insured so they did not have insurance money that came from outside to pay for the rebuild. On the subject of liability, they have had how many bus incidents compared to monorail incidents over the life of the park?

I would love to see a new fleet of trains, but as someone who actually works and has a lot of public transit knowledge I know that 35 years old is not old in train years. How old do you think all the vehicles in the CTA fleet used in Chicago are? What about the London underground where some of their vehicles are still largely wood? The cost to build a new Monorail system would indeed but higher than buying a grundle of busses but the cost per passenger mile on the existing monorail (including maintenance cost that you seem to think they don't spend) is dramatically lower than the cost of moving those passengers by bus.

 

[matt9112]

We are talking about TODAY's Disney not Disney 3 years ago,

The Disney which is pulling the water feature out of the Poly, Turning Fountains to Planters and is afraid to order enough snacks at Gasparilla's because people might not buy them - even though they sell out every day by 4 pm or so.

A Disney so intent on pinching pennies that dollars fly over their heads, This is TODAY's Disney "What can we close today"

blue ocean theory at work
@Lee

 

[ford91exploder]

Why would they be going through the expense of automating them then? No company, especially one as penny pinching as you believe TDO is, is going to go through the millions in cost and guest inconvenience for an upgrade that is going to be shut down soon.

Disney is self insured so they did not have insurance money that came from outside to pay for the rebuild. On the subject of liability, they have had how many bus incidents compared to monorail incidents over the life of the park?

I would love to see a new fleet of trains, but as someone who actually works and has a lot of public transit knowledge I know that 35 years old is not old in train years. How old do you think all the vehicles in the CTA fleet used in Chicago are? What about the London underground where some of their vehicles are still largely wood? The cost to build a new Monorail system would indeed but higher than buying a grundle of busses but the cost per passenger mile on the existing monorail (including maintenance cost that you seem to think they don't spend) is dramatically lower than the cost of moving those passengers by bus.

As long as trains are maintained they can run for a century if not longer,

As to buying buses Disney probably leases them which makes them completely tax deductible and capacity can be added and removed on the fly.

A monorail is a capital asset which they need to depreciate over time

Seriously, Have you BEEN on a monorail recently - They are FILTHY plastics cracked mold everywhere AC works on about 1 of 3 units, I rode the T in boston every day for many years and while compiaining about the T is something of an art in Boston. On average the T cars were far cleaner than the WDW monorail is today.

The T cars did not have the telltale grease streaks from failed oil and grease seals that you see on many of the monorails, Could also mean T washed the cars periodically.

But other than 'Bus Driver' stories we have seen nothing that says Disney will be automating the Monorail fleet yes we see signs for fiber cable installation - but that is probably for Disneys network as a whole and the monorail is a wonderful RoW for cable installation.

 

[ford91exploder]

blue ocean theory at work
@Lee

Yes exactly

@Lee where are you?

 

[DisneyGentleman]

A Disney so intent on pinching pennies that dollars fly over their heads, This is TODAY's Disney "What can we close today"

Your post lit a lightbulb for me, and suddenly everything seems to make sense. I'd like to title this post "What Disney is doing, and why NextGen is critical"

WDW is packing them in the parks while decreasing quality - that means only one thing - profit. So how do you take that to the extreme? Add capacity without adding quality. That means "spread the peanut butter more evenly on the bread". They don't need outstanding attractions to overcrowd one area of one park. They need uniform mediocrity to draw people to every nook and cranny of every park. They need Disney Springs to clear some people out of the parks (while still spending money), and they need MM+ to spread people around by offering fast access. Pandora will be good enough to draw people to AK, but not so good that the place will overcrowd. An Expedition Everest with a disco Yeti is perfect. If it were better, people would flock to it.

So what is the next step and why is MM+ so critical? I think there will be upcharges for everything. Expect a "Rollback the PrIces" campaign, where general admission becomes say $50. But with that admission, you will get to eat and shop and do little more (spending money along the way). Everything will have an MM+ upcharge at "just a touch of your little band". Ride a bendy bus and the upcharge is small. Ride the deluxe monorail, and the $$ will roll in. Want to see Illuminations? A touch of your band will do that too. It's just like gambling in Las Vegas, but the payoff will an experience rather than a cash prize. It's as close to a cash printing machine as anyone can devise - no wonder they expect the $$ to roll in.

Investing $3B in MM+ may be the best bargain they ever devised.

 

[CDavid]

I think there will be upcharges for everything. Expect a "Rollback the PrIces" campaign, where general admission becomes say $50. But with that admission, you will get to eat and shop and do little more (spending money along the way). Everything will have an MM+ upcharge at "just a touch of your little band". Ride a bendy bus and the upcharge is small. Ride the deluxe monorail, and the $$ will roll in. Want to see Illuminations? A touch of your band will do that too

You don't need MM+ to accomplish that though, and in fact they did pretty much what you suggest back in the 1970's. Instead of colored bracelets they were called ticket books, and they were so simple and easy to use, didn't have to be booked 60 days out, and I don't think a ticket book ever once didn't work right. Indeed, there are a few advantages to an upcharge for certain attractions, in that it gives Disney an incentive to invest in additional and larger-scale attractions, for which they can sell more 'tickets'.

Much of what has been achieved with MM+ could have have done without spending a couple billion. It might not have been very hi-tech or as flashy, but it would have worked, and at a tiny fraction of the MyMagic cost.

Oh, and for those who think the monorail will go the way of the Swan Boats, how do you intend to move guests from the main parking lot at the TTC to the Magic Kingdom gates? Neither the ferryboat nor the buses have really sufficient capacity, at least at peak periods.

 

[flyerjab]

Wow they finally break ground on a new attraction and everyone here loses their minds. What gives?

Didn't you know? Ford91Explorer is Lex Luthor to WDWDad13's Superman for all things WDW.

 

[lazyboy97o]

We are talking about TODAY's Disney not Disney 3 years ago,

The Disney which is pulling the water feature out of the Poly, Turning Fountains to Planters and is afraid to order enough snacks at Gasparilla's because people might not buy them - even though they sell out every day by 4 pm or so.

A Disney so intent on pinching pennies that dollars fly over their heads, This is TODAY's Disney "What can we close today"

You keep saying this as if their was some sort of radical paradigm shift at Walt Disney World in the past three years. Change at Disney very rarely occurs so quickly.

 

[DisneyGentleman]

Instead of colored bracelets they were called ticket books, and they were so simple and easy to use, didn't have to be booked 60 days out, and I don't think a ticket book ever once didn't work right.

Yep, and before those newfangled gadgets called cellular telephones, we had two cans and a string and that worked just fine too.

 

[Lee]

Yes exactly

@Lee where are you?

Huh? What? What's the question?

 

[ford91exploder]

Didn't you know? Ford91Explorer is Lex Luthor to WDWDad13's Superman for all things WDW.

You are invited to my secret lair in a volcano for a chilled adult beverage

 

[ford91exploder]

Huh? What? What's the question?

Is Disney planning to discontinue monorails in favor of the new Bendy Buses? as in is any actual work being performed on them during the current 'downtime' or is this simply an experiment to see if the monorails can be safely dispensed with.

 

[ford91exploder]

You don't need MM+ to accomplish that though, and in fact they did pretty much what you suggest back in the 1970's. Instead of colored bracelets they were called ticket books, and they were so simple and easy to use, didn't have to be booked 60 days out, and I don't think a ticket book ever once didn't work right. Indeed, there are a few advantages to an upcharge for certain attractions, in that it gives Disney an incentive to invest in additional and larger-scale attractions, for which they can sell more 'tickets'.

Much of what has been achieved with MM+ could have have done without spending a couple billion. It might not have been very hi-tech or as flashy, but it would have worked, and at a tiny fraction of the MyMagic cost.

Oh, and for those who think the monorail will go the way of the Swan Boats, how do you intend to move guests from the main parking lot at the TTC to the Magic Kingdom gates? Neither the ferryboat nor the buses have really sufficient capacity, at least at peak periods.

3 Bendy Buses have greater capacity than a single monorail trainset

 

[Lee]

Is Disney planning to discontinue monorails in favor of the new Bendy Buses? as in is any actual work being performed on them during the current 'downtime' or is this simply an experiment to see if the monorails can be safely dispensed with.

Lol
The monorails aren't going anywhere.

Additions like bendy busses may well carry more guests, but the monorail is iconic and absolutely permanent.

 

[janoimagine]

Aren't the extended busses for the All-Star, Pop Century and Art of Animation Resorts?

 

[DisneyGentleman]

3 Bendy Buses have greater capacity than a single monorail trainset

And they smell better too.

 

[Clamman73]

Lol
The monorails aren't going anywhere.

Additions like bendy busses may well carry more guests, but the monorail is iconic and absolutely permanent.

Furthermore, to your iconic point, there is an aesthetic to the monorail that any way you paint a bus, it's still lipstick on a pig even if it's an electric bus...it's a bus. I guess Disney could have built a road all the way around the lagoon and had buses running around in a circle along with the monorail, but seeing buses going around Seven Seas, especially on the northwest side would not have been aesthetically pleasing to the Vacation Kingdom look...

 

[matt9112]

Lol
The monorails aren't going anywhere.

Additions like bendy busses may well carry more guests, but the monorail is iconic and absolutely permanent.

not pertaining to "new" would they ever just do major refurb? just new carpet lighting ect?

 

[Monorail_Red]

Unfortunately since the accident they no longer park them nose to nose. On cold nights they just keep the unstorable trains running on the beam all night. If they don't its a good chance they wouldn't start again in the morning.

They haven't had any major hurricanes since then either.

Odd question and perhaps my eyes are playing tricks on me but does it appear that the gold monorail is sitting slightly higher then the silver? Are some trains different heights or is the one have a load on it? Just curiosity is peaking me tonight.

The suspension has a few air ride components, so depending on when they were parked, its not uncommon for the air system to lose a few pounds of pressure.

As far as I know, none of the trains are being wrapped or scheduled to be wrapped. I also have heard nothing about an all black monorail either, but I don't get to spend much time back at shop so something could be hiding.

Let's hope it stays that way!

I don't know if anyone is interested, but here is a page from someone who worked on the monorail published back in 1991. (Just a little outdated ) It does give some good insight on the operational procedures of the monorail. (I don't know if half of these are still relevant, but it's still personally interesting.)

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/dis.monorails

Believe it or not, most of the info there is all still relevant (when I was there anyway). I think much of it will be scrapped when they outsource the pilots to automation.

If I could have one improvement made to the existing WDW monorails is would be to get rid of the center seats so people could spread out.

Not a bad idea, however under that center seat lives quite a few air and electrical components. Probably not worth the work work to move all that around just to gain a few more people per car.

I'd really like to hear a Monorail Maintenance CM chime in to see if the monorails are actually being SERVICED now or are just parked and this whole maintenance thing is just a dry run to see the transportation flows without monorails in service

I wasn't in maintenance, just a pilot but I will offer my .02 here. All the monorail maintenance CM's I knew were very hard working individuals and took pride in their work. I got the vibe that the importance of TLC went by the wayside in recent years from the higher-ups. Hopefully that will or has already changed with Sam in the picture.

Anyway, to answer your question - when I was there, (and this is probably still the case) they had a rotation system where a train will not stay out of shop more than a few consecutive days. Even for a stay out train, at the end of the day maintenance would at least spot check the trains in the stations. When we would park the train, we would hang a red tag in cab 1, and by the next morning the red tag will be replaced with a green tag by somebody in maintenance.

I got to witness the station maintenance one night. I was parking an Epcot train at Epcot, and they actually did the maintenance check at the TTC and then I parked the train at Epcot with a green tag instead of red. But they basically open all the side hatches, check the wheel wells, tires, and other components to make sure all looked good. I'm sure there were other things checked I didn't notice, as there were about 6 guys climbing in and out of the train's maintenance hatches.



My educated guess is WDW will not discontinue the operation of the current Mark VI trains until at least the year 2020.

 

[gsimpson]

As long as trains are maintained they can run for a century if not longer,

As to buying buses Disney probably leases them which makes them completely tax deductible and capacity can be added and removed on the fly.

A monorail is a capital asset which they need to depreciate over time

Seriously, Have you BEEN on a monorail recently -

But other than 'Bus Driver' stories we have seen nothing that says Disney will be automating the Monorail fleet

Yes, I have been on the monorails as recently as 12/26 - 01/05 and while they were not as pristine as I would like they moved a heck of a lot of people very quickly. Some of them were pretty rough and one of them had brake problems (noise and vibration, no problem actually stopping). I stayed at the Poly and went to MK several times, walked to the TTC and took the monorail to Epcot several times, and even went to the contemporary a couple times.

The monorails I'm sure are fully depreciated and at least a few years ago Disney was buying their busses and not leasing them so they would depreciate those the same way.

Three articulated busses might hold as many folks as a monorail (I doubt it) but they certainly can't move people between point a and point b as quickly. The monorails can move massive numbers of people, search for an article about when the monorails were downs due to storms or whatnot and see how many extra busses they had to roll and how much longer it took to get folks around any like any mode of transport not at grade they can't hit or be hit by other cars/busses/trucks. No matter how stupid or drunk a driver is on the road he isn't going to tbone a monorail.

As for there being no evidence they are automating:
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/automated-monorail-system-update.876411/page-8

From the monorail society:
Walt Disney World Monorail System may be in for major changes. Since opening in 1971, monorail pilots/drivers have operated monorail trains at the resort. Reportedly, Thales Transportation is working on completely automating the entire 23.6-kilometer system over the next two years. Drivers will essentially become attendants, onboard to monitor train systems. The Mark VI trains will be 'launched' from the stations by an operator, who will decide when it is time to close doors and send them on their way. We've been told the budget for the upgrade is around 75 million dollars. Interestingly, direction of travel may be reversed on all lines, in part to improve safety. Circling Seven Seas Lagoon, the Exterior/Express loop will run clockwise through the Polynesian Resort, Grand Floridian Resort and Magic Kingdom. The Lagoon/Resort beam will run counter clockwise from TTC (Ticketing and Transportation Center) to the Contemporary Resort, to Magic Kingdom, to the Grand Floridian and Polynesian Resort. The Epcot loop will run counter clockwise from the Epcot Station through the park to the TTC. This will negate the chance of ever having to drive a train backwards through a switch, a situation which led to the 2009 tragic fatality of a 21-year-old driver. Cameras will be added to provide train attendants with live rear-view imagery.