I remember talking to George M not long after the MKVIIIs issues. He and Gurr were astounded and a bit bemused about the whole catalogue of air cooling errors. They basically said "all they had to do was ask us...."
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Rumor- WDW to get new monorail trains in near future
- Thread starter baylaketower
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articos
Well-Known Member
Yeah, that's a refrain from every retired WED/MAPO/WDI person..."Why didn't they ask us? We could have told them that..." See also: Luigi's Flying Tires.
You would think the current gen wants the knowledge of the previous, but it happens far less often than you'd think.
You get the feeling the current gen want to prove they can do everything theirselves and leave their own legacy. How little they realise.
articos
Well-Known Member
Sadly, that's entirely accurate. And that's how we end up with Leave A Legacy absolutely killing Epcot's entry plaza. The other sad thing is if asked, Bob and George and the others who are left would go help in a heartbeat.
danlb_2000
Premium Member
I see nothing in that article about WDW getting new monorails in the near future. It's mainly just a speculative article based on the Disney Master plan which the article even admits has been around since the 80's.
Thrill Seeker
Well-Known Member
I always thought adding screens to the monorails/buses to give park information and such would be a cool idea.
flavious27
Well-Known Member
I don't doubt that wdw is going to replace the current trains, the question is when.
Polydweller
Well-Known Member
Absolutely. The trains are at expected lifetime and won't last forever so will have to be replaced. The only question really is when. This year seems unlikely if only because of the time to let the contract and get production underway. But next year isn't out of the question because the maintenance problems are just about at the tipping point where continuing to operate them goes beyond any sensible level.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
The good news for WDW is that the system there uses the standard gauge monorail beam. It's wider and heftier than the beam at Disneyland, which is a unique size from 1959 that was never used again. (And the reason why Disneyland's monorail system can make such tight turns and curves over and under things)
But with WDW, Disney can go to Bombardier or Hitachi and order a fleet of monorails to fit the beam, and then have WDI do an aesthetic treatment on the exteriors and interior cabins to Disney-fy them. And the whole thing can be done faster and cheaper per train for WDW than the customized fleet built for Disneyland.
Even then, the new Disneyland trains were built by Bombardier up in British Columbia. But it was a long and expensive custom job because the Disneyland beams are a one-of-a-kind size that no one builds trains for today. http://www.monorails.org/tmspages/TPBeams.html
My Beam Is Bigger Than Your Beam!
http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43253&start=30
But with WDW, Disney can go to Bombardier or Hitachi and order a fleet of monorails to fit the beam, and then have WDI do an aesthetic treatment on the exteriors and interior cabins to Disney-fy them. And the whole thing can be done faster and cheaper per train for WDW than the customized fleet built for Disneyland.
Even then, the new Disneyland trains were built by Bombardier up in British Columbia. But it was a long and expensive custom job because the Disneyland beams are a one-of-a-kind size that no one builds trains for today. http://www.monorails.org/tmspages/TPBeams.html
My Beam Is Bigger Than Your Beam!
http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43253&start=30
HMF
Well-Known Member
I hate to point this out as I am not fond of LaL either but that was designed by probably the greatest Imagineer ever.
BalooChicago
Well-Known Member
Did you mean Disney World?
Monorail_Red
Well-Known Member
Here we go again.....
JimboJones123
Well-Known Member
DL trains would be horrible at WDW.
Monorail_Red
Well-Known Member
Trying to squash these rumors seems impossible. You would not really gain a whole lot by replacing the trains at WDW. The system itself is at capacity. The trains have composite bodys at it is, so you are not going to really be able to increase passenger capacity because the trains are pretty much as lightweight as they can reasonably be. Additionally, over the past 3 years all the trains have been rewired with a sectioned electrical system. This means that if there were to be a short or something, instead of having to take the time to repair and rewire, you just replace that one section of the electrical "grid". The trains are also scheduled for a major on board computer upgrade, which as been discussed before. None of these past upgrades would have happened and none of the planned upgrades/refurbishments would be scheduled if they were not planning on using these trains for several more years to come. Yes, the Mark IV trains were replaced after 17-20 years of service and the Mark VI trains are now going on 23 years old this year. Due to the materials that made up the Mark IV trains, there was not really much else to upgrade other than the 6th passenger cars (on most trains) due to the beamway weight restrictions. From being a former pilot myself, I can tell you that the Mark VI's are prone to failure because of the lack of TLC. I have said it before and I will say it again, the Mark VI's perform extremely well considering the millions of miles on the odometers and the demanding operational hours. Now I'm just going to sit back and see what the rumor mill spits out this time around! Cheers!
articos
Well-Known Member
John did not design the concrete monolith graveyard that ended up in place. John's concept was an open, space-age feeling plaza with existing green space and running water elements, with warmth and and an organic feel that complemented SSE. A big problem was at that moment in time, he was passing the baton, and he felt it was time to help nurture and teach the next generation of WDI. His ideas were filtered to them, and then they executed, poorly, while no one fought to curb the changes imposed on the initial design brief. Most of the design work on LaL was drawn by folks right out of CalArts and Art Institute, who had no real world experience in spacial design or public plazas. These projects take a committee, and today's committees are unlike the best of the best who built Epcot, who had the knowledge of the teams coming off of building the rest of the World. When building the World, if the designers didn't have experience in something, they requisitioned money to go explore something similar and took measurements, photo reference and got a gut feel, so to speak. Then if they were still unsure, they built big because they had the land. That only happens now if you have a show/project producer on a high-profile project and has the budget (or fights internally) to allow that type of background to be done. Otherwise, it's just take your best guess. Does JH take some blame for not fighting back against management's decisions? Absolutely. But when he was told to redesign the entry, he did that - he concepted something very different from what was built - essentially, by interns.
That's not even getting into the mandates from Marketing that was incorporated into the budget for the redo, or the mandates from Ops and Landscaping, et al who wanted to be lazy and not put man-hours into upkeep.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
No, I meant the new Disneyland trains were built a few years ago by Bombardier, the big Canadian transportation firm, at a production facility they have in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The new trains were shipped down the West Coast to Disneyland on flatbed trucks on Interstate 5 from Canada in late 2007 and early 2008. Here's one of the newspaper stories from when the first train arrived in late '07, noting the Canadian factory that built them for Disney. http://www.ocregister.com/news/cars-76436-first-train.html
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