Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan On a recent trip to DL, I experienced something new to me: Riding in the nosecone of the Monorail. It's a very different ride from up there, and the Monorail seems to move very fast from that viewpoint. In fact, I was kind of pressing the imaginary backseat driver brake pedal as we approached some of the turns. I rode at night and it while the views of the parks were spectacular, I found myself mostly looking straight ahead at the beam way much of the time. The Monorail seems to get really close to the trees at various points, especially in the darkness. Not sure why it took 53 years, but it made me feel like a kid again. I highly recommend it!
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Riding in the nose is always a really fun experience. I've done it in both DL and WDW, though it's been discontinued in WDW since the 2009 crash (I think DL stopped letting guests ride in the rear nose, but I'm not sure). It definitely gives you an entirely new perspective on things, and it's also a lot of fun to chat with the Monorail pilot as they go about their duty. In addition to being able to see straight ahead, it's really fun to get to see things on both sides of the train, especially in DCA, where the one side of the train is often facing a building while the other side has spectacular views
Originally Posted By monorailblue The biggest trip for me was training on Monorail during DCA construction--and launching the train backwards to the Disneyland Hotel station for the first time. What was then known as the West Street Train (the first to leave Tomorrowland in bi-directional operation) had no one in the tailcone--so the driver was totally dependent on a little 9" (or so) monitor in the cab. I got used to it, but it took some time.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan monorail blue, I've always wondered -- do birds or squirrels ever get in the way on the beam way? If so, do you have to attempt to stop or just keep rolling?
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Not sure why it took 53 years, but it made me feel like a kid again. I highly recommend it!" You are really, really late to the party my friend. On my last trip we rode in the tail cone and it was like being in a VIP lounge. The best part, aside from the views, is that it has AC.
Originally Posted By monorailblue Back in my Monorail days, the biggest problems on the beam were the occasional stray branch and ducks. Ducks would frequently rest on the beam itself or on the underhang. Most of the time, they would not respond to an oncoming train or horn until the last few seconds--and then just hop out of the way. This caused problems in a number of ways. First, they usually would not drop off the beam until after they were out of the driver's limited sight--and if you were going in reverse, you had an even more restricted view. Second, if you saw them far enough off and actually stopped the train, they might not move at all, because they often only reacted when the train entered within a certain critical distance that would finally trigger a response. Third, they sometimes would be struck. If we had a visible dead bird on the beam or underhang, we wouldn't load the nose- or tailcones so that Guests wouldn't see it. Once or twice, I heard of everything coming to a halt because a train stopped for ducks but then couldn't persuade the ducks to move. The ducks were, I think, more of a problem during DCA construction because even normal bi-directional operations back then sometimes meant the beam had no trains passing for 20 minutes or more--giving plenty of time for the fauna in the park to find a roost. I never noticed squirrels, cats, etc. on the beam.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Ducks! It figures. They've been ruining the scale of Storybook Land for years.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>On my last trip we rode in the tail cone and it was like being in a VIP lounge. The best part, aside from the views, is that it has AC.<< That's on my agenda next time!
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I love riding in the nose cone. It's usually very popular and hard to do, but at least once or twice I've let a monorail go by and not get on so I could be in position to ride in the nose on the next one. Even better, and sadly no longer possible, was riding in the bubble back in the 70's. That was awesome squared. This is not a picture of me and my best friend, but it accurately shows our slack-jawed awe at riding up there. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://davelandblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/monorail-mania.html">http://davelandblog.blogspot.c...nia.html</a> (See picture 8 of 11)
Originally Posted By trekkeruss "Even better, and sadly no longer possible, was riding in the bubble back in the 70's. That was awesome squared." Yup, it was AWESOME. I have looked for a photo of the interior of the MKIII cockpit bubble, but have never found one. It would be interesting to see the styling of the controls and such.
Originally Posted By darcy-becker <Ducks! It figures. They've been ruining the scale of Storybook Land for years.> I just think of them as magical giant ducks. And once there was a giant magical cat.
Originally Posted By hbquikcomjamesl > In fact, I was kind of pressing the > imaginary backseat driver brake pedal > as we approached some of the turns. ??? Brake pedal? With a very few exceptions (e.g., PCC cars, on which the controls were designed to be easy for bus drivers to learn), trains, trolleys, and the like don't have brake pedals. To the best of my recollection (and I've had a number of monorail cab rides, and plenty of opportunity to inspect the controls), Disney Monorails (and the trolley cars on the L. A. Metro Blue, Green, Gold, and Expo lines) have a single handle that moves one direction to notch up the throttle, and the other direction to apply first dynamic brakes, then friction brakes. At least in my experience, the easiest way to get a monorail cab ride, at least in DL, was always to wait for the second or third departure once you've reached the platform level. This applied to both the "Buck Rogers" dome-cab design, and the "Star Trek" no-dome design. I don't know if it will still work; I also remember a time when you could follow the MSEP all the way from one gate to the other, and nobody would even attempt to stop you from doing so; that ended decades ago, and both in WDW-MK and in DCA, there would be CMs positioned at strategic points along the Parade Route, to cut off the parade's "tail." I've also had one or two cab rides on the Disneyland Railroad. And I've ridden in the DRR VIP Business Car, the Lilly Belle, both during the brief experiment with a DL backstage tour, and during the first few years of the Walt's Footsteps tour (including one early tour in which I was the entire tour group, and the guide and I spent the whole tour finishing each other's sentences).
Originally Posted By hbquikcomjamesl Right, but wouldn't at least reaching for an imaginary air brake stand be more appropriate? Both more realistic and more imaginative at the same time?
Originally Posted By trekkeruss FWIW, an ocean away on Tokyo Disney Resort Line's monorail system, their trains do not have cabs or even drivers.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA One of biggest 'I don't gets' is how Disney has essentially abandoned expansion of the monorail because 'it's too expensive.' When EPCOT Center was added, a monorail line was added to get guests to the new Park. Plus, that fantastic added loop around Future World to give guests a spectacular sneak preview of the place. 7 years later, with Disney-MGM Studios, the monorail beam costs 'a million dollars per mile' and becomes cost-prohibitive. And fans say 'yeah, well Disney is in business to make money so I get it.' I don't get it.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Although I'm sure cost was a consideration in the lack of monorail expansion, I really don't think it's the primary reason. I think it's more related to how the WDW resort was growing at the time MGM was built at the same time as Typhoon Lagoon, Pleasure Island, and the Caribbean Beach Resort. This all marked a huge departure from the existing WDW development, which focused around Bay Lake (along with the sleepy Buena Vista Village shopping center). Since everything was pretty much in one place, it was easy to connect everything with transit One of the biggest complaints I've heard about people staying at the monorail resorts is that they have to transfer to get to Epcot. This can be a time consuming process, and is a real hassle at the end of the night. To get the monorail to reach all of WDW's destinations, it would either require transferring trains multiple times or riding on long, convoluted routes that don't take a direct route. One of the most convenient things about the bus system is that it provides a one-seat ride from your hotel to nearly every destination in WDW (except other hotels); although it can be a pain to wait for the correct bus to arrive, it's very easy to get to your destination Another huge disadvantage to using a monorail system is that it has a fairly limited capacity. As can be seen when the evening crowds leave MK, the trains often struggle to meet demand. Because the trains all operate out of the same stations, there is a definite limit to the number of trains that can be on the line at any point in time; additionally, adding trains to a line can be a time consuming process, which requires stopping all other traffic on the line. Compare that with a bus system, where it's very easy to add surge capacity (say, when 200,000 guests need to leave 4 theme parks within a few hours of each other) Disney routinely spends hundreds of millions on rides that are far less than a mile long. I don't see how spending $1M per mile on transit (though it's surely at least $20-30M these days) would cause them to bat an eye
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I know that Disney's bus system gets a lot of complaints, and I recognize that it's not perfect (midday headways are particularly annoying), but I think it's a lot more incredible than most people realize. Having direct shuttle lines from each of the 22 resorts to the 4 parks, 2 water parks, and Disney Springs (not to mention various other lines serving things like TTC and Pioneer Hall) takes a TON of coordination and a huge fleet of buses and drivers At the end of a long day in the parks, I usually just want to get back to my hotel and go to sleep, but I'm always impressed by the never-ending stream of buses flowing into the depots at the parks. I don't entirely understand how the buses get assigned to certain routes, but it seems to be a pretty flexible system that tends to react well to unexpected demand for certain routes instead of others I ride transit to work every day through a major city with countless lines. WDW's system may not be quite as big (geographically, it's close; number of lines and ridership are lower) but it's really impressive how well it works. It's not perfect, but I think it is one of WDW's unique unsung victories
