Originally Posted By Donny So every time I goto Disneyland or world I always wonder if anyone KNOWS how they get the sound track on the Rail Road and Monorail and other attractions where the speakers on a track system where you can't use wires to attach to like a omni mover.I have always guessed radio ????
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I think it's all hard wired. There are some wires that run between the cars of each train, both on the railroad and the monorail, so I would assume that the announcements are carried on that. It's similar to the connection on a semi truck that gets the lights to work on the trailer, even though it's just the truck that actually has a power source. I'm sure they use radio of some sort to communicate between the trains, but I think each one runs itself without the need for radio. I do wonder, however, how they get the speakers to work on the railroad. Are they hooked up to batteries? Or are they steam powered too? : )
Originally Posted By Donny Ok I am sorry I know there are wires running to the speakers but there is not a large extension cord hooked to the train that has the audio running to it.
Originally Posted By brotherdave The monorail runs on electricity, so the answer is right there. My guess is that there could be either a large battery pack that is recharged every night in one of the cars or in the engine (our local amusement park does this), or there could be an on board "alternator" (not unlike a car) that could provide power to not only the sound system, but to the lights on board the train as well. I'm sure someone who has more knowledge of the WDW Railroad would probably have the correct answer.
Originally Posted By brotherdave As for an Omnimover, that is a good question. The narration for each vehicle (like the Doombuggies in the Haunted Mansion) must be synchronized with each scene. I'm not sure how the sound is recorded (today it would be simply digital), but back in the early years of WDW, they did not have this technology. Did every car have a tape loop that was triggered when it approached a certain area of the ride? Or was it produced by some other method?
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I read something in a book many years ago (it may have been one of the Mouse Tales books) that said that each omnimover car had a set of cartridges with a tape loop on it. When the car got to that specific scene, the cartridge would play the loop, and then the next one would be queued up for the next trigger in the track. It's been many many years since I read that, so I might have remembered it wrong, but I think that was the general idea of it. I would assume that by now they have switched over to some more advanced form of recording (CD, MP3, etc), so that it would be easier to change. For DL's HMH overlay, it seems like it would be a lot easier to have something taht's digital, since it's easier to swap out. For SSE, I assume there's some sort of onboard catalog of video and audio clips to use for the video on the way down, but I'm not sure how exactly that's operated, especially with using the photos taken earlier in the ride.
Originally Posted By disneykid90 The Mover and HM use a senors within the track and are activated as it goes. A tape would not be proficient due to the fact of if the vehicle stops. That is a lot of work that would go into a system that keeps a tape on the exact spot. A trip sensor differs as it would not activate that portion unless it hits the corresponding sensor.
