Originally Posted By mickey_ring So sorry for the CM and his family. It had to be a shock and a moment of disbelief to anyone on the platform who saw it happen. All they could do was see it with no way to stop it. Do the monorails have any sort of on-board data or video recorder?
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 The more I think about it, the more I let it sink in ... the more I just can't believe there wasn't some huge issue or set of issues.
Originally Posted By mawnck A monorail insider at "another Disney site" is reporting that the inside scuttlebutt (IE rumor, but from sources that should probably know) is as follows: "Control" had Monorail Pink back into the station in preparation for parking it for the night, with the MAPO system disabled, while Purple was still there. This was a blind maneuver that required Control to know where everybody was. The accident happened inside the Transportation Center terminal. The CNN picture is of a different accident on a non-Disney monorail.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "The CNN picture is of a different accident on a non-Disney monorail." What? This pretty much loks like a Disney monorail that rear-ended another. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/05/u.s.disney.monorail/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/...dex.html</a>
Originally Posted By RockyMtnMinnie "The CNN picture is of a different accident on a non-Disney monorail." That is most definately Monorail Pink in front and Purple in the back.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>This pretty much loks like a Disney monorail that rear-ended another.<< Hmmm ... looks like you're right. I was going by what they were saying on the other site, and by the fact that it took place inside the terminal (as the video shows). Oh well, that's rumors for you.
Originally Posted By sjhym33 The video shows the monorails inside the TTC EPCOT monorail station. The CNN shows the same monorails outside of the station near the exit ramp. The CNN picture must have been taken after the video was taken. Not sure which was taken first though.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy ^^ Based on accounts from other websites, it appears the trains collided in the station. Pink was traveling in reverse and crashed into a parked Purple train. It is likely the trains were moved out of the station at some point in order to evacuate the driver from Pink, the cab of which remained outside of the station in the position when it initially impacted Purple.
Originally Posted By MPierce What a very tragic accident. There had to be a catastrophic failure of the safety fail-safe in place.
Originally Posted By iDisney72 Do you think this means they won't allow guests to ride in the front anymore? Imagine if there had been a family in the front of that train!
Originally Posted By trekkeruss IMO, judging by the amount of damage, the speed of the monorail that ran into the stationary one was not that high.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "Do you think this means they won't allow guests to ride in the front anymore? Imagine if there had been a family in the front of that train!" The first fatal accident in the history of the WDW monorail system and they are going to stop letting people sit in the front? The monorail is both a mass transit system (kind of) and a theme park attraction, both of which are two of the safest things you can experience. You are much more likely to die in your car on the way to WDW than on the monorail or any ride. I don't support building monorails in our cities as a solution to congestion, but it isn't because of safety concerns. I would gladly sit in the front.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones This is an odd situation when compared to the Columbia and Big Thunder accidents. In those cases we didn't get pictures of say, the derailed Big Thunder train, mere hours after the accident. This monorail crash is something you can't really hide since it's out in the open and everybody has a cell phone camera now.
Originally Posted By jkayjs Well time will tell but if the driver was 21 it does make a medical event less likely but not unheard of. This apppears to be a combination of multiple factors all of which must be investigated & resolved. Again let's see what the experts uncover.
Originally Posted By Skellington88 That cast member had no right to tell the guy to turn off the camera. He was in no way obstructing the rescue operation and was documentating the incident. Is this disney's attempt to cover up or something??
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Considering WDW is like a mini-city I'm sure they can do whatever they want. They probably have the legal right to strip search and interrogate you if they wanted to. What they or any police officer can't do is require to give up your footage. The only person who can order you to delete your images or film is a judge.
Originally Posted By joe80x86 this from micechat.com from a poster Hi guys, I'm a former Mark VI railie, and I stay in touch with a fair number of folks in the department. Here's what I've heard. I'm going to stress that it's what I've heard, and I can't represent this as absolute fact. Take that for what it's worth. The short, short version is that Monorail Central cleared Monorail Pink in reverse into the Concourse (the Epcot side of the TTC) station without being aware that Monorail Purple was still in the station. Pink was cleared with MAPO override, meaning that the driver would have disabled the anti-collision system (there are a variety of legitimate reasons for doing this), and would have been acting on faith that Central wouldn't have cleared him into a dangerous situation because it sometimes is difficult to see everything you'd want to in the cab mirrors, particularly at night on a curve such as the one he was backing along. For whatever reason, Purple just sat in the station without attempting to avoid the accident, and was struck by Pink moving at the full 15 mph allowed during MAPO override. From what I understand, the driver of Purple was a new transfer from another department. Why Central would not have made sure the station was clear before moving any trains is a bit of a mystery, but I've heard that no one was actually in the control console (the control tower-looking place at Concourse) at the time. To my knowledge, there were no electrical or mechanical problems in play here. Again, I have to stress that I'm relating what I've heard, and I was not there. This is a second-hand account from others more familiar with the situation. Okay, speculation time. Why would Purple have just sat in the station and let himself get hit? Well, it was a new driver from what I understand, and when Pink got close enough to trigger Purple's MAPO system, it's quite possible that the driver of Purple freaked a little bit (any time a driver gets an unexpected red MAPO light, it gets their attention), and was so intent on looking at his console trying to figure out what was going on that he simply did not see Pink barreling down on him. I suppose it's also possible that the Concourse station didn't have power at the time, preventing Purple from leaving, but I rather doubt that was the case. Why would Central clear a train into an occupied station? Inattention, most likely. As I said, I'd heard that Central was not at the console at the time of the accident. IMO, if this is the case, it's the root cause of the accident and whoever was Central should be strung up. Also, here's a little primer on how the anti-collision system on the WDW trains works, since there seems to be some confusion as to how the system works: The system at Disney is called the MAPO system, or more precisely the Moving Blocklight System (MBS). It consists of a number of transmitters along the beam every 7-10 pylons or so that place RF signals of three different frequencies onto the positive buss bar (power rail), and a corresponding receiver in each train. The trains are wired with a capacitor that shorts the MAPO signals to ground, preventing any signals generated ahead of the train from getting past it. The transmitters are arranged sequentially around the beam- if any given transmitter is putting out frequency #1, then the next one will be emitting frequency #2, and the next one after that will have frequency #3. The one after that will be transmitting frequency #1 again, and the cycle continues all the way around the beam. The upshot of this is that in normal operation, the following distance should be such that there will be three or more transmitters between a given train and the train ahead of him, thus the following train will "see" all three frequencies, and the driver will have a green MBS light on his console. As he begins to get close to the leading train, there will only be two transmitters separating the trains, and the leading train will be shorting out the third MAPO frequency being generated by the next transmitter ahead of it. The following train will then see only two frequencies, and the yellow MBS light illuminates on the driver's console. This signals the driver that he needs to stop at the next designated holdpoint until his MBS indicator turns green again (i.e., the leading train has gone far enough away that there are now again three or more transmitters between the two trains). If the driver ignores the yellow MBS light and continues on, then the following train will only have one transmitter between it and the leading train. This triggers an emergency stop on the following train, with a big ol' blinking red light (a "red MAPO") to let the driver know he screwed up, and a corresponding entry is made in the train's daily event log. It's a reasonably fail-safe system, meaning that if there are problems with the system itself, it will result in a train being stopped instead of being allowed to continue into a dangerous situation. It's not rocket science, and is similar to moving blocklight systems used on subways and other similar systems. Being so simple, the system is pretty reliable, although it rarely can get a bit flaky during thunderstorms, resulting in the occasional yellow MBS light even though there may be a mile or more between trains. However, there are a number of situations where the MAPO system needs to be turned off, and for that, there's a "MAPO override" button on the console, which allows the driver to do just that. When MAPO override is active, the train is limited to 15 mph, and the driver has to continue to hold the button down to keep the system overridden. Some examples of when the system needs to be overridden are when trains are on any of the spurlines (since they have no MAPO transmitters), or when trains are being switched between beams. Anyway, regardless of what actually did happen, my thoughts go out to the family of the driver that died, and also to the driver of Pink, who I'm sure is living with his own awful grief. No one should have to deal with this kind of stuff for a crappy hourly position, and I hope that this sad event brings some (IMO) much-needed change in the Transportation Department management. Reply With Quote
Originally Posted By joe80x86 The above does make sense when looking closely at the pictures. It appears monorail pink had started to climb purple indicating it as the moving train. We also know the fatality occurred on purple, indicating pink must have been backing up. This appears to simply be a horrible accident cause by human error in the control center. It is very sad, I wonder how long it will be before the Epcot line is brought back up. Someone posted on another site that Disney was putting up temporary walls around the station entrances for Epcot.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo I respectfully disagree, Skellington. You have to show respect from the fallen CM. They were still unsure of his condition. What if he came around the corner and caught a grim scene inside the cab? How would his family react to seeing their son in that condition posted all over YouTube or Facebook? I completely agree with the CM cutting off the video, and would have done the same. It seems the cameraman came to that realization as well. I’m still stunned over this. As someone would was a “yes” away from being a Monorail pilot myself, and friends with many Mono CMs at DL, it could have happened to any one of my friends---or myself. We were a big family. My deepest prayers go out to the family and fellow CMs. Truly a tragic day at the kingdom.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "That cast member had no right to tell the guy to turn off the camera." Getting back to the photography issue. It depends on whether or not the monorail station is public or private property. I would assume it's private property. <a href="http://www.cob.org/documents/mayor/eob/legal-rights-of-photographers.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.cob.org/documents/m...hers.pdf</a> "A photographer is not trespassing, even on private property, if such a place is open to the public. There is no need to get specific permission to enter any facility that is open to the public, including office buildings, malls, banks, etc. Of course, that permission can be revoked. Photographers can be asked to stop shooting or to leave, but are not at that point trespassing unless they refuse to comply." As a representative of the property owner the cast member was revoking the guest's right to be there and he had to comply or risk trespassing. The cast member did indeed have the right to ask him to leave. Legal? No. Shady? Maybe.
