I dive deep into all things monorails at Walt Disney world.
Link to the official OSHA report on the crash. https://www.osha.gov/ords/imis/accidentsearch.accident_detail?id=202483921
And the NTSB report https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/accidentreports/reports/rab1107.pdf
source
Amazing content, I also study engineering close to Disneyland Paris but we only got to work on ticketing / turnstiles.
Great video!!!! I really enjoy your content
Don't know if they're still doing it right now, but WDW used to have a tour where you could go to the maintenance center and see the work it takes to maintain the steam trains as well as the monorails. Fascinating and a good way to see behind the scenes.
We're now approaching the Tomorrowland Monorail Station, our final destination.
We were waiting for the Monorail to arrive from the Grand Floridian. It seemed to be taking a long time.
We finally saw it but it was at almost a dead crawl. Barely moving.
We watched with curiosity as now, we are seeing the Monorail move then stop, move then stop.
slowly making it's way to the Magic Kingdom Station.
When the Monorail FINALLY made it half way to the MKS, we saw what the problem was.
In front of the Monorail, there was a Squirrel moving as fast as it could along the rail, with the Monorail
a safe distance behind it. from time to time the Squirrel would stop, take a look back, take a couple deep breaths
and start running for the MKS again.
The entire time was about 10 minutes and when the Squirrel finally made it to the station it jumped off the track and
high tailed it somewhere on the grass land with the Monorail coming in shortly afterwards.
NICE VIDEO!!!
What caused the crash?
Mark IV monorails also had 6 cars, with the exception of (old) gold, which only had 5; this was the status when they were retired. Gold was fun to drive because it moved faster. Cabs 1 & 6, or to the pilots, front and back cabs. Mark IV monorails doors could be opened by the car or the whole train with the push of buttons. The doors had to be manually closed.
I was a monorail pilot at WDW from 89-91, and again in the early/mid 90s.
Great video
In 2007 my family and I got to ride in the front car with the pilot and take part in the Monorail Co-Pilot experience. It was a really cool experience and I received the covited co-pilot licenses. Thanks for all the details in the video. I definitely learned a lot.
Just a quick note: You have a picture of the Mark V's in their roundhouse when talking about WDW's (at 5:43). The Mark V's were built on top of the Mark III chassis and made to look like WDW's trains. Oh, that wacky Eisner!