Monorail beam damage

[KingEric]

File this under reasons why I will NOT ride the monorail until there is a full scale refurbishment.

Overnight the monorail beams between the Grand Floridian Resort and the Magic Kingdom suffered some sort of damage that is causing monorail delays. Cast members are saying a beam joint was damaged by the extremely low temperatures. This is forcing the monorails to slow to a crawl as they cross that section of the route, reducing capacity and slowing service times. During peak periods of guest travel, this means increased waits at all stops on the Magic Kingdom Resort and Express lines. The Epcot line is running as normal.
Currently no timeline has been given for the repairs to be made and for service to return to normal.

Magic Kingdom Monorails at Reduced Capacity Due to Beam Damage - TouringPlans.com Blog | TouringPlans.com Blog

After witnessing countless monorail outages, reduced capacity, etc, I will not be riding the MK/Resort Line monorail anytime in near future.

[HMF]

TDO's maintenance budget cuts strike again.

[lazyboy97O]

This seems to be more related to the weather than anything that could actually be prevented by greater maintenance.

[JCSkipr79]

But....but... we're getting magical modern video games and screens in queues that are already themed!

[PSUMark]

Supposedly the reason for no monorail service during EMH is so that they can increase the maintenance on the beams... Does anyone know if that's actually happening?

[thedude76]

After some of the recent trip reports here, I figured Disney was getting their ducks in a row and cleaning up their parks. This is so sad.

[flynnibus]

Supposedly the reason for no monorail service during EMH is so that they can increase the maintenance on the beams... Does anyone know if that's actually happening?

According to insiders after the change was made - yes.

I think this story is simply the microscope on monorails... It's the equivalent of 24/7 news harping the littlest things as news.

This isn't lack of upkeep, it's not bad maintanence, it's not something dramatic. It's reduced speed over certain joints to prevent greater damage/wear on the trains due to weather instigated movement in the expansion joints.

[goofy donald]

According to insiders after the change was made - yes.

I think this story is simply the microscope on monorails... It's the equivalent of 24/7 news harping the littlest things as news.

This isn't lack of upkeep, it's not bad maintanence, it's not something dramatic. It's reduced speed over certain joints to prevent greater damage/wear on the trains due to weather instigated movement in the expansion joints.

totally agree here. this is not something that could have been controlled, these things just happen. making mountains out of molehills

[PeoplemoverMatt]

According to insiders after the change was made - yes.

I think this story is simply the microscope on monorails... It's the equivalent of 24/7 news harping the littlest things as news.

This isn't lack of upkeep, it's not bad maintanence, it's not something dramatic. It's reduced speed over certain joints to prevent greater damage/wear on the trains due to weather instigated movement in the expansion joints.

Thankfully this was a little problem, but what if it wasn't? Imagine if the cold temp's lead to a more severe problem that lead to the Resort, Express, or both lines being down for days or longer?

Little problem, or large problem, it's enough to call maintenance into question if temperatures alone can be a threat like this.

[flynnibus]

Thankfully this was a little problem, but what if it wasn't? Imagine if the cold temp's lead to a more severe problem that lead to the Resort, Express, or both lines being down for days or longer?

Little problem, or large problem, it's enough to call maintenance into question if temperatures alone can be a threat like this.

This is insane.

What are we basing the 'severity' of this situation over? ONE BLOG POST who reported the situation.. using terms like 'damage' which there has been no prove of to start with.

You make the assumption that this is something NEW and new risk. It's not. And it's a bellweather of something else. It's not.

It's like saying 'yeah, today its only a pothole in the highway, but it's enough to call maintenance into question if temperatures alone can be a threat like this' - a comment that ignores potholes are regular occurences that are addressed when they happen and simply because they happen, we don't say the entire system is at risk for some larger catastrophic event because a pothole appeared.

This is what people mean when people say 'You cant handle the truth'. People overreacting when they see the grity details of how things always are vs what they thought they were.

[lazyboy97O]

Thankfully this was a little problem, but what if it wasn't? Imagine if the cold temp's lead to a more severe problem that lead to the Resort, Express, or both lines being down for days or longer?

Little problem, or large problem, it's enough to call maintenance into question if temperatures alone can be a threat like this.

It's an issue of materiality, not maintenance. Disney cannot control the physical properties of concrete.

[PeoplemoverMatt]

This is insane.

What are we basing the 'severity' of this situation over? ONE BLOG POST who reported the situation.. using terms like 'damage' which there has been no prove of to start with.

You make the assumption that this is something NEW and new risk. It's not. And it's a bellweather of something else. It's not.

It's like saying 'yeah, today its only a pothole in the highway, but it's enough to call maintenance into question if temperatures alone can be a threat like this' - a comment that ignores potholes are regular occurences that are addressed when they happen and simply because they happen, we don't say the entire system is at risk for some larger catastrophic event because a pothole appeared.

This is what people mean when people say 'You cant handle the truth'. People overreacting when they see the grity details of how things always are vs what they thought they were.

Holy hyperbole Batman. I haven't assumed one darn thing, and I'll thank you to not paint me with this sort of a broad-brush in the future. You're making apples to oranges comparisons and being far too dismissive. What was the point of bringing up that this is based on a blog post? With that logic, we're all wasting our time here, including you.

First off, maintenance should ALWAYS be accountable to whatever takes place. Always. Little problems, or big problems, they're problems. Problems have causes. WDW's monorail system was last 'modernized' in 1991 - 21 years ago. The system is OLD. It's weak. You want to dismiss this as a 'pothole' in the road, but how many drivers would dismiss the pothole if they were required to slow to 15mph in order to safely make it over it? Thankfully this is a relatively little problem, but it should raise at least one eyebrow about the susceptibility of this old system on which so much of the guest experience depends upon. If that's insane, call the men in white coats and put me in the padded room.

It's an issue of materiality, not maintenance. Disney cannot control the physical properties of concrete.

No, but they can control the age of the concrete that's out there vulnerable to the elements. They're skating on thin ice with this monorail system they refuse to do what they should with, but rake in super-ultra premiums for offering.

[Disneytwins]

If you live in a snowy climate, you can see first hand what temperature can do to concrete. for example, Frost heaves.

I don't think this is a time to start bashing the crap out of TDO. I agree, I'm not a fan, but to start bashing them for a reason out of their control is kind of rude and uncalled for.

[flynnibus]

Holy hyperbole Batman. I haven't assumed one darn thing, and I'll thank you to not paint me with this sort of a broad-brush in the future. You're making apples to oranges comparisons and being far too dismissive. What was the point of bringing up that this is based on a blog post? With that logic, we're all wasting our time here, including you.

The only reference to 'damage' is in the title of the blog post... in which they do not state any damage, nor has anyone else. The only 'damage' involved in the whole story is Disney AVOIDING damage by altering normal driving conditions in the impacted area. This whole story is premised on a blog post that doesn't even know if this is normal expected behavior or not.

People are also acting like this is something NEW and jumping to the conclusion this is due to lack of maintenance. And making it even worse, you make the long jump to saying because this is here, imagine what else can happen.

First off, maintenance should ALWAYS be accountable to whatever takes place. Always. Little problems, or big problems, they're problems. Problems have causes

It's not always effective to build a system that can never fail in anyway. It's far more effective to build to a reasonable standard, which includes keeping failures from causing significant damage or harm riders.

Or keeping it within the monorail... tires fail... air hoses fail. It doesn't matter that you have normal inspections and preventative maintenance, it's still a possible outcome. But when these conditions occur, we all don't start going <drama>'OMG, if a tire can blow, just imagine what else could happen' </drama>

You want to dismiss this as a 'pothole' in the road, but how many drivers would dismiss the pothole if they were required to slow to 15mph in order to safely make it over it?

Maybe you aren't familiar with potholes... but that's exactly what you must do. Unless you don't care about blowouts or denting your rims.

Thankfully this is a relatively little problem, but it should raise at least one eyebrow about the susceptibility of this old system on which so much of the guest experience depends upon. If that's insane, call the men in white coats and put me in the padded room.

So you think anytime there is a condition that impacts service we should automatically start questioning if they know what they are doing? How do you feel comfortable riding anything in the parks.. you know they have 'relatively little problems' expected from the ride's design every week.. and we don't start 'raising eyebrows' everywhere.

[Disneytwins]

Holy hyperbole Batman. I haven't assumed one darn thing, and I'll thank you to not paint me with this sort of a broad-brush in the future. You're making apples to oranges comparisons and being far too dismissive. What was the point of bringing up that this is based on a blog post? With that logic, we're all wasting our time here, including you.

First off, maintenance should ALWAYS be accountable to whatever takes place. Always. Little problems, or big problems, they're problems. Problems have causes. WDW's monorail system was last 'modernized' in 1991 - 21 years ago. The system is OLD. It's weak. You want to dismiss this as a 'pothole' in the road, but how many drivers would dismiss the pothole if they were required to slow to 15mph in order to safely make it over it? Thankfully this is a relatively little problem, but it should raise at least one eyebrow about the susceptibility of this old system on which so much of the guest experience depends upon. If that's insane, call the men in white coats and put me in the padded room.



No, but they can control the age of the concrete that's out there vulnerable to the elements. They're skating on thin ice with this monorail system they refuse to do what they should with, but rake in super-ultra premiums for offering.

It doesn't mean that this system is 21 years old, doesn't mean it's weak. It's worked much much better than Disneyland's which has a more up-to-date system. It works fine, why should they change it? It's not maintenance's fault that the tropical weather decided not to show up. They built this system to work in a tropical climate. If that tropical climate goes away, problems happen because the equipment is not used to that dramatic change in temperature. Do you think it's wise that they all of a sudden say "Well, we know that we are going to have cold temps on this day, we need complete upgrade of everything immedately"