At the Disneyland main gates, you stand beneath a concrete beam suspended by
futuristic-looking pylons of an angular shape. In the midst of the pleasant background music,
breaks the high-pitched whirr of electric motors, followed by the resonating blast of a horn.
You look up just in time to see a 5-car monorail with a bullet-shaped nose cone and fins that grasp
the sides of the beam way. And like some kind of snake, weaving its way around the bend, it rushes
past you and disappears as quickly as it came. You just bore witness to the sight of the Mark VII Monorail,
the latest generation of Disneyland Monorail, which became the first daily operating
monorail system on this side of the globe. And now so many questions run through your head,
is it safe? How does it work? How long has it been here? Who’s idea was it?
To answer your questions, we must turn back the clock, to the year 1956
when Walt Disney was thinking of a new attraction for Tomorrowland. Walt Disney was a big fan of
transit systems. Disneyland opened with Streetcars on Main Street, a Paddle wheeler on the River,
a rocket to the moon, a futuristic freeway, and even the park itself was surrounded by a Railroad!
Early concept art for Tomorrowland showed various types of monorails, but due to budget
cuts and monorail technology that wasn’t up to Walt’s standards, it became a neglected project.
But soon after opening, Walt wanted to fix the problematic Tomorrowland,
it was underwhelming and not futuristic enough for him. So once again, he turned
his attention to transit, trying to think ahead about how people would get around in the future.
The team in charge of developing the attraction decided on a futuristic-looking high-speed train,
and Imagineer Bob Gurr was tasked with designing it. He drew inspiration from
the 1955 Aerotrain built by General Motors. What he came up with was a roughly 1/4 scale
version of the Aerotrain, and it ran on 30-inch narrow-gauge tracks. The train
consisted of a 5,000 pound locomotive pulling 5 articulated open-air passenger coaches.
The locomotive was powered by an Oldsmobile “Rocket” V8 engine. The locomotive’s cab
had its windshield, side doors and console controls taken from a 1954 Oldsmobile 88 coupe.
And a single train had a capacity of 32 occupants.
The new attraction was dubbed “The Viewliner” and it wasn’t just a Tomorrowland attraction,
actually it transported guests to and from Fantasyland. There were two trains,
the Tomorrowland Viewliner train was a red train with its cars named after planets,
while the Fantasyland Viewliner train was blue and had its cars named after Disney characters.
The Viewliner opened June 10th 1957 and was touted as “the fastest miniature train in the world!”
which was probably true, seeing as the trains reached a top speed of 30 miles per hour. What’s
amazing about the Viewliner was that in a way, it actually was futuristic. Some of the curves in the
track were banked, and the center of gravity on the train was low to the ground, allowing
the train to safely navigate curves at speed. The cars on the train were permanently coupled
together with a single bogie between them, reducing rolling friction,
which on a larger scale would significantly increase efficiency on a high-speed train.
What’s more, the trains were equipped with a speedometer that was calibrated to the scale of
the train, this meant that when the Viewliner reached 30mph, the speedometer registered the
speed as 120. And as a safety feature, the route was divided into blocks just like a real railroad.
If the Viewliner passed a red block signal, the train would automatically apply the brakes.
The Viewliner weaved around the Autopias and glided over the canals of the Motor Boat Cruise,
creating a layering effect that really pleased Walt.
He enjoyed watching the Viewliner speeding just a few feet from the Disneyland Railroad,
admiring the contrast between the Railroad of the past, and the railroad of the future.
The Tomorrowland Viewliner station looked similar to the Tomorrowland Depot of the
Disneyland Railroad, except the Viewliner station had a lower roof height and was slightly shorter.
The two stations existed at the same time for about 5 months during the year 1958,
but when September came around, the Viewliner passed into Disneyland history forever.
And the reason for this departure is where the Disneyland Monorail comes into the story.
In early 1958, Walt Disney and his wife Lillian were driving down a road in Cologne, Germany.
They passed by a concrete beam suspended in the air, and gliding gracefully over it
was a monorail. Walt stopped the car and peered out the window as it sped away. He drove onto
the test facility and managed to convince the engineers to let him and his wife ride aboard.
Lillian Disney was usually skittish about climbing aboard a monorail,
because up until then, monorails were traditionally suspended from a rail,
which meant they usually swayed and rattled as they traveled down the track.
However Lilly could see that the design that ALWEG created was very sturdy,
bumps were dampened well by the rubber tires and suspension system, and lasty, the monorail
was relatively quiet. With his wife won over, Walt then sent Admiral Joe Fowler and Roger Broggie to
Germany to speak with the ALWEG company to see if their monorail system could be used at Disneyland.
Ultimately the answer was a definite “yes”. The plan was for Bob Gurr to design the look
of the Disneyland monorails, and ALWEG would manufacture the vehicles and the beam way.
Walt wanted the monorail ready in time for the unveiling of his Tomorrowland expansion in 1959,
but ALWEG insisted that wouldn’t be feasible because they would have to ship the two
monorails and their beams by ocean freight, and would it would have to pass through the Panama Canal.
When company officials came to see the future location of their monorail at Disneyland,
they saw the Viewliner in operation. They asked about the little train and
Walt explained that it was constructed entirely at his studio in Burbank. The officials of ALWEG
then explained that if Imagineers could build the Viewliner, then they could
easily construct the Monorail system themselves. Bob Gurr’s monorail designs were a cross between
the Viewliner design and the rocket of fictional character Buck Rogers. The Imagineers working
on the monorail’s route through Tomorrowland really wanted to thrill guests by having the
monorail dip, tilt, climb and weave through the landscape. When consultants from ALWEG saw the
first renderings of the track layout, they didn’t like it, they wanted the track to be as level as
possible with as many straightaways as possible so that passengers onboard could admire its speed.
Walt himself was in favor of the twisting and winding route, explaining to the consultants
that with the limited space available and nothing but straight and level track, the
trip on the monorail would be too short for his guests, especially if it were traveling at high
speeds. He did however instruct the designer to include a few more straight sections in the track,
the compromise they came up with, is what we see above Autopia to this very day.
When the ALWEG consultants reviewed Bob Gurr’s vehicle design they didn’t like it either,
they felt that the appearance leaned too closely to science-fiction
and they wanted the monorails to be dignified so people would take the system seriously.
Well…Walt managed to convince the company officials that the design was fine the way it was.
The Disneyland ALWEG Monorail System opened alongside the Matterhorn Bobsleds,
and the Submarine Voyage Thru Liquid Space, on June 14th 1959, complete with its tight curves,
and winding beam way…and it dazzled people with its futuristic tailfin design and cockpit bubble.
Bob Gurr recalled that the monorails were installed on the tracks less than
a week before the grand opening of the park expansion. They had nothing but problems,
the electric motors constantly overheated, stranding the monorail above Tomorrowland.
Once in a while the motors would overheat so badly they actually caught fire, it became so frequent
that during testing, he and other Imagineers had to have fire extinguishers ready and in hand.
Bob Gurr admitted that it wasn’t until the night before the grand opening of the ride,
that he was finally able to take the monorail for a full round trip without it catching fire.
And on the next day, Vice President Richard Nixon and his family stood with Walt Disney to cut the
ribbon for the ride. Bob drove the Monorail up to the station for the ribbon cutting,
and Walt invited Nixon and his family into the cockpit for a photo opportunity.
Once everyone was seated, Walt surprised Bob when he said “Alright Gurr, let's go!"
So Bob pushed the throttle and the monorail started gliding out of the station,
sweat was beading up on his forehead as he hoped that the monorail wouldn’t catch fire
with Walt Disney and the Vice President on-board. Luckily the monorail made it back without a hitch,
but as Bob brought the monorail around the Matterhorn, he saw Secret Service agents below
running to catch up with the train, Bob realized he had effectively kidnapped the Vice President.
There were only two Mark I monorails, and they were identified by color, one red and one blue.
Each monorail had 3 open-air cars, and they ran on a total beam length of nearly a mile.
Back then the monorail was simply a ride, it only traveled over Tomorrowland before returning to the station.
They were propelled by six 300 volt DC motors connected by two conductors sliding against
the bus bar on the beam. The driving motors each provided 50 horsepower as the monorail climbed
grades up to 7 percent, and navigated banked turns that were super-elevated up to 8 ½ degrees
which is only half the amount of banking that the monorail is capable of.
The maximum speed of these monorails was designated at 20 mph, but their motors were capable of 45 mph.
The entire monorail track was split into 104 pre-cast beams
supported by 104 pre-cast concrete pylon supports. Each beam had a maximum span
of 40 feet, and the tightest curve on the whole route was a 120-foot radius.
And I wouldn’t worry about the strength of the beams, a special mixture of super-strength
concrete was tested on a full-scale beam and recorded a minimum compressive strength of 5,000 psi.
They even tested a 35-foot curved beam with static weight, representing the maximum load it would ever see in
operation, it took 3 ½ times the maximum weight before the beam even showed signs of stress.
The amount of redundancy that was applied to the strength and safety of the monorail beam-way
is the reason why they have never needed to replace a single beam span
since 1959. And there is no need fear the monorail falling off the beam itself,
because it straddles the sides of the beam, clamping down onto it like a vice.
Each car was supported and propelled by two bogies, one in the front and one in the back.
On each bogie were two truck tires that supported the weight of the monorail and provided propulsion
thanks to a traction motor on the axle. These tires were steered around curves with a system
of guide wheels which had smaller tires. There were eight guide wheels steering each bogie,
keeping the drive tires pointed in the right direction, and gripping the monorail beam.
Walt Disney owned the Monorail system through his private company, Retlaw Enterprises,
but the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad was under contract to sponsor any rail-based
attractions at Disneyland. This created a problem because Walt had an agreement that the monorail
system’s name would include the ALWEG name, and Santa Fe didn’t like that. To win them over,
Walt promised that he would put the Santa Fe Railroad logo on every car
of the monorails. And so it was that the park attraction was owned by Walt Disney,
sponsored by the Santa Fe Railroad, and named the Disneyland ALWEG Monorail System.
The Disneyland Monorail quickly became a park favorite and a curiosity
for the Southern Californian locals, no one had seen anything like it outside of Europe,
and that’s part of what made Disneyland so unique. Walt had an innate sense for what people wanted,
even before they knew it themselves. The monorails went on to delight visitors young
and old for over 6 decades...but that’s not where the story ends. Next time, on Part 2,
Walt Disney expands his monorail system, pushing the technology further and increasing excitement.
The Disneyland Monorails would become the blueprint for the future of urban transit to come.