The Walt Disney World Monorail system, every year this custom-built transit sees 50 million riders.
Some of you have yet to travel aboard this highway in the sky, but anyone who’s heard about
the resort, knows that this amazing engineering wonder is a part of the experience. One can easily
imagine the excitement of watching that sleek Monorail train pulling up to the station and being
able to step inside for one of the greatest observation spots the resort has to offer.
It’s a fantastic achievement of modern transit ingenuity, but Walt Disney World was not the
first Disney property to have a monorail system. On June 14th, 1959 Walt Disney introduced the
Disneyland Monorail as part of his first major park expansion project. Originally,
the Disneyland monorail was engineered by Disney legend Bob Gurr and built as a ride-attraction
designed to entertain the visitors of Walt’s original magic kingdom in Anaheim, California.
The train rode atop a concrete beam-way that dipped, tilted, climbed, and weaved through the
landscape of Tomorrowland, on a non-stop journey back to Tomorrowland Station. It was the first
daily operating monorail system in the western hemisphere! The intention for the monorail was
not just for entertainment, but to showcase reliable and safe public transit for the future.
In 1961, the Disneyland Monorail was expanded so that the trains could leave the park and cross
over the parking lot, making a round-trip journey to the Disneyland Hotel and back to Tomorrowland.
This made it the first monorail to travel adjacent to a major vehicle thoroughfare
AND the first to cross over a major roadway. This expansion also introduced the Mark II monorails,
which were the next generation, featuring an extra passenger cabin. The Mark III monorails
were introduced in 1968, they featured 5 passenger cabins, and more powerful electric motors.
When Walt Disney was coming up with plans for his Florida Project back in 1965, he had intended
to build a larger monorail system to connect the resort airport, with an entrance complex,
an industrial park, then EPCOT, and finally the Theme Park Resort. Going by Monorail was
going to be the exciting and futuristic way to get around the property. However, after Walt
Disney’s death in 1966, the plans for the resort property had to be changed, and the EPCOT project,
along with several others, were shelved. Roy Disney wanted to re-focus the effort on getting
the theme park resort complex built, he felt that once that was completed, the new generation of
executives could decide what to construct next. The resort complex was originally going
to have a massive man-made lagoon surrounded by four resort hotels,
a transportation and ticket center, and of course, the Magic Kingdom theme park. A configuration like
this was perfect for interconnecting it with a monorail system for transporting guests.
The levels of traffic they were expecting would require two separate lines, one servicing each
station, and another providing express service from the transit center to the theme park.
Imagineer Bob Gurr was once again called upon to design the new monorails,
they needed to have a higher capacity than the Disneyland versions,
and since this system would be treated as a serious transportation service,
the design couldn’t feature the whimsical rocket ship design the previous versions had. So, Bob
drew inspiration from the popular Lear-jet, which was seen as stylish and modern, he incorporated
the look into a larger 5 car monorail with a total capacity of 200 seated passengers. An order for 10
Mark IV monorails were placed with Martin Marietta at a cost of $6 million dollars per monorail.
These new trains only had an interior height of 5’ 10” so it was seating room only, and each
cabin was separated into 4 isles, each isle had two rows of seats, cramming the guests in like
sardines in a can! The vehicles were 8’4” wide and stretched 171 feet long, and when fully loaded
with passengers, they weighed 122,600 pounds. To handle such dimensions and weight,
they would need larger, stronger track beams than the ones used in California. At 26 inches,
these beams were half a foot wider and were built with an arch design for strength, unlike the
Disneyland monorail beams which have a uniform size all the way across. The Walt Disney World
beams would have a minimum depth of 48 inches, which broadened out to 80 inches at the ends.
Measuring 100 feet long, they were double the length of the Disneyland beams.
They were fabricated in the state of Washington, using a high-strength concrete mixture that was
poured around a honeycomb cage of welded rebar. The rebar was then put under tension
to give the frame extra strength, each beam is hollow at the core in order to keep the weight
under 50 tons each. The beams were then sent by freight train to Tampa Florida and then trucked
by freeway to Walt Disney World, and lifted into place by crane. The minimum turn radius on the
Walt Disney World line would be 250 feet which was over twice that of the Disneyland Monorail.
Each concrete pylon support was designed with a low profile, and has a foundation base measuring
20 feet across and extends five feet underground. The track circles the seven-seas lagoon on a 3.5
mile double-loop, and has a track switch near the theme park that accesses the spur line to the
monorail storage facility. The Storage house was constructed into two identical buildings supplying
enough space for all 10 monorails plus an extra track for a cleaning and painting facility.
The bottom level of the left building houses the trains of the Walt Disney World Railroad,
while the bottom level of the building on the right holds a vehicle maintenance center.
By the time Walt Disney World was ready to open in October of 1971,
they only had 4 monorails ready for service, the other six hadn’t been delivered yet, though two
more would be delivered in November and December. In the early months of 1972, the resort was
becoming inundated with guests, and the ferry boat service to the Magic Kingdom was not yet built.
Lines backed up for hours in the Florida sun at the transportation center.
The Northern end of World Drive was closed so Parking Trams could pickup guests at the
transit center and take them straight to the park gates in order to help relieve some of the stress
from the Monorail System. The Mark IV trains had a primitive air-conditioning system, while it
was functional, it provided little relief from the heat and humidity. At the time, guests were pretty
forgiving of that flaw, because a ride aboard the monorail was like no other and offered panoramic
views of the astonishing resort property. By the end of the year, all ten monorails were in
service. The operation of the system flowed with relative ease; the monorails were equipped with
automated analogue block signals that prevented trains from approaching too close to one another.
With the growing popularity of Walt Disney World, and the daily service of the monorails,
the company decided it was wise to build two more monorails in case a few others
were undergoing maintenance on a busy day. In 1977 Monorails Coral and Lime were delivered,
and they featured a new detail, they had an extra cabin, making them both a six-car
train. After that, monorails that were sent away for refurbishment came back with a car
added to their length, increasing their capacity of 200 passengers to 244.
In the mid 1970’s Imagineering was pushing forward with the plans for EPCOT, Walt’s original plans
were to have a city of the future populated by people who live and work there. Unfortunately,
EPCOT could not be constructed the way he wanted, all his ideas, dreams and influence had died with
him. So the idea for completing Epcot would change to one about building a theme park
based on a futuristic land of tomorrow, and a showcase of the major nations of the world,
basically a World’s Fair. The company wanted guests to be able to travel by monorail from
both parks, the decision to expand the Walt Disney World monorail system included routing
the monorail track through the Future World section of the theme park, giving guests a
bird’s-eye-view of the adventures that await. In early 1982, the Epcot line was completed,
and a special preview service offered a monorail ride counterclockwise to Epcot station,
guests exited at the station and were educated about the park’s future offerings.
The preview ended with a spectacular run by of the park under construction before returning to
the transportation and ticket center. When the park eventually opened, the monorail service ran
clockwise, in order to give guests a view of Epcot before they disembarked at the station.
By the mid 1980’s the Walt Disney World monorail service was unable to keep up with the demands of
transporting guests, the monorails themselves were just too small and too inefficient.
The company decided to upgrade the system will all-new 6 car monorails.
Imagineer Bob Gurr, who at the time was helping design Disneyland’s Mark V trains,
was asked to continue work on a new Mark VI system for Walt Disney World.
The new monorails would need to be taller in order to include standing room on board,
but they were limited to the clearance of the Contemporary Resort’s hurricane doors.
After determining that they had an extra foot of space,
the design of the Mark VI monorails would have 6’10” of headroom inside the cabins.
The fabrication of the monorails was contracted out to the company Bombardier,
and though the Walt Disney World system was limited to a 600 volt motor capacity, the eight
new motors that would propel the monorails were slightly stronger, each capable of 113 horsepower.
In the year 1988, the new Grand Floridian Resort opened along the edges of the Seven Seas Lagoon,
and included a station stop for the monorails, this would be the most recent station added to
the Walt Disney World system, even to this day. In June of 1989 the first Monorails were being
delivered, and more would gradually arrive over the next two years, completing the delivery in
1991. The new trains were 203 feet long, and had a maximum speed of 55 miles per hour,
though their speed would be limited to 40 miles per hour on resort property. Each cabin was able
to seat 4 rows of 20 passengers, but had standing room for up to 40 more, meaning that the whole
train could accommodate 360 passengers, far more than the 244 passengers of the previous system.
Another important feature was that the Mark VI’s had entryways with dual automatic swinging doors,
which finally allowed access to passengers using wheelchairs.
Since all the doors could be closed at once with the push of a single button,
they needed a safety spiel warning guests to: “Please stand clear of the doors!
Por favor mantengase alejado de las puertas!” This now famous safety spiel was recorded in
1989 by Jack Wagner, a man who was considered the “voice of Disneyland” since the early 1970’s.
At one point, he narrated the Walt Disney World monorail journey, but his narration
has been replaced several times over the years, except for his safety spiel, it was recorded
separately from the narration and has been allowed to stay for over three decades so far.
While the first Mark VI monorail arrived in June of 1989, its service was delayed until
Christmas because they had trouble adapting the monorail's new digital navigation controls,
to the current system which was still using the analog design.
Meaning that for the next two years, the monorail system would simultaneously run
both an analog and digital system until the last Mark IV train was retired in 1991.
Two of the Mark IV’s were sold to the city of Las Vegas to be used as part of their new Monorail
service, but the other trains would sit on an empty lot in Florida, rotting away for years.
The Mark VI monorails were a major improvement to the system, they had better air conditioning,
more spacious cabins, large emergency exit hatches and windows, they were even equipped with
state-of-the-art fire detection systems designed to monitor the moving parts for overheating.
But despite the advanced technology, human error still played a major factor in a tragic event in
July of 2009. Monorails Pink and Purple were involved in a collision that resulted in the
death of a monorail pilot. An investigation into the collision was launched so that the company
could figure out how to prevent a similar incident in the future. The event was taken
so seriously, that monorail pilots had to be retrained. Over at Disneyland in California,
they had been used to operating 3 monorails on busy days for decades up until that point,
but the decision was made to permanently reduce operations to a maximum 2 trains.
At Walt Disney World, both colors Pink and Purple were permanently retired.
Monorail Teal was introduced later that year, followed by Monorail Peach in 2011,
both were made of salvaged portions of the previous trains.
The Mark VI monorails were designed with digital navigation from the start,
but they always required a monorail pilot to manually drive the vehicle. However, in 2014,
the monorails underwent gradual conversion to full automation. This means that now a computer drives
the monorails and keeps them running safely and efficiently, but there’s still a monorail pilot
there to supervise, ready to take control of the train in case of a malfunction or emergency.
Generally speaking, vehicles like modern cars, busses, and even Disney monorails are built to
last 20 years with regular maintenance, but once that age is surpassed, major investments
and refurbishments are going to be required to keep the vehicles running. This is why Disney
usually just replaces their monorails every 2 decades with all new ones, but this was not the
case with the Mark VI monorails. The newest ones went into service in 1991, and surpassed the 20
year mark in 2011. There was no indication from Disney that they had planned to replace
them with a new fleet of Mark VIII monorails. Instead, the old trains just kept putting along.
Just like with the Disneyland Monorail System, the one at Walt Disney World has always had tow
tractors that help crews perform maintenance work and safety checks. Originally the Walt
Disney World monorail system owned 2 of them but have since retired the originals and
replaced them with a fleet of four tractors, each powered by a 12 cylinder diesel engine.
The tractors are able to hook up to a monorail and tow them even in the event of a power failure!
With maintenance issues mounting, and the monorails really starting to show their age,
an incident happened in January of 2018 that raised awareness of the aging trains.
While Monorail Red was passing over Epcot, one of the automatic doors opened. Guests reported
the malfunctioning door when the train arrived at Epcot station. The whole event was recorded
and posted on social media and raised so much attention that by April of that year,
Disney had made negotiations with Bombardier to have their monorails sent back one by one for a
complete strip-down and rebuild. The plans were accelerated when in November of 2018, that SAME
YEAR, a door detached from Monorail Green and fell between the tracks at the Grand Floridian station.
Starting in 2019, the Monorails were being sent away to Bombardier, and one by one,
each of them were refreshed and rebuilt, and sporting fresh coats of paint.
Many Disney fans have anticipated the overdue announcement of a Mark VIII Monorail to replace
the current fleet, but what mainly stands in the way is money. Since they already have a
deal with Bombardier to refurbish their current fleet, it’s highly unlikely the Mark VIII will be
coming anytime soon. We might not see them until the Mark VI’s reach 35 years of age in 2026,
or perhaps in 2031 when they are 40 years old. You might be wondering, if Walt Disney World has
12 monorails, but only space at the shop for 10 of them, where are the other two monorails
stored? Well, two monorails are stored at the Transportation and Ticket center overnight on
a rotating schedule so the trains aren’t kept out in the elements any longer than they have to be.
If a hurricane is to hit the resort, they will leave one monorail stored on each line,
one for the express line, one for the resort line, and one for the Epcot line.
The Epcot Monorail is stored at the Epcot station during the hurricane,
and the other two monorails are stored inside the Contemporary Resort. They also leave out three of
the four monorail tractors, one stored on each line at the transportation and ticket center.
This is so that if any of the track switches should be rendered unusable after the hurricane,
there is at least one monorail per line to safely transport guests.
The Walt Disney World monorail system is a marvel of engineering, though its nearly 14 miles of
beam-way isn’t close to the largest system in the world, it is one of the earliest examples
we have of a fully functioning system that still transports millions of people a year in comfort,
efficiency, and safety. This monorail system is a classic experience, a must-see for both new and
returning visitors. It brings with it, a sense of magic and excitement as it glides overhead,
leaning into turns and speeding across vast stretches of open land.
Fans young and old can rest assured that the Walt Disney World Monorail System
will continue transporting guests on Disney’s highway in the sky…for many decades to come!