DISNEY Railroads

There was a great article in Railfan & Railroad a couple months back about the Disney Railroads. August 2008 issue is what you're looking for.

http://railfan.com/

-otto-

I just returned from a trip to Walt Disney wrold Rode on the Roy O Disney wich is the locomotive we used on my tour this past April. During my tour It was returning to service after a refitting with new boller valves and other work. It is something how much work these trains get down there. After my ride around the park that night it dawned on me that I rode five different trains in two days. Starting with Metro North, NYC Subway , Amtrak, Disney's Monorail, and the Roy O Disney

I did that tour summer 06. one of my Dad's old friends from the NYPD spends three weeks a month driving the railroad. We found him one day and he invited us on the tour. It's the only backstage tour that allows cameras, reason being the Lynx bus passes the roundhouse.

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http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m301 ... GA0494.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m301 ... GA0487.jpg

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GSC wrote:I've never been to Anaheim.

I was in Anaheim last November and will be back in late April. There isn't a "behind-the-scenes" tour but if you ask very nicely you can get a tender ride (if you stick your neck far enough it becomes a cab ride) or ride in the caboose. My four-year-old son and I did a cab ride (his first, my second) on the #2 E.P. Ripley.

The Lilly Belle V.I.P. car has finally been refurbished and makes occassional trips; we also managed to get a ride onboard the car. Very elegant inside; the Conductor of the car gave a very insightful talk of the history of the railroad.

The trains had been converted to run on biodiesel but apparently there were some problems. They are trying again to do so, likely under prodding from the State. Nevertheless it's the closest that many children will get to a real live steam locomotive.

What is the Pacific Electric car at MGM in Disney World?

atsf sp wrote:What is the Pacific Electric car at MGM in Disney World?

I'm not shure where that would be I was just there in November and didn't see it. I'm going again soon and will try to find it.

In the backlot tour. I think its there.

there are a number of rail themed items many overlook. the corner of sunset and Holywood in Hollywood Studios has two P&E reffences.

behind the atraction wait time.showtime board is a system map

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m301 ... G_3268.jpg

across the street is a copy of Ivy Substation in Culver City

Also as part of a massive overhaul of California Adventure, a red car system will be installed between the park gate and the Tower of Terror. this should open in 2011.


I found this site about a year ago, makes for an interesting read http://www.yesterland.com/

while going through some video's on my old desktop, I found this audio track from the Monorail from the summer of opening of the "Stich's Great Escape" attraction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7ckgER9qmA

take a good listen, it's quite funny when the little blue guy hurts himself at 1:10.

There was a rear end colision on the Disney World monorail last night that killed the operator.

I heard that story about 4 am this morning my best friend and his wife & kids are visiting the park this weekend, He's knows Im a rail fan and called me and woke me up when he found out.

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/ ... 3&src=news
video clip by AP

Description of the system, collision and some speculation:

http://micechat.com/forums/news/119188- ... world.html


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.

[....]



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.


There's video at: http://www.clickorlando.com/video/19956043/index.html

(Note the security guard upset about people with cameras....)

I don't recall an actual Pacific Electric "red car" at Disney Studios in Florida but there had been a mockup of one there, made from a bus, visible on the Back Lot Tour.

Not sure whether it has been finally fixed but there is a fake trolley wire setup going down the roadway towards Tower of Terror. They had it hung right originally but changed it so the contact wire incorrectly passed above the short span wires in the bracket arm assemblies.

(Disney did not renew the rights to use the MGM name, references to the latter have since been removed from the that theme park.)

Oh goodie, I'm going down there next week ... maybe I ought to stay off the trains

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0OzvEkn_cM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhcB8In5GBA